Adam Brooks (b. ? - d. ?)
MSA SC 5496-008325
Fled from Slavery, near Poolesville, Montgomery County, Maryland,
1854
Biography:
Adam Brooks escaped from John L. Phillips' farm in Montgomery County, Maryland.1 Although the exact date of his escape is unknown, Brooks reached the Vigilance Committee of Philadelphia on January 20, 1855.2 William Still, a leading African American abolitionist and businessman, had co-founded the Committee around 1852 for the assistance of runaway slaves.
In his 1872 book The Underground Railroad, Still documented Brooks' two main reasons for fleeing. First, Brooks considered it his "duty to break his fetters and seek his freedom in Canada." Second, John L. Phillips had already sold his "mother, brother, and sister only two years before his escape."3 Phillips constantly threatened to sell Brooks as well, which "forced him to the conclusion, that his master was not only a hard man, as a driver on the farm, but ... at heart ... actually a bad man."4 Brooks had also suffered constant "hard use."5 Interestingly, Phillips' farm stood near Martinsburg in an area that Brooks called "Hardtown,"6 which did not appear on Simon Martenet's 1865 map of Montgomery County.7 Perhaps Martenet considered it too small to include on the map, or "Hardtown" may have been Brooks' own nickname for the place of his enslavement.
Before reaching the Committee, Brooks worked for a short time as a hand on a Pennsylvania farm. However, he soon learned from friends that Phillips had discovered his location, and "was pretty hot in pursuit." Brooks escaped with the help of his friends, safely reaching the Committee in January. He then set out for Canada. William Still described Brooks as short, strong, and pleasant, and believed that Brooks would have no difficulty "making a good citizen in Canada."8 He left the Vigilance Committee with a new identity, William Smith.9
The 1861 Census of Canada recorded a large number of men named William
Smith. Eight were African Americans who had emigrated from the
United States and were old enough to have been considered adults in 1855. However,
one had emigrated from New York, bringing the number of possible matches down to seven. These
seven ranged in age from twenty-four to sixty-nine.10
Unfortunately,
William Still did not state Adam Brooks' age, and no records have been
found showing the ages of Phillips' slaves. However, Still refers to
Smith as strong, which supports the statistic that younger men were
more likely to undertake the hazards and arduous physical requirements
of fleeing slavery.
1. Montgomery County District 3, Simon J. Martenet, Martenet and Bond's Map of Montgomery County, 1865, Library of Congress, [MSA SC 1213-1-464].
2. Still 312.
Still. Journal
C of Station No. 2, William Still, 1852-1857, Vigilance Committee of Philadelphia.
(Pennsylvania Abolitionist Society Papers, Historical Society of Pennsylvania,
Philadelphia, PA) 155.
3. Still. The Underground Rail Road. 312.
4. Ibid.
5. Still. Journal C of Station No. 2. 155.
6. William Still. The
Underground Rail Road (Philadelphia, PA: Porter & Coales, 1872)
312.
John D. Bowman.
Guide
to Selections from the Montgomery County Sentinel, Maryland: January 1,
1897 to December 31, 1901 (Westminster, MD: Heritage Books, Inc., 2007)
166.
7. Montgomery County District 3, Simon J. Martenet, Martenet and Bond's Map of Montgomery County, 1865, Library of Congress, [MSA SC 1213-1-464].
8. Still. The Underground Rail Road. 313.
9. Still. Journal C of Station No. 2. 155.
10. 1861 Census of Canada, Canada West.
Libaray and Archives Canada, Ottawa. Ancestry.com Operations Inc, 2009.
www.ancestry.com.
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