Archives of Maryland
(Biographical Series)

Margaret Morgan
MSA SC 5496-8784
Fled from slavery, Harford County, 1832

Biography:

    Margaret Morgan was born into slavery in Harford County some time around 1800. Her parents were owned by John Ashmore, whose property lied in the Dublin District of the county. Though no official manumission had been granted to the enslaved family, they were effectively freed from service before Margaret's birth. She may still have been one of the two female recorded as slaves under Ashmore's household in the 1820 Census.1 In the following decade she met and married a local free black man, Jerry Morgan. They remained in Dublin, raising a family free from any condition that might resemble slavery.2 Neither she nor her parents were included in the 1824 inventory of John Ashmore's property.3

    In 1832, Margaret and Jerry decided to move the family into the adjacent "free state," Pennsylvania. This was not considered controversial at the time, as the Morgans had long been living independently of John Ashmore and his heirs.4 There was no runaway advertisement declaring that Margaret and her children had escaped from service. However, their decision to move just north to York County eventually led to a series of events, which had significant repercussions for the nation's fugitive slaves and their owners. While they did not consider themselves as fugitives, the Morgans may have migrated due to the less tolerant climate that prevailed after Nat Turner's 1831 revolt in Virginia. This bloody rebellion of enslaved and free blacks caused already suspicious Maryland whites to crack down even more on the rights of those African Americans in their midst.

    Margaret and Jerry may simply have been pursuing a better life for their children, who would not have to be exposed to slavery in Pennsylvania, where the institution was nearly extinct. The couple had at least one more child in the 1830's, born after the move.5 It was not until 1837 that Margaret Ashmore, the former owner's widow or daughter, decided to pursue the black family across state lines. She hired her in-law Nathan Bemis and fellow Dublin resident Edward Prigg to find the alleged fugitives. Two more men, Jacob Forwood and Stephen Lewis, joined them in the hunt. As stipulated by an 1826 state law, the men were required to "apply to any judge, justice of the peace or alderman" who would issue a warrant for the "person held to labor or servitude."6 They were indeed granted the permission local justice of the peace Thomas Henderson, who referred the group to York County constable William McCleary.

    Prigg and company found the Morgan family, apparently capturing the everyone in the household as they slept. This included the free-born Jerry and at least one child who had been born in Pennsylvania. They were quickly loaded into "an open wagon in a cold sleety rain, with scarcely their ordinary clothes on."7 When they returned to Henderson's house, he "refused to take further cognizance of the case," perhaps questioning the legality of the capture. Thomas Hambly, the York County lawyer who would prosecute Prigg, published his argument and version of events in 1842. Hambly would claim that Henderson realized that he did not have jurisdiction to approve the capture according to the 1826 state law. The slave catchers ended up releasing Jerry Morgan, perhaps with the assurance that he could plead the family's case for freedom the next day. However, Prigg and Bemis did not give him that opportunity, instead crossing back into Maryland once the husband departed.8  

    Hambly further contended that the mother and children were then taken before Judge Stevenson Archer of Harford County, who sanctioned the sale. However, they were immediately pursued and the Pennsylvania governor was alerted to the matter. Thomas Culbreth's correspondence with Maryland governor Thomas W. Veazey confirms that detail. In a letter dated June 28, 1837, Culbreth claimed to have met with Margaret at the jail in Bel Air, "where she was not confined but had liberty to see her children."9 Hambly may also have attempted to bring the Morgans back to Pennsylvania through the legal channels, but this effort was apparently unsuccessful. The lawyer also recounted the sad fate of Jerry Morgan, who was distraught at losing his family. Afraid to enter Maryland, Jerry instead went to Harrisburg to lobby the Pennsylvania governor for support. On his way home from the capital, he was on board a boat headed for Columbia. When a white man's jacket was at some point lost, the crew and passengers immediately blamed Jerry who "was on board the boat and only a negro." He jumped overboard to escape the violent threats, but was taken underneath and drowned.10

    Edward Prigg and his associates were subsequently indicted by Pennsylvania grand jury for violating the state's 1826, "Personal Liberty Law." The states then engaged in a political standoff, with Maryland leadership being initially reluctant to hand over the defendants. York County prosecuted the group in 1839, finding all four men guilty of kidnapping under the state law. However, they appealed all the way to the United States Supreme Court, which decided in their favor in 1842's Prigg v. Pennsylvania.11 Bemis, Prigg, Forwood, and Lewis would not be severely punished for their immoral actions toward the Morgan family. The court's decision, essentially nullifying local stipulations on the slave retrieval process, would also make it more difficult to prevent similar incursions by slaveholders. Margaret Morgan's move north was therefore indirectly responsible for the federal Fugitive Slave Law that was enacted in 1850.

    There is very little evidence of what became of her after the kidnapping and confinement in the Harford County Jail. In October of 1837, Thomas Culbreth learned that the Morgans freedom petition was denied by the county court, and "in favor of Mrs. Ashmore's claim to them as her slaves."12 However, Margaret Ashmore scarcely appears in the local records in the ensuing years, nor is she recorded as a Harford County resident by the Federal Census. She may have sold the newly enslaved blacks as originally intended, though there is no official record of the transaction. The fate of Margaret Morgan and her children is therefore unknown.
Footnotes -

1. Ancestry.com. 1820 United States Federal Census. Harford County, Maryland, District 5, p. 7.

2. Ancestry.com. 1830 United States Federal Census. Harford County, Maryland, Dublin District, p. 29.

3. HARFORD COUNTY REGISTER OF WILLS (Estate Papers), John Ashmore, 1824. 

4. Paul Finkelman. "Sorting out Prigg v. Pennsylvania." Rutgers Law Journal, 24-3 (1993), pp. 605 ff.

5. Argument of Mr. Hambly, of York, PA, in the case of Edward Prigg, Plaintiff in Error vs. The Commonwealth of Pennsylvania, Defendant in Error: In the Supreme Court of the United States. Lucas & Deaver: Baltimore (1842).

6. U.S. Supreme Court, Prigg v. Pennsylvania, 41 U.S. 16 Pet. 539 539 (1842).

7. Hambly, 8.

8. Ibid, 8-9.

9. Governor (Letterbook). 1838-1896. Letters to Governor Veazey from Ths. Culbreth, pp. 560-1.

10. Hambly, 10.

11. U.S. Supreme Court, Prigg v. Pennsylvania, 41 U.S. 16 Pet. 539 539 (1842).

12. Governor (Letterbook), p. 568.

Researched and Written by David Armenti, 2012. 

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