Dumpty (b. circa 1818 - d. ?)
MSA SC 5496-9008
Fled from slavery, Prince George's County, Maryland, 1841
Biography:
On May 15, 1841, three slaves absconded from Notley Maddox. These three slaves were the siblings Dumpty, John and Louisa. Dumpty, about twenty-years old, was a little bit shorter than his brother John. John, age twenty-seven, stole a large amount of cash from Maddox, as well as a variety of clothing, and a new trunk. John worked as Maddox's vegetable market man, was skilled as a carpenter and joiner, and was considered to be a great mechanical man. In addition, John was hired at the Potomac Fisheries for years, and it is probable that he could read and write. Maddox thought the 5'10" John could be recognized by a scar on one of his buttocks. John also carried a scar on his leg from a cat, and another under his left eye. The sister, Louisa, age thirty at the time, was described as "handsome, with strong intellect."1 She stole good clothes and cash from Maddox when she escaped, Louisa had a free husband, named Jim Butler, who may have inspired to run. Maddox, in a runaway advertisement on the 19th of May, 1841, implied that his slaves all had acquired free papers with good imitations of official seals, and were in all probability using aliases.
Notley Maddox lived in Prince George's County, close enough to Washington, D.C. that he asked people to contact him at the Washington, D.C. post office, and for anyone capturing the slaves to lodge them in the jail in Washington, D.C. The reward he put up for the return of all his slaves reached over one thousand dollars in an October, 1842 newspaper ad in the Daily National Intelligencer. In 1840, Maddox owned fourteen slaves, and had a total of twenty-two people enumerated in his household.
1. "Ran Away From the Subscriber," Daily National Intelligencer, 2 September 1842.
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