John H. Bayne (b. 1804 - d. 1870)
MSA SC 5496-10538
Slaveholder, Prince George's County, Maryland
Biography:
Dr. John Henry Bayne was born February 15, 1804 in Maryland to Ebsworth and Mary McDaniel Bayne. He was a physician, horticulturist and surgeon and served as a state senator during the Civil War (1861 – 1865). John Henry Bayne attended the University of Maryland School of Medicine and received his degree in 1826.1 John Bayne was the owner of Salubria Plantation in the Spaldings District, Prince George's County, Maryland. Salubria, originally a part of the Oxon Hill tract, was purchased by Johns father Ebsworth Bayne and his uncle John Bayne from Walter D. Addison in 1811.2 Ebsworth gave his portion of the land to his son John Henry who built a home on the property in 1827.
Bayne married to Mary Frances McDaniel in 1827 and together they had four children, George, John, and two daughters both named Mary Catherine. Dr. Bayne's wife Mary died in 1840 leaving him a widow. Mary Bayne was burried at the Apple Grove Cemetery with all of her children.3 Bayne later married Harriett Addsion of Prince George's County in 1841.4 John and Harriett Bayne had the following children: Josephine, Clara, and John Woart Bayne. John Bayne served as the physician to many people in Prince George's County including John and Mary Surratt.5 He was elected to the House of Delegates in 1841, representing Prince George's County. In 1842 John Bayne took an oath before Jno. T. Hoxton to become a Justice of the Peace.6
As a respected Horticulturist, John Bayne was a featured writer in newspapers regarding the cultivation a variety of fruits, most notably strawberries and tomatoes. He had numerous fruit tree's on his farm including peaches, pears, and strawberries.R. G. Pardee gave an account on his visit to Dr. Bayne's farm to the New York State Agricultural Society. "The Doctor has over 15, 000 fruit tree's , of which 8,000 are peach trees, and the crop very great."7
John Bayne owned a number of slaves and witnessed resistance on his plantation through destruction of property, harm to his family, and slaves running away. Bayne's earliest purchase of slaves was in 1826 through a transaction with McKinny Talbert of Prince George's County. Talbert who was Dr. Bayne's uncle sold four slaves to him for ten dollars: Nell, Dennis, Levina, and Tom.8 Four years later he purchased members of the Hawkins family who were formally the slaves of Francis Kesley, deceased. The slaves were Celia and Magdalena Hawkins, Isaac, Charlott, and Lara.9 Bayne later purchases five more slaves from Edward Tolson. The slaves are Lewis, Eliza, and Eliza's children Phil, John, and Mary Ann. Bayne sold Eliza, Phil and Mary back to Edward Tolson.10 Some of Bayne's slaves were unhappy with their life enslaved and resisted the institution in various ways. On November 6, 1834 a fourteen-year-old slave named Judith, poisoned Bayne's two sons, George and John, who died days later.11 According to newspapers of the time, Judith was interrogated and confessed to the crime. She further admitted attempting to burn the dwelling house at Salubria and killing Bayne's infant daughter Mary Catherine two years prior.12 Although Judith was only 14 at the time, she was tried and hanged.
As other slave holders also lived in his neighborhood—in particular, Thomas E. Berry at Oxon Hill Plantation—cross-plantation communities among the slaves developed. These connections were important in flight attempts, for blacks from neighboring plantations often ran together. When Bayne's slave Sam Tyler fled Salubria in December 1840, his owner suspected that he had run off with one of Berry's Oxon Hill slaves, a man named Jacob Shaw.13 Dr. Bayne was an influential slaveholder in Prince George's County during the nineteenth century. The most consistent role Bayne played was to advocate for all Maryland slaveholders who witnessed their property literally walk away. Bayne frequently consulted the White House and Maryland's Governor to deal with the problem. In the end, however, neither Senator Bayne, nor his fellow slaveholders could stop self-emancipation efforts of enslaved Marylanders.
"John Bayne rarely manumitted any of his slaves, but he released members of the Hatton family from his servitude."14 Henry Hatton a free mulatto from Prince George's County purchased his son George from Dr. Bayne in 1847.15 The Hatton family were initially owned by Bayne's father Ebsworth Bayne. Two other Hatton children, Henry and Martha, were previously purchased from Ebsworth Bayne in 1841.16 Henry Hatton and his family resided in the Spalding District of Prince George's County.17 He later manumitted his children in Washington, DC when slaves in the city were emancipated in 1862.18
Dr. Bayne served as surgeon and brevet colonel of volunteers in the Union army during the Civil War. Bayne served as a surgeon at Fort Washington replacing Samuel Storrer. In 1862, John Bayne wrote letters to Governor Augustus W. Bradford in regards to his concerns about the disappearance of slaves from Maryland farmers and the hardship it caused.19 By 1864, John Bayne foresaw the inevitable end of slavery and wrote a declension speaking out against slavery in favor of a unified nation. Partially in recognition of this, Maryland lawmakers finally abolished slavery in the state with the Constitution of 1864. Bayne continued to serve at Fort Washington until he became ill in 1866. John Bayne died on August 18, 1870 and is buried at the St. Barnabas Episcopal Church Cemetery in Temple Hills, MD.20
2. PRINCE GEORGE'S COUNTY COURT (Land Records) JRM 14, 1810-181, folio 504.
3. Jean A. Sergeant. Stones and Bones: Cemetery Records of Prince George's County Maryland (Bowie, Prince George's County Genealogical Society, Inc., 1984), 556.
4. Effie Gwynn Bowie. Across the Years in Prince George's County (Richmond, Garrett and Massie, Inc., 1947), 42.
5. Elizabeth Steger Trindal. Mary Surratt an American Tragedy (Louisiana, Pelican Publishing Company, Inc., 1996), 22.
6. PRINCE GEORGE'S COUNTY COURT (Land Records) JBB 2, 1841-1843, folio 152.
7. The New York State Agricultural Society. "Fruit Culture at Washington", The Cultivator, 311.
8. PRINCE GEORGE'S COUNTY COURT (Chattel Papers) MSA C1174, 1801-1806, 40,233-134/153, C 1174-5.
9. PRINCE GEORGES COUNTY (Inventories), 1831 - 34, 1-25-9-15, p. 165-166.
10. PRINCE GEORGE'S COUNTY COURT (Chattel Papers) MSA C1174, 1831-1834, 40,233-267/281, C 1174-12.
11. PRINCE GEORGE'S COUNTY COURT (Minutes) 11/1834, State of Maryland vs. Negro Judah [C1265-58.
12. "Unparalelled Depravity", Daily National Intelligencer, 13 November 1834, 3.
13. "Two Hundred Dollars Reward", Daily National Intelligencer, 11 November 1840.
14. Nathania Branch Miles, et. al, "Prince George's County and the Civil War: Life on the Border," (Charleston: History Press, 2013), 21.
15. Records of the Board of Commissioners for the Emancipation of Slaves in the District of Columbia, 1862–1863. NARA Microfilm Publication M520, 6 rolls. Records of the United States General Accounting, Record Group 217. National Archives, Washington, D.C.
16. ibid.
17. U.S. CENSUS BUREAU (Census Record, MD), Henry Hatton, 1850, p 88, PG, Spaldings District, M 1499-2, MSA SM 61-143.
18. Records of the Board of Commissioners for the Emancipation of Slaves in the District of Columbia, 1862–1863. NARA Microfilm Publication M520, 6 rolls. Records of the United States General Accounting, Record Group 217. National Archives, Washington, D.C.
19. John H. Bayne to Gov. A.W. Bradford, June 26, 1862, concerning watime fugitive slave problem, p. 2. GOVERNOR (Misc. Papers) MSA SSF 1274 - 6636, box 69, folder 30, item 1
20. "Died,"Alexandria Gazette, 19 August 1870, 2.
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