John "Jack" Saunders (b. circa 1823 - d. ?)
MSA SC 5496-15166
Fled from slavery, Washington County, Maryland, 1839
Biography:
In 1839, John “Jack” Saunders attempted to escape from Jacob Waltz of Washington County, near Hagerstown. Waltz or his agents caught up with Jack by Fall 1839 and brought him back to face the Maryland justice system. With a strengthened fugitive slave law in place, Saunders, who may have reached Pennsylvania, was faced with obligatory sale out-of-state. As enslaved boy awaited his fate in the Maryland Penitentiary, Waltz petitioned Governor J. William Grason (1839-1842, Anti-Jacksonian Democrat) to pardon Jack. Citing the boy’s “youth and previous good character,” Grason pardoned Jack on December 9, 1839, releasing him from prison and an interstate sale.
Apparently, the success of Jack’s first attempt – albeit cut short by recapture – had emboldened the boy as to the feasibility of flight. By summer 1840, Jack Saunders absconded again. This time, authorities took him within the state, in Frederick County. Though the facts of his life beyond this point have yet to be recovered, his in-state arrest spared him from being sold South.
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