Daniel Hubbard (b. 1795 - d. ? )
MSA SC 5496-38930
Accomplice to slave flight, Caroline County
Daniel Hubbard (b. 1795 - d. ? )
MSA SC 5496-38930
Accomplice to slave
flight, Caroline
County
Biography:
Daniel Hubbard was a free black man, living near Preston in the southernmost portion of Caroline County, along the border with Dorchester. It is unknown whether he began his life as a slave or as a freeman. The county court officially licensed Hubbard's 1819 marriage to Maria Anderton, though strangely she is not referred to as a "negress".1 Most of the other listings included that racial distinction, though it is very unlikely that the union would have been accepted were she not an African-American. Either way, it appears that Daniel's first wife was not in his household by the time the 1830 Census was recorded.2 At that point, there were no females over 24 but only four younger members listed as slaves, who were most likely Hubbard's children. Sometimes enslaved minors were allowed to live with their free parents and were thereby recorded incorrectly.
By the 1840's, this free black man had been able to gain respectable standing in the community, laboring as a ship carpenter and small farmer. Hubbard even acquired a 55 acre plot of land from John Rowens in 1849, making him one of the few landowning African-Americans in the county.3 In fact, his success was so rare that the General Assembly was induced to pass "An Act for the Benefit of Daniel Hubbard."4 This 1856 provision would have allowed Daniel to transmit his property through a will, "which, under the existing laws of this State he is unable to do." Daniel and his second wife Feby lived on the farm with their children: Mary, Elizabeth, and Solomon. Again, there is no confirmation as to whether these family members were free or enslaved. An account from 1858 claimed that he had "paid annually for his wife, and also for his children ... they being slaves for life."5 However, there is no reference to their owner, and they are listed as free colored persons in the 1850 Census.6
The Hubbards lived in close proximity to the local Quaker community, whose members were known sympathetic to the plight of black slaves. Jacob and Hannah Leverton, and later their son Arthur, were particularly active abolitionists who assisted many fugitives on their way to free soil.7 Likely due to his habitation directly next to the family's land, Daniel Hubbard also became involved in the clandestine network. The adjoining properties of Hubbard, the Levertons, and fellow Quaker Jonah Kelley formed a contiguous plot of over 1300 acres that became a valued destination for fleeing blacks.8 Kelley's son William would reflect, in 1898, that "Some fugitives coming to the home of my father, Jonah Kelley ... were directed to Daniel's house."9 In fact, all of these individuals were listed as underground operatives in Wilbur H. Siebert's late century book, The Underground Railroad from Slavery to Freedom.10
By the mid-1850's, flight from the area was arousing considerable anger among Eastern Shore whites. There was a prevailing opinion that northern abolitionists, with help from local free blacks and Quakers, were responsible for the great success of fleeing slaves. While fugitives did often receive assistance, they hardly needed to be convinced or enticed to leave their masters. Free African-Americans like Hubbard did associate with enslaved blacks, many of whom were their family, friends, or church brethren. As with his white neighbors, Daniel likely was approached for support because of his advantageous position along the path to the nearest free state, Pennsylvania.
Regardless of the actual extent of his participation in slave flight, Hubbard would be targeted for retribution after an overnight escape on New Years' day, 1858. On that occasion, a newly freed black woman, Margaret Haskins, escaped from Cambridge, Dorchester County, with her enslaved husband and five children. The affected owners, James E. Hall and Francis Phelps, bought an advertisement to publicize the flight by January 6th.11 The fugitive family apparently did not make it very far, being captured by a "Mr. Satterfield," near Denton in Caroline County. The newspaper ad, noting that they had already been jailed, was probably intended to gather information about an alleged "white guide," who had helped the fleeing blacks. This individual was Hubbard's neighbor Arthur W. Leverton, who would escape the area on January 14th under threat of mob violence. Local whites, unsatisfied without an accomplice to punish, turned their attention to the free black man.12
The Quaker
publication, Friends
Intelligencer, actually referred specifically to Daniel
Hubbard's
predicament in the March 27 issue from that year. Sometime after
Leverton
left Maryland, Hubbard was informed that from 50 to 500 men "were ready
to carry him to Cambridge, and hang him merely on suspicion."13
He was able
to flee to Philadelphia, presumably getting support from the
abolitionist,
Quaker community there. Hubbard claimed to have known nothing of these
particular fugitives, but he may have been purposely misleading so
there
would still be some possibility to return home to his family.14
However,
there is no record of his having ever returned to Maryland, or bringing
his wife and children to Pennsylvania. Daniel Hubbard's experience
exemplified
just how dangerous it was to be a successful free black on the Eastern
Shore at that time, let alone one who may have aided fugitive slaves.
Footnotes -
1. CAROLINE COUNTY CIRCUIT COURT (Marriage Licenses, Index) 1774-1865.
2. Ancestry.com. 1830 United States Federal Census, Caroline County, District 3, p. 9.
3. CAROLINE COUNTY COURT (Land Records), Book Y, 1848-1850, pp. 279a - 279b.
5. "American Slavery." Friends' Intelligencer, Vol. XV, No 2, pp. 24-25 (March 27, 1858). (Guida, p. 129)v
6. Ancestry.com. 1850 United States Federal Census, Caroline County, p. 181.
7. Kate Clifford Larson. Bound for the Promised Land: Harriet Tubman, Portrait of an American Hero. New York, NY: Ballantine Books, 2004
9. William T. Kelley "Underground R.R. Reminiscences." Friends' Intelligencer and Journal, Volume 55, p. 238 (1898).
10. William Henry Siebert . The Underground Railroad from Slavery to Freedom. McMillan Company: London, 1898.
11. "Runaways and Arrests," Baltimore American and Commercial Advertiser. 14 January, 1858.
12. "American Slavery" (Guida, p. 129)
13. Ibid.
14. Ibid.
Researched and Written by David Armenti, 2012.
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