Milcah Luddy (b. circa 1789 - d. circa 1820)
MSA SC 5496-050608
War of 1812 Escaped Slave, Kent Island, Queen Anne's County, Maryland,
1813
Biography:
Born around 1789, Milcah Luddy was the slave of Robert Gardner in Calvert County. According to census records, Gardner owned nine slaves in 1800 and ten in 1810.1
In August 1813, British forces took the Milcah Luddy and another slave, Charlotte Dunn, from Gardner's farm. Robert Gardner's 1821 claim for compensation described the events surrounding the slaves' escape or kidnapping:
British troops under the command of Sir Sidney Beckwith accompanied by the naval command of Admiral Warren took possession of Kent Island and continued to occupy the same until about the twenty second day of the same month ... during the same time the British took from him one Negro woman Slave named Milcah aged twenty one years of the value of Three Hundred and fifty Dollars [and] one other Negro woman slave named Charlotte aged 16 years of the Value of three hundred and fifty Dollars.2
1. U.S. Census Bureau (Census
Record, MD) for Robert Gardner, 1800, Queen Anne's County, district not
stated, Page 16, Line 16 [MSA SM61-35, M 2056-5].
U.S. Census
Bureau (Census Record, MD) for Robert Gardner, 1810, Queen Anne's County,
district not stated, Page 20b, Line 9 [MSA SM61-55, M 2061-2].
2. Claim of Robert Gardner,
Case Files, compiled ca. 1827 - ca. 1828, documenting the period ca. 1814
- ca. 1828, *ARC Identifier 1174160 / MLR Number PI 177 190*. National
Archives, College Park.
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