Sandy Swine (b. circa 1805 - d.?)
MSA SC 5496-050614
Part of large slave flight from Poolesville area, Montgomery County,
Maryland, 1831
Biography:
Sandy Swine escaped from William Vinson's farm in September 1831. He fled along with five other slaves: Collin Brooks, Joe Carroll, Tobias Martin, Clem Proctor, and George Swine, Sandy's brother. On September 14, Vinson's son, William B. Vinson, placed an advertisement in the Daily National Intelligencer for the Sany's capture.1 He described Sandy Swine as "about 26 years old, 5 feet 10 or 11 inches high, [with a] dark complexion."2 He added that all six wore clothing typical "this season for plantation hands." William Vinson's farm stood in the Medleys District of Montgomery County. These escapes directly followed the Nat Turner rebellion in Virginia in August 1831.3
When Elisha Williams' slave, John Crompton, fled from the Poolesville the next year, Williams suspected that Crompton would run north to Pennsylvania to join fourteen other slaves who had escaped from the Poolesville area around the same time.4 Perhaps they included Sandy Swine and the other five slaves who had escaped from Vinson.
In 1840, William Vinson bequeathed the slaves "Sandy, George, Clem,
Henry, and Rachel" to his son, Dr. William B. Vinson.5
If Sandy, George, and Clem were Sandy Swine, George Swine, and Clem Proctor,
then the escape attempt had failed.
1. "300 Dollars Reward." Daily National Intelligencer 14 September 1831: 3.
2. Ibid.
3. Albert Bushnell Hart. Slavery and Abolition: 1831 to 1841 (New York and London: Harper & Brothers Publishers, 1906) 218.
4. "$100 Reward." Daily National Intelligencer 1 December 1832: 3.
5. MONTGOMERY COUNTY, REGISTER
OF WILLS, (Wills, Original), Date: 1833-1839, Location: 01/17/09/001, MdHR
Number: 16,543-10-1/63, MSA Citation: MSA C1142-13. William Vinson, February
10, 1836. Probated June 23, 1840.
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