Archives of Maryland
(Biographical Series)

Richard Reeves (b. ? - d. ?)
MSA SC 5496-51120
War of 1812 Refugee, Prince George's County, Maryland, 1814

Biography:

    Richard "Dick" Reeves was an enslaved man who belonged to Joseph Coombs and his wife Mary Meeky Lyles Coombs of Prince George's County.1 Reeves lived and worked at the home of the Coombs which was situated in Swan Creek Neck along the Potomac River.2 Reeves' wife Prisilla and their five children Anne, Bill, Prisilla (Priss), Maria, and Mildred (Milley) also belonged Joseph and Mary Coombs.3 Dick and his family were sold to Baley Erles Clark in 1800 to be enslaved forever if their previous owner Joseph Coombs didn't satisfy a debt owed to Clark by the sixth of December in 1801.4 Coombs likely paid the debt because Dick Reeves and his family were back in his possession by at least 1808. However, in April of 1808, Joseph Coombs sold Dick Reeves and his family to his father in law Col.William Lyles.5 A few months later Joseph Coombs died intestate on June 21, 1808.6 Dick Reeves and other slaves were sold to Col. Lyles for the benefit of Joseph and Mary Coombs infant children.

   By 1813, the War of 1812 between the British and America was in full swing. British ships placed a blockade on the Chesapeake Bay, sailing up and down Maryland's waterways.7 In April of 1814, Admiral Alexander Cochrane issued a proclamation offering immediate emancipation to any person who would join the British military in taking up arms agains the Americans.8 Dick Reeves and his family along with several other enslaved families belonging to Mary Coombs escaped to the British Ships lying in the Potomac River.9 The Reeves family successfully reached Halifax, Nova Scotia in 1815 and settled on the Windsor Road.10

1.    Claim of Mary M. Coombs, Prince George's County, Case No. 715, Case Files. Ca. 1814-28, entry 190, Record Group 76, National Archives, College Park.

2.    CHANCERY COURT (Chancery Papers) 1713-1853, Estate of Joseph Coombs, [MSA SSF 512].

3.    PRINCE GEORGE'S COUNTY COURT (Chattel Papers) 1807-1810, [MSA C1174].

4.    PRINCE GEORGE'S COUNTY COURT (Land Records) 1800-1801, Liber JRM 8, [MSA CE 65-37], 270.

5.    PRINCE GEORGE'S COUNTY COURT (Chattel Papers) 1807-1810, [MSA C1174].

6.    CHANCERY COURT (Chancery Papers) 1713-1853, Estate of Joseph Coombs, [MSA SSF 512].

7.    Ralph Eshelman, A Travel Guide to the War of 1812 in the Chesapeake: Eighteen Tours in Maryland, Virginia, and the District of Columbia (Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 2011), 1.

8.    Commissioner of Public Records NSARM  RG 1 vol. 420 no. 133 (microfilm no. 15464).

9.    Claim of Mary M. Coombs, Prince George's County, Case No. 715, Case Files. Ca. 1814-28, entry 190, Record Group 76, National Archives, College Park.

10.    "List of Blacks recently brought from the United States of America and settled on the Windsor Road." Nova Scotia Archives and Records Management.
            http://www.gov.ns.ca/nsarm/virtual/Africanns/archives.asp?ID=74

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