John L. McCombs (b. 1808
- d. 1862)
MSA SC 5496-051275
Property Owner, Caroline County, Maryland
Biography:
John L. McCombs was born in 1808 in Caroline County, where he lived for most of his life. McCombs was married to Serena Tucker on April 7, 1831.1 They would have at least two children together, Ann born in 1835 and Elizabeth born in 1838.2 He became a county constable in 1831, and was later appointed as a justice of the peace in 1835.3 By those commissions, McCombs effectively became a police officer for Caroline County, a development that may have contributed to his controversial behavior in the ensuing decades. The most shocking example occurred in August of 1839, when for reasons unknown, John L. McCombs' cruel treatment led to the death of his female slave.
The original Baltimore Sun article, titled "Murder of Cruelty", is brief but revealing. After an official inquest determined that the woman's death was due "cruelty and maltreatment by her master," McCombs apparently attempted to flee the area, making it as far as Kent County before he was captured.4 Even though the victim was a slave, the defendant clearly did not have confidence that his actions would go unpunished. It is worth stating that throughout the scant records of the case the woman's name is never mentioned. This may have been a deliberate attempt to dehumanize the crime and avoid the sympathy that would more likely develop for an identifiable figure. The Caroline County Court docket for October 1839, which would have recorded the initial recognition of the crime, has been either lost or destroyed. The court minutes for October 1840 give little detail of the case of State of Maryland vs. John L. McCombs, aside from the not guilty verdict for an unspecified felony.5 A Sun article from March that same year is similarly casual in stating that an error in the indictment "quashed" the case.6 Furthermore, it reveals that McCombs had originally been charged with manslaughter. Not only was he deemed not guilty of that lesser charge, but John L. McCombs essentially faced no punishment for taking the life of an African-American woman. In a cruel twist of fate, his wife Serena would die in December of that same year.7
McCombs' misdeeds regarding African-Americans in Caroline County did not cease despite his near brush with serious criminal punishment. On at least two occasions, in 1837 and 1838, he had acted as a middle man in purchasing slaves whose deceased owners' wills had made provisions for their future manumissions. In both cases McCombs quickly resold the individuals to fellow Marylanders for a tidy profit, $50 and $64 respectively.8 However, the allure of greater earnings from southern dealers must have been too much to resist. On October 28, 1842 he purchased a 16 year old girl, Willa, who was to be manumitted on her 21st birthday.9 By March, 1844, McCombs was in county court, charged with having sold the girl "beyond the limits of the state."10 Such acts had been criminalized by the General Assembly in 1818, with a penalty of up to two years in prison. However, in this case the county constable once again evaded prosecution.11 It is unclear where Willa was sold, whether her manumission was ever honored, or how much McCombs stood to gain from the transaction.
McCombs appears in the 1850 Federal Census in James C. Millington’s household, listed as a butcher.12 He also continues to act as a county constable until at least 1858. Sometime before 1860 he and his daughter Elizabeth moved to St. Louis, Missouri, where his uncle, Peter Lindell, was a real estate and commercial magnate.13,14 McCombs died in 1862, at which point estate papers were filed in Caroline County.15 However, they share very little about his later years or his possessions, only that he is bound to the state for $100.16 As an official representative of the county, he committed egregious violations with seemingly little repercussion. While he deprived at least two black women of the most basic human rights, McCombs enjoyed the benevolence of his millionaire uncle and local authorities alike. Thereby, John L. McCombs' experiences clearly reveal the stark inequity of legal proceedings for free and enslaved African-Americans on the Eastern Shore.
1. CAROLINE
2. Ancestry.com,
1820 - 1840, United States Federal
Census,
3. CAROLINE COUNTY COURT, (Land Records), Book S, 1833-1835, p. 392.
4. "Murder of Cruelty," Baltimore Sun, 6 August, 1839.
5. CAROLINE COUNTY COURT (Minutes), 17 October, 1840, #13.
6. "County Court; State," Baltimore Sun, 31 March, 1840.
7.
8. CAROLINE
COUNTY COURT, (Land Records), Book T, 1835-1838, pp. 204, 235, 381, 399.
9. CAROLINE
COUNTY COURT, (Land Records), Book V, 1840-1843, p. 438.
10. CAROLINE COUNTY CIRCUIT COURT (Docket), Criminal Appearances, March Term 1844, #16.
11. GENERAL ASSEMBLY (Laws), 1817, Session Laws, Chapter 112.
12. Ancestry.com, 1850, United States Federal Census, Caroline County, Maryland, p. 169.
14. “Biographies: Peter Lindell,” NIU Libraries Digitization Projects.
15. CAROLINE
16. Ibid.
Researched and Written by David Armenti, 2011.
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