Ann Harper (b. circa 1787 - d. 1842)
MSA SC 5496-51334
Maryland State Colonization Society Emigrant to Liberia from Caroline
County, 1832
Biography:
Ann Harper was enslaved by George Read of Caroline County, Maryland before being purchased by her husband, Stepney Harper, some time before 1832.1 Since their children, Lafayette and Julia Ann, were recorded as "born free" on the Liberia emigrant list, it is likely that Ann was purchased and freed prior to Lafayette's birth circa 1824.2 Stepney also purchased and freed his son, George Washington Harper (b. 1819 - d. ?), for fifty dollars from John Cooper of Kent County, Delaware.3, 4 By 1829, the family was deeply in debt and forced to sell almost all of their belongings to pay creditors.5 Perhaps their financial situation encouraged the Harpers to think of settling in Liberia as they indicated to the enumerator of the 1832 Free Negro Census for Caroline County. On the census, their children were listed as a nine-year old boy, Lafayette, and a one-year old girl, Sidney.6 However, the Liberia emigrant list records their daughter's name as a six-month old infant named Julia Ann.7 It is not clear if Sidney and Julia Ann are the same person.
The Harper family departed from Baltimore on the ship Lafayette on December 7 or 9, 1832, arriving in Monrovia, Liberia. on February 7, 1833.8Laura Ann Sharpe, a freeborn resident of Caroline County, was also associated with the Harper household, perhaps as a housekeeper.9 The family soon settled in Caldwell, Liberia, where the young Julia Ann died of fever shortly after their arrival in 1833.10 Tragedy continued to befall the family in their new homeland; Stepney died from anasarca in 1838 and Ann from tuberculosis in 1842.11
2. Ibid.
3. CAROLINE COUNTY COURT (Land Records) Book P, 1825-1827, MSA CE 94-15, folio 288.
4. CAROLINE COUNTY COURT (Land Records) Book P, 1825-1827, MSA CE 94-15, folio 289.
5. CAROLINE COUNTY COURT (Land Records), Book Q, 1827-1830, MSA CE 94-15, folio 235.
7. SPECIAL COLLECTIONS (Papers of the Maryland State Colonization Society), Emigrants, 1832-1839, MSA SC 5977, Film Number M 13240-1, Lines 30-32. Line 33.
8. Ibid.
9. Hall, Richard L. On Afric’s Shore: A History of Maryland in Liberia, 1834-1857. (Baltimore: Maryland Historical Society, 2003), p. 443.
11. Hall, p. 439.
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