Lafayette Harper (b. circa 1824 - d. ?)
MSA SC 5496-51336
Maryland State Colonization Society Emigrant to Liberia from Caroline
County, 1832
Biography:
Lafayette and his sister, Julia Ann, were born free to Stepney and Ann Harper in Caroline County, Maryland.1 A blacksmith, Stepney Harper purchased the freedom of himself, his wife Ann, and a son, George Washington Harper. By 1829, the family was deeply in debt and forced to sell almost all of their belongings to pay creditors.3 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.4 Although Stepney, Ann, Lafayette, and an infant named Sidney (perhaps another name for Julia Ann) Harper were enumerated on the census, George Washington Harper's name does not appear, suggesting that he had passed away. On December 7 or 9, 1832, Stepney, Ann, Lafayette, and Julia Ann sailed from Baltimore to Liberia on the ship Lafayette, arriving in Monrovia, Liberia on February 7, 1833.5 Laura Ann Sharpe, a freeborn resident of Caroline County, was also associated with the Harper household, perhaps as a housekeeper.6 The family soon settled in Caldwell, Liberia, where the infant Julia Ann died of fever shortly after their arrival in 1833.7, 8 Tragedy struck again when Stepney died of anasarca in 1838, and Ann of tuberculosis in 1842.9 Lafayette lived in Caldwell, at least through 1843.10
3. CAROLINE COUNTY COURT (Land Records), Book Q, 1827-1830, MSA CE 94-15, folio 235.
5. SPECIAL COLLECTIONS (Papers of the Maryland State Colonization Society), Emigrants, 1832-1839, MSA SC 5977, Film Number M 13248-1, Lines 30-32. Line 33.
6. Hall, Richard L. On Afric’s Shore: A History of Maryland in Liberia, 1834-1857. (Baltimore: Maryland Historical Society, 2003), p. 443.
7. Ibid, p. 439.
9. Hall, p. 439.
10. Ibid.
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