Stepney Harper (b. circa 1782 – d. 1838)
MSA SC 5496-51337
Maryland State Colonization Society Emigrant to Liberia from Caroline
County, 1832
Biography:
Stepney (sometimes called Step) Harper purchased his freedom from William Franklin Harper of Caroline County, receiving his certificate of freedom on July 27, 1818. Although Stepney’s age at the time of his manumission was uncertain, the court clerk estimated him to be about forty years old.1 After securing his own freedom, he later bought his wife, Ann, from George Read of Caroline County.2 It appears that at least two of their children, Lafayette (b. circa 1824 - d. ?) and Julia Ann (b. circa 1832 - d. 1833), were born into freedom as they were recorded as "born free" on the Liberia emigrant list.3 Therefore, it is likely that Ann was freed prior to Lafayette's birth circa 1824 since Maryland law mandated that children follow the condition of their mothers into slavery or freedom. In 1826, Stepney also purchased his son, George Washington Harper (b. 1819 - d. ?), for fifty dollars from John Cooper of Kent County, Delaware.4 On the same day, July 5, 1826, Stepney immediately filed a manumission, granting his son his freedom at the age of twenty-one years of age.5 After purchasing himself, his wife, and his son, it is little wonder that Stepney was deeply in debt by 1829. By order of the Caroline County Orphans Court, Stepney deeded his real estate and other properties to a court-appointed trustee to distribute to his creditors. Stepney and his family were left with nothing "excepting the necessary wearing apparel and bedding of himself and family."6
Perhaps their financial situation encouraged the Harpers to start afresh in Liberia as some of the earliest emigrants of the Maryland State Colonization Society. On the 1832 Caroline County Census of Free Negroes, Stepney and his family expressed an interest in emigrating to Liberia.7 Although Stepney, Ann, Lafayette, and Sidney (perhaps another name for Julia Ann) Harper were enumerated on the census of free blacks, George Washington Harper's name does not appear, suggesting that he may have passed away. Later that year, Stepney, Ann, Lafayette, and Julia Ann sailed from Baltimore to Liberia on the ship Lafayette on December 7 or 9, arriving in Monrovia, Liberia on February 7, 1833.8 Laura Ann Sharpe, a freeborn resident of Caroline County, was also associated with the Harper household, perhaps as a housekeeper.9
The passenger list noted that Stepney was a blacksmith, but it is not clear if he learned the trade during slavery or if he practiced this profession after he arrived in Liberia.10 The family soon settled in Caldwell, Liberia, where the infant Julia Ann died shortly after their arrival in 1833.11 Tragedy struck again when Stepney died of anasarca in 1838, and Ann died of tuberculosis in 1842.12
2. 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.
3. Ibid.
4. CAROLINE COUNTY COURT (Land Records) Book P, 1825-1827, MSA CE 94-15, folio 288.
5. CAROLINE COUNTY COURT (Land Records) Book P, 1825-1827, MSA CE 94-15, folio 289.
6. CAROLINE COUNTY COURT (Land Records), Book Q, 1827-1830, MSA CE 94-15, folio 235.
8. 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.
9. Hall, Richard L. On Afric’s Shore: A History of Maryland in Liberia, 1834-1857. (Baltimore: Maryland Historical Society, 2003), p. 443.
12. Hall, p. 439.
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