Henry Gladden (b. 1806 - d. )
MSA SC 5496-51563
Fled from Slavery, Dorchester County, 1834
Biography:
Henry Gladden fled from Thomas Hicks in July of 1834, according to testimony by the Dorchester County slaveholder. The exact identity of the claimant in the case is unclear, since there were four slaveholders of that name residing in the county.1 One of these, Thomas Holliday Hicks was a member of the state House of Delegates and future Maryland governor. It is highly unlikely that he would have owned Gladden as the newspaper account does not mention any prominence attached to the aggrieved party. There are also no chattel, land, or tax records from the time period which verify the exact identity of Thomas Hicks, or Gladden's origins in the state.
An 1837 edition of the Dorchester Aurora dedicated nearly half a page to "A Slave Case."2 The story was had originally been drawn from the West Jersey (Bridgetown) Observer, near the site of the trial. An African-American man named Solomon Jackson, accused of being Hicks' fugitive slave Henry Gladden, had been apprehended by local authorities and brought before a judge in Salem, New Jersey. Jackson had been in the employ of Daniel Elmer, an attorney who also volunteered to represent him in the trial. George W. Lockerman appeared on behalf of Thomas Hicks, his power of attorney authorizing him to apprehend the runaway Gladden. He also carried an affadavit, which stated:
"State of
Maryland, Dorchester County, to wit: on the first day of December,
1836, before me the subscriber, a justice of the peace of the said State, and in and for the county aforesaid,
personally appeared Thomas Hicks, party
to the within instrument and
made oath that the negro referred to was about 27 or 28 years old and absconded in July 1834."3
Elmer's rebuttal, published alongside the local account, disputed the underlying legality of Hicks' efforts. New Jersey's 1826 statute regarding the retrieval of fugitive slaves had actually been pushed by a contingent of Maryland government representatives, including Ezekiel F. Chambers of Kent County. The law stipulated that the affadavit "shall state the said claimant's title to the service of such fugitive, and also the name, age and description of the person of such fugitive."4 Elmer would claim that Thomas Hicks had not sufficiently satisfied either of these conditions. His objections were initially overruled in court, but then "the negro" requested a postponement, alleging that "he was not prepared for trial by reason of two material witnesses whom he named."5 Jackson, or Gladden, was then placed in jail for safekeeping, while Hicks' council returned to Maryland likely to acquire more definitive proof of ownership. At that point, the proceedings were somewhat disputed, with the local newspaper even questioning the honor of Daniel Elmer's actions.
Soon after the claimants' departure, Elmer again protested the "unlawful arrest" by applying for a Habeas Corpus before a Judge Ford, of a federal court in the state. Ford agreed that the committment was illegal and ordered him to be discharged from the sheriff's custody. Despite the near extinction of slavery in that state, the Observer noted that "a more noisy court was never before witnessed in Jersey" as citizens indignant about the dismissal. Still, Elmer remained firm in his conviction that an illegal imprisonment had occurred, while stating that he fully supported the rights of slaveholders to legally retrieve their property. Elmer further contended that "Solomon Jackson cannot be his slave. Jackson having been here nearly four years. It will be perceived Mr. Hicks has not even sworn that the man is his slave."6
The newspaper was quick to defend the character of Hicks, and those county officials who had provided his documentation. The account made a point of declaring that the New Jersey law had been passed specifically to "satisfy the commonwealth of Maryland," with regard to the return of fugitive slaves.7 There was undoubtedly economic and political incentive for the northern state not to impede the efforts of southern planters, many of whom represented the prominent business interests of their local counties. It is also relevant that earlier in 1836 an Eastern Shore freedom seeker named Nathan Mead, who was similarly freed by a writ of habeas corpus that took advantage of a legal technicality.8 Some influential New Jersey citizens might not have appreciated their growing reputation as a haven for migrant black populations, enabled by powerful abolitionists.
Despite the laments of the Observer, there did not seem to be any further action taken by, or on behalf of Thomas Hicks. Solomon Jackson remained a resident until at least 1880, consistently claiming to have been born in New Jersey.9 It is possible that he was, in which case there is no additional evidence of Henry Gladden's whereabouts after the 1834 escape.
Footnotes -
1. Ancestry.com. 1830/1840 United States Federal Census, Dorchester County, Maryland.
2. "A Slave Case," Dorchester Aurora, 23 January 1837. Special Collections, MSA SC 4856.
3. Ibid.
5. "A Slave Case".
6. Ibid.
7. Ibid.
9. Ancestry.com. 1850 United States Federal Census, Salem County, New Jersey, Mannington Twp, p. 43.
Ancestry.com. 1880 United States Federal Census, Salem County, New Jersey, Pilesgrove Twp, p. 8.
Researched and written by David Armenti, 2012.
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