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Thomas T.G. Pearce's Original Fugitive Slave Petition and Ownership Documentation
1851
Courtesy of National Archives, Mid-Atlantic Region
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The Fugitive Slave Law of 1850 gave slave owners the right to reclaim runaway slaves from any other state. When making a request to the court for reclamation, a petitioner had to provide evidence of his ownership of the slave in question. This evidence might come in the form of a receipt of sale or testimony from a witness.
Be it remembered that on this twenty seventh day of May AD Eighteen hundred fifty one before me, Upton S. Heath, Judge of the District Court of the United States in and of the District of Maryland, in vacation, personally appeared Thomas T. [???] of Baltimore County, in the District aforesaid, who being duly sworn, did depose and say:
That he lives a quarter of a mile from the petitioner Thomas T.G. Pearce, and has known him well for many years, that he knows the negro herein mentioned in the petition the said negro was the slave of Philip Pearce of Baltimore County, and his slave for life. Deponent knew him from the time he was a child and also knew his mother who was the slave for life of said Philip Pearce. The said slave Lewis escaped from and ran off from his said master in the month of November Eighteen hundred and forty nine and has never come back or been reclaimed ... Deponent does not live more than a quarter of a mile from said Philip Pearce ... Said negro slave Lewis was about twenty years of age when he ran off he was a dark brown, approaching black, five feet nine or ten inches high ... was a stout fellow, with large face, very prominent cheek bones and large prominent eyes and particularly heavy about the chest, His temples also were full and large.
[lightly inscribed] here insert bill of sale
And I do further certify that the foregoing testimony having been taken my me, and the same being deemed by me sufficient and satisfactory proof of the escape of the slave therein mentioned, and that he owes service and labor to the said Philip Pearce and now owes service and labor to the within named petitioner Thomas T.G. Pearce, it is therefore this twenty seventh day of May in the year Eighteen hundred and fifty one, adjudged and ordered that these proceedings be admitted to record according to the provisions of the act of congress in such case made and provided
U.S. Heath
District Judge
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