Search

Back to top

Search Constraints

Start Over You searched for: Names Allen, Joseph. Remove constraint Names: Allen, Joseph.
Number of results to display per page
View results as:

Search Results

Collection

Boston Evening Post letters, 1769-1778

8 items

This collection consists of 8 letters written to John and Thomas Fleet, editors of the Boston Evening Post, during the pre-Revolutionary period. The letters address the Boston non-importation agreement, riots, and other political issues related to the causes of the American Revolution.

This collection consists of 8 letters written to John and Thomas Fleet, editors of the Boston Evening Post, during the pre-Revolutionary period.

The collection contains the following letters, addressed to the newspaper's editors:
  • [Joseph Warren?], attacking John Mein, publisher of the Boston Chronicle, for criticizing the Boston non-importation agreement (published September 4, 1769)
  • [Joseph Warren?], describing the murder of 13-year-old Christopher Snider following a riot related to the Boston non-importation agreement (published February 26, 1770)
  • Joseph Allen, describing a violent dispute over the ownership of a farm in Greenwich, Massachusetts, and including a related resolution from several nearby towns' Committees of Correspondence (November 10, 1774; published December 19, 1774)
  • [John Fuller?], favorably reporting that "Doctor John Taylor of Lunenburg, in Order for the Promotion of Military Knowledge, which in these Times of Public Calamity, seems Indispensably necessary, generally gave to the Minute Company of that Town, 55 Military Books" (December 8, 1774)
  • Anonymous, reporting that Thomas Weeks, Deputy Sheriff of Greenwich, Massachusetts, resigned and burned his commission as a protest against "Unconstitutional Government," including a list of 8 celebratory toasts (December 19, 1774; published January 16, 1775)
  • Ephraim Whitney, recanting a statement published on October 17, 1774, in which he claimed to support the British government, and claiming the earlier statement was made under coercion [1774]
  • Solomon Stoddard, affirming his intentions to submit to the actions of the Continental Congress and to have no correspondence with General Thomas Gage, possibly made under coercion (February 3, 1775)
  • "A Real Friend to Government," quoting several laws related to punishments for British military officers who participate in riots and calling for a trial of related parties; possibly in response to the Boston Massacre (undated)
Collection

Dauphin County, Pennsylvania, slave records, 1788-1825

1 volume, 8 loose item

The Dauphin County, Pennsylvania, Slave Records is a register of black and mulatto children born in Dauphin County between 1780 and 1825. The volume contains approximately 170 bound slave records giving each child's name, date of birth, sex, race, as well as owner's name, occupation, and place of residency.

The Dauphin County, Pennsylvania, Slave Records is a register of the names of black and mulatto children born in Dauphin County between 1780 and 1825. The volume contains approximately 170 bound slave records, with 7 loose copies, a memorial for John Ewing, and a printed notice in the book’s front cover.

The ledger contains a seven-page index at the front, followed by 49 pages of entries, with three to four entries per page. Glued inside the front cover is a printed copy of the March 29, 1788, law regarding the registration of the children of slaves -- An act to explain and amend an act, entitled, "An act for the gradual abolition of slavery." The ledger contains 6 officially embossed copies of entries copied in the volume, and an undated letter with a tribute to a lawyer named John Ewing, who died at the age of 40. The content of this letter is highly religious and laudatory.

The volume lists 105 female children and 92 male children. Only 17 of the 197 children have recorded surnames. Of the 97 different slave owners most of them (76%) registered only one or two children. Only 7% of owners registered more than four. Notable slave owners include John Andre Hanna, a Revolutionary War general and U.S. congressman; Cornelius Cox, a Revolutionary War colonel and elector from Pennsylvania in the 1792 presidential election [he voted for Washington]; and Mordecai McKinney, whose son defended numerous fugitive slaves in Pennsylvania in the 1850's. For a complete list of slave owners see the Additional Descriptive Data section below.

The register lists the names, birthdates, and owners of 197 children born to slaves in Dauphin County, Pennsylvania, in the 45-year period between 1780 and 1825. The registrar often recorded estimated ages of those born prior to April 1, 1789, but for those born after that date, he noted exact birthdates. In one case, the record shows the actual hour of birth. The racial designations are Negro, Mulatto, Negro or Mulatto, and colored child. In only one case is a parent named:

"Be it remembered that on the Seventeenth day of April A.D. 1819 William N. Irvine, Esq. Attorney at Law...maketh return on Oath that a female Mullatto child was born by his Negro Servant Ann, on the seventeenth day of November 1818 and that the said female child is called Harriet, is now living and has been supported by the said William and is of the age of 5 months and twenty-nine days."

The children born after the 1780 act for Pennsylvania's gradual abolition of slavery became free men and women in 1808. The last child registered (Eve, a Mulatto, born June 6, 1825) would have been able to obtain her freedom in June of 1853. Covering a 45-year period, this volume demonstrates that abolition of slavery in Pennsylvania was a gradual process.