RARE EARLY GEORGETOWN (D.C.) NEWSPAPER
SEVEN LARGE RUNAWAY SLAVE NOTICES!
ALSO: “FOR SALE, A FAMILY OF NEGROES.”
Federal Republican, Georgetown (DC)
Saturday, September 16,1815
We offer an exceedgingly scarce newspaper printed in Georgetown when it was still a port town, and just fifteen years after Washington, DC became the Nation’s Capital. Slavery was still quite legal and prolific in the Washington area, and this amazing issue contains no fewer than seven advertisements for runaway negro slaves from Maryland, Virginia and Georgetown (see scans). One was placed by Elizabeth Ann Bowie (of the famous Bowie Family in Maryland) for a man names Isaac who had broken out of the Prince Georges County Jail. Another ad offers “A FAMILY OF NEGROES” for sale in Frederick (Maryland) County, with the hope that the family will not be broken up and separated as in so many thousands of cases.
News includes a long article on Louis XVIII who came to power when Napoleon was defeated by Lord Wellington at Waterloo earlier in the year. The other news items and stories are quite fascinating, too.
But, the advertisements and notices for D.C. and Georgetown homes, plantations and other real estate coupled with numerous other notices for the sale of goods, Steamboat sailingsand even a “Camp Meeting” at Paint Branch in Montgomery County (MD), really bring the early days in Washington, DC and Georgetown to life! What an experience to devour this wonderful relic of history!
4 pages, complete as published in 1815, and in fine condition.
$170