Redemptioners And Slavery In Delaware County.

Jonathan Hunter, of Edgmont, yeoman, records a negro woman, Phillis, 30; a negro lad, Paddy, 10; a negro boy, Samson; a negro girl, Prude, 6; and a negro girl, Phillis, aged 3 years, all slaves for life.

In addition to the foregoing list the following persons made returns of slaves, but the residences of the owners are not given, hence I cannot designate how many, if any, were residents in the territory now comprising Delaware County

Thomas May, four slaves; John Cuthbert, one; James Boyd, two; John Vanlasey, four; James McCainent, two; George Boyd, one; Capt. Thomas Wiley, one; Catherine Kelso, one; Robert Carry, one; Thomas Scott, one; William Steel, two.

Under the provisions of the foregoing act, after the creation of Delaware County, the following births of negro children of slaves belonging to the persons whose names are given are recorded:

Jan. 28, 1794, Adam Delhl, of Tinicum, grazier, negro female child, Nancy Norris, born Sept. 24,1794.

April 29, 1794, William Burns, of Marcus Hook, inn-keeper, two negro children, - first, female named Flora, born 14th day of February, 1794; second, male named Cuff, born 16th day of March, 1794.

Jan. 6, 1795, Israel Elliott, Esq., of Tinicum, grazier, female negro child named Phebe, daughter of Dinah McCormick, born 10th day of September, 1794.

Nov. 12, 1796, Israel Elliott, Esq., of Tinicum, grazier, female negro child named Elizabeth, daughter of Dinah McCormick.

In 1799, Elizabeth Evans, of Aston, was assessed for one woman slave valued at two hundred and fifty dollars.

The act of Assembly, March 29, 1798, provided for the registration of all children born of slaves within six months after their birth, declaring that only children thus registered could legally be held as slaves until the age of twenty-eight years. Under its provisions the following births are recorded:

Feb. 27, 1799, Mark Wilcox, Esq., of Concord, negro male child named Charles Gibson, son of Susanna Gibson, born 2d day of September, 1798.

July 2, 1806, William Anderson, of Cheater, male mulatto bastard child named Francis, born 17th day of February last.

Sept. 22, 1809, Mary Calhoun, female negro child named Margaret Reddon, born 5th day of April last.

The foregoing is the last record of the birth of a slave-child in Delaware County.

Among the records of the county will be found a paper executed by the heirs of Isaac Levis, of Middletown, under date of Aug. 4, 1801, setting forth that the decedents owned "a negro boy named John, now about twenty-tbree years of age, and it being apprehended that the heirs may have some claim on the said negro," they release all rights they may have to his person or services.

In the same year, August 1st, Israel Elliott, Esq., of Tinicum, being the owner of "negro Primus Neid," a slave for life, - then in his twenty-eighth year, - "in consideration of his Integrity, honesty and uprightness. . . during his servitude" manumitted "Primus," requiring all "the Lieged people of the United States of America" to recognize his late slave as a free man.

The return of deaf and dumb and slaves in each township in the State in 1829 shows one slave in Delaware County, held in Chester.¹ The census of 1790 showed fifty slaves in Delaware County; that of 1800, seven, while in 1810 not one was returned. In 1820 there was one, and in 1830 the number had swollen to two.

The last notice of the effete system of slavery, so far as the official records of the county are concerned, will be found on file in the office of the prothonotary, at Media, whereby Elizabeth H. Price, of Cecil County, Md., under date of Nov. 15, 1830, in consideration of one hundred and ten dollars, "released from slavery, manumitted and set free, Rasin Garnett, being under forty-five years of age, of a healthy constitution, sound in mind and body, and capable by labor to procure to him sufficient food and raiment, with other requisite necessaries of life."

The old colonial law which authorized the apprehension and imprisonment of negro or white persons suspected of being runaway slaves or servants was continued in practice until the beginning of this century.

The record of the Court of Quarter Sessions shows that on Jan. 27, 1795, "Negro Jacob committed on suspicion of being a runaway, there appearing no claimant, he was, on motion, discharged from his confinement," while on "Jan. 27, 1801, Lewis Thoston, a prisoner charged with being a runaway servant," was discharged by proclamation.

I have not learned who was the last slave owned in the county of Delaware, but I know that in 1828 "Aunt Sallie" died at Lamokin Hall, in the borough of Chester. She had been the slave of John Flower, formerly of Marcus Hook and Chester, who moved to Philadelphia during the Revolutionary war, where he became a prominent and wealthy merchant. He had manumitted Sallie many years before his death (which occurred in 1824), but she refused to leave her owner's house, where she tyrannized over the servants and regulated his diet, telling him what he could and could not have for dinner. Her supreme contempt was bestowed on "the poor niggers of no family." By the will of her master the interest of several thousand dollars was to be used for her support for the remainder of her life. She declared that she was the daughter of a negro king, and had been purchased by the captain of a slaver from the tribe