Handwritten warrant on 13" x 8.25" folded paper written by Nathan Cutler, President of the Senate, State of Maine to Josiah W. Seaver, Esq., Sheriff, for the arrest of John P. Emery at the request of William B. Giles, Governor of the Commonwealth of Virginia. Document reads in part:
" . . . Governor of the Commonwealth of Virginia hath represented that a certain Captain John P. Emery . . . being charged with the Crime of Felony in carrying away from Fredericksburg . . . a slave, the property of Benjamin Alsop, is a fugitive from Justice."
Dimensions
Height
12-3/4 in
Width
8 in
Interpretative Labels
Label Type
Cultural/Historical Context
Label
On December 25, 1829, Captain John P. Emery of Biddeford was arrested , charged with "carrying away" an enslaved man that belonged to Benjamin Alsop of Fredericksburg, Virginia. According to the arrest warrant, Emery was to be placed in the custody of Boswell Alsop and returned to Virginia to be dealt with by the court system there. The Alsops were presumably related. Fortunately for Emery, although Boswell Alsop had traveled to Portland to take custody of him, he left the state without doing so. As a result, since there were no other charges pending against him, Emery was released from custody on December 30.
Both Benjamin and Boswell Alsop were slaveholders. The 1830 census listed eight slaves in Benjamin's household and twenty-three in Boswell's. Boswell was the only free person in his home; he may have been a slave dealer himself. Eight of the enslaved people he owned were under the age of ten.
We know nothing more about the enslaved man that Emery was accused of taking away—not his age, his name, or what eventually happened to him. We can only hope that he made good his escape to freedom.
