Name/Title
Letter ordering the release of Captain John EmeryEntry/Object ID
2007.14.2Scope and Content
Handwritten letter, 8" x 10" folded paper, written under the seal of Albion K. Parris, Sup. of Judicial Courts for Cumberland County, State of Maine to John Harris, Esq., keeper of a jail in Virginia.
Letter is requesting extradition of John P. Emery and reads in part:
"Whereas John P. Emery of Biddeford in the County of York, has this day been brought before me by writ of Habeas Corpus, and its appearing by your return that he is held in custody as a fugitive from justice from the Commonwealth of Virginia by virture of a warrant issued by Nathan Cutler, acting Governor of the State of Maine, at the request and demand of William B. Giles, Governor of said Commonwealth . . ."Interpretative Labels
Label Type
Cultural/Historical ContextLabel
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.
