In addition to an individual’s age and whereabouts, the ads tell a great deal more about the character and physical appearance of runaways than we are accustomed to learning from most source records. While many of the physical descriptions found in the ads are generic, some stand out. One was Michael Toole with “fore teeth like a hog’s tusks.” Irishman Daniel Dunleavy had a scar on his face “and marked with gunpowder all over it, by firing a blast in his hands”. A Black slave named Joe “has a remarkable seam on one side of his head, occasioned by the cut of a hand-saw.” Advertisements by men whose spouses “eloped” from them are included. Francis Brumfield reported that wife Elizabeth “eloped from my bed and board without any provocation” and forbad anyone to deal with her. Adam Strickstroke’s wife, Otillow, eloped and “carried with her my Bed, Furniture and several other Articles.” Black slaves and Indians listed in these advertisements are listed by race as well as by surname, when one is given.

In preparing this latest volume in the series, Mr. Boyle consulted more than twenty late 18^th-century newspapers from New York, New Jersey, Pennsylvania, and Delaware, as well as from Maryland. Indeed, some runaways made their escape from places beyond their base in Maryland. The roughly 1,000 ads found here name close to 4,000 persons.

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The runaway ads abstracted for this new volume are more diverse than have appeared in previous ones. For instance, multiple ads for slave and Native American runaways appear, and they are identified by race and surname (when available). The Pennsylvania Slave Act, passed on March 19, 1780, which was the first extensive abolition legislation in the western hemisphere, likely encouraged some African Americans to seek their freedom in Pennsylvania. The act stopped the importation of slaves into the state, required all slaves to be registered, and established that all children born in the state were free, regardless of race or parentage. Many of the newspaper ads provide distinctive physical features of the escapees, such as “a slow hobbling gait” or “his feet remarkably deformed,” or “both his arms are marked with the letters W. H.” As he has with previous books, Mr. Boyle has included ads placed by men whose spouses “eloped” from them for one reason or another.

Mr. Boyle’s transcriptions of the runaway ads, taken from twenty-eight different newspapers (including papers from Rhode Island to Virginia, as well as Pennsylvania), provide valuable demographic information, giving name, age, sex, height, place of origin, clothing, occupation, speech, physical imperfections, and sometimes personal vignettes. Individuals whose very existence would have been hidden from us in late 18^th-century newspapers.

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In The Story of Yorktown, Revolutionary War expert Jack Darrell Crowder provides a day-by-day account of the Siege of Yorktown as told by the participants in their journals, diaries, memoirs, pension applications, and letters, as well as in contemporary newspapers. The soldiers write of their fears, hopes, and impressions of these culminating experiences, as well as the destruction that took place. They describe the fortifications, the artillery, life on the battlefield, and the death of friends.

Mr. Crowder begins his coverage with a description of the town of Yorktown and the start of the siege. The narrative continues with the preparations made on both sides, the role of the artillery, the British failed attempt to escape, and their ultimate surrender. Besides the numerical superiority of the Franco-American armies and navy, as the Hessian soldier Johann Conrad Dohla makes clear, the British grossly underestimated the capacity of the Patriot artillery: “At night . . . the enemy began to fire on our left wing, then against our entire line, to fire bombs, cannon, and howitzers. This removed the belief, which we held previously that they had only their regimental cannon there and could not bring up heavy weapons because of the many forests and swamps.”

The Story of Yorktown concludes with the author’s endnotes, a bibliography, and a detailed index to persons and places. Clearfield Company is pleased to add it to its collection of Revolutionary War titles written by Jack Darrell Crowder.

About the Author: Jack Darrell Crowder is a retired teacher and administrator with forty plus years in the classroom. He holds B.A. and master’s degrees from Texas Christian University and has written twelve books on the American Revolution. He gives talks on the Revolutionary War to school classes, historical societies, and Daughters of the American Revolution chapters.

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Curiously, several ads seem to have been intended to let the runaways know how little the master thought of them as very low rewards were posted. In 1774, Jesse Kimball advertised for his apprentice, Nathan Estry, but offered only “One Shilling reward, but No Charges.” The next year David Robinson offered “three Spanish Potatoes Reward” for William Jenneis, a runaway boy. Hezekiah Stevens offered only “ONE PENNY Lawful Money REWARD” for his apprentice John Campbell. The printers of The Boston Evening Post offered but “ONE PENNY” for apprentice James Hogan, who had developed great proficiency in “Profaneness, Lying, and some ancient and modern Vices.”

This compilation lists all individuals mentioned in the ads. If an individual is listed with more than one name, all the names appear in the index. While many of the Negroes and some Indians are listed as slaves, many are not, so they may have been paid servants. In compiling the present work, Mr. Boyle examined over a score of newspapers from New England to Maryland, including The Boston News-Letter, The Boston Post-Boy, The Boston Gazette, The Connecticut Courant, The Connecticut Gazette, The Massachusetts Spy, The New Hampshire Gazette, The Pennsylvania Gazette, The New York Gazette, and The Maryland Gazette.

Each ad in this collection conveys a number of details about the runaway and his/her master, including names and aliases of the runaway, physical description, personality quirks if any, location in New England (including the future states of Vermont and Maine), and where to contact the advertiser. In all, this book contains about 1,200 ads and names over 2,200 persons with connections to colonial New England.

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Founded in 1837, The Baltimore Sun published numerous articles characterizing local, national, and international events relating to and impacting people of color. Beginning with the Reconstruction year of 1870, Margaret D. Pagan has performed the yeoman’s task of scouring the newspaper for all such accounts and summarizing their contents through 1927. To quote historian Donna T. Hollie, who wrote the Foreword to the compilation, “The author has selected articles for this publication which provide an expansive overview of experiences chronicling the African diaspora. For example, the reader will learn of the evolution of ‘Jim Crow,’ regarding housing and interstate travel.  Also included are summaries covering sports, lynching, entertainment, and political, educational, economic and religious activities. The accomplishments of well-known activists such as Frederick Douglass, and lesser-known ones such as Henry Highland Garnet, both Maryland born, are detailed.”

Genealogists searching for Baltimore connections will appreciate that Mrs. Pagan has also included references to marriage license applicants and obituaries. Obituaries, of course, sometimes provide details about the decedent’s family and organizational connections.  Among the more than 800 entries in this chronology, researchers will find references to James B. Parker, the African American who subdued Leon Czolgosz, President McKinley’s assassin; meetings of Baltimore’s Brotherhood of Liberty, the precursor to the Niagara Movement and founding of the NAACP; and efforts to install black teachers in Baltimore’s segregated schools for African Americans. For the researcher’s convenience, the author has included a comprehensive index to names and events referenced in her chronology. For all these attributes and Mrs. Pagan’s careful attention to detail, African American News in the Baltimore Sun, 1870-1927 must certainly be the starting point for anyone interested in black history and genealogy during the era under investigation.

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Some were well described, some not at all. Indented servant John Folsom “had a remarkable homely Countenance.” Sarah Kelly, in describing the woman who ran away with her “loving husband,” referred to that woman’s “short flat Nose, like the Nose of a Skunk, with a scalded Head, has the Itch, and is lousey, very much given to lying and whoring.”

This compilation lists all individuals mentioned. If an individual is listed with more than one name, all the names appear in the index. Mr. Boyle examined 28 newspapers from New England to Maryland, including The Boston News-Letter, The Boston Post-Boy, The Boston Gazette, The Connecticut Courant, The Connecticut Gazette, The Massaxhusetts Spy, The New Hampshire Gazette, The Pennsylvania Gazette, The New York Gazette, and The Maryland Gazette.

Each ad conveys a number of details about the runaway and his/her master, including names and aliases of the runaway, physical description, personality quirks if any, location in New England (including the future states of Vermont and Maine), and where to contact the advertiser. In all, this book contains about 1,200 ads and names over 2,200 persons with connections to colonial New England.

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Some, though not all, of Mr. Boyle’s runaways are well described. For example, Deserter Benjamin Furrow was missing the thumb of his left hand; John Nicholas “has a large scar on the forehead between him eyes, which he says was made with a cutlass”; and John Rimner was “marked and scarred very much with the King’s Evil under his Chin and on his Neck.”

In compiling the present work, Mr. Boyle examined 25 newspapers from New England to Maryland. Each ad conveys a number of details about the runaway and his/her master, including names and aliases of the runaway, physical description, personality quirks if any, location in New England (including the future states of Vermont and Maine), and where to contact the advertiser. In all, this book contains about 1,500 runaway ads and names over 3,000 persons with connections to colonial New England.

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Mr. Boyle assembled this list of New York runaways for the period 1769-1783 from The New-York Gazette, The New-York Weekly Journal, The New-York Chronicle, The New York Mercury, The New York Morning Post, The New York Packet and American Advertiser, and 40 other papers published from New England south through Maryland. Among those are the Boston Gazette, The Connecticut Gazette, The Maryland Gazette, and The American Weekly Mercury. In all, Mr. Boyle has transcribed upwards of 1,400 ads for missing persons, referencing about 3,000 persons with New York connections.

Each ad conveys a number of details about the runaway and his/her master, including names and aliases of the runaway, physical description, personality quirks if any, location in New York, and where to contact the advertiser. Besides indentured servants and runaway slaves, Mr. Boyle includes ads for military deserters, horse thieves, counterfeiters, burglars, jail breakers, an occasional murderer, enemies of the United States, in this collection.

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From the genealogist’s standpoint, the runaway poses a methodological problem, since it was in the runaway’s best interest to conceal his/her identity after making a successful getaway. In other words, even if the runaway kept the same name, it is quite likely that the link to his original residence in America and to his country of origin was lost–lost, that is, unless his/her identity was uncovered in the thousands of, often very detailed, runaway ads placed in colonial newspapers by the disgruntled “owners.” And this is precisely where the research and publications of Joseph Lee Boyle come in.

Mr. Boyle assembled this list of New York runaways for the period 1706-1768 from The New-York Gazette, The New-York Weekly Journal, The New-York Chronicle, and 27 other papers published from New England south through Maryland. Among those are the Boston Gazette, The Connecticut Gazette, The Maryland Gazette, and The American Weekly Mercury. Although we will never know precisely how many New York indentured servants and other runaways fled their masters–the first New York newspaper did not commence until 1726–Mr. Boyle has transcribed upwards of 1,500 ads for missing persons, referencing more than 3,000 persons with New York connections.

Mr. Boyle’s fascinating Introduction to this volume not only explains his methodology, but also provides fascinating glimpses of the runaways and their motivations. Here is a sampling: “J. Sebastian Stephany recorded his ‘Negro Fellow’ Pompey ran away, though his left Legg is a wooden one. . . . A Negro man named Scipio ran away though he ‘had his arms pinioned behind him.’ Eva Hukel, a runaway German servant girl was only twelve years old. . . . Alexander McCormack, a Ditcher was advertised in New Jersey but ‘has a Wife in New York, named Mary, with a Son about 18 Months old.'”

Besides white male and female runaways this work cites a number of runaway apprentices, both men and women, military deserters, horse thieves, burglars, jail breakers, and perpetrators of serious offenses.

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With his latest book, Robert Barnes has made one aspect of the aforementioned chore much easier. This remarkable book contains advertisements for missing relatives and lost friends from scores of newspapers published in Maryland, Pennsylvania, Delaware, and Virginia, as well as a few from New York and the District of Columbia. The newspaper issues begin in 1719 (when the American Weekly Mercury began publication in Philadelphia) and run into the early 1800s. The author’s comprehensive bibliography, in the Introduction to the work, lists all the newspapers and other sources he examined in preparing the book. The volume references 1,325 notices that chronicle the appearance or disappearance of 1,566 persons.

The notices are arranged alphabetically by the surname of the missing person. The majority of the notices mention a place of birth, date and last place of residence, and relationship, if any, to the person who posted the notice. Some go quite a bit further, citing the names and ages of family members, occupation, military service, and so forth. Many contain the reference, “to his/her advantage,” suggesting that something of monetary value was waiting for the missing person. In a number of instances, Mr. Barnes was able to enhance the original notices with additional information on the sought-after individuals. This work references about 5,000 persons, everyone of whom is named in the index at the back of the volume.

NB. Missing Relatives and Lost Friends contains no notices pertaining to runaway wives, servants, or slaves, as these were so numerous as to fill another volume.

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