Archives of Maryland
(Biographical Series)

Edward Brannum (b. circa 1805 - d. ?)
MSA SC 5496-050597
Fled from Rockville, Montgomery County, Maryland, 1856

Biography:

Twenty-eight-year-old Edward Brannum, nicknamed Ned, escaped from his enslavement in Rockville on July 5, 1856. The slaveholder Henry Harding offered a $200 reward for Brannum's capture, advertising in both the Baltimore Sun and the Montgomery County Sentinel.1sHarding's farm stood south of Rockville near the Cabin John Creek. At the time of his escape, Brannum was one of eight other slaves on the farm: George (b. 1814), another Edward (b. 1828), Fanny (b. 1832), Maria (b. 1834), Robert (b. 1838), Lewis (b. 1841), George (b. 1842), and Lucy (b. 1844).2 Harding's advertisements described Brannum as "five feet eight inches high, bright mulatto, thick suit of straight black hair, very little beard, grey eyes and light colored eyebrows. He is quite intelligent and has a fine address."

Harding believed that abolitionists had assisted Brannum in fleeing, "most likely in a vessel freighted with coal from Georgetown, D.C."3 Considering the location and time period, Brannum may have escaped aboard the ship of the "Powder Boy," an agent who periodically worked with abolitionists William Still and Jacob Bigelow in transporting groups of runaway slaves to Pennsylvania.4 References to the Powder Boy appeared throughout many of Bigelow's letters in 1855 and 1856.5 Whether the Powder Boy was indeed assisting Brannum is unknown, but it is a strong possibility.


1.     "$200 Reward." Montgomery County Sentinel 12 July 1856. Maryland State Archives.
        "Two Hundred Dollars Reward." Baltimore Sun 10 July 1856: 2. Baltimore Sun Historical Archive.

2.     MONTGOMERY COUNTY, BOARD OF COUNTY COMMISSIONERS, (Assessment Record, Slaves), 1853-1864, [MSA C1112-1]. Slaveholder: Henry Harding. Slave: Edward. Page 55, 1853.
        Ibid. Henry Harding. Slave: Edward. Page 131, 1855.

3.     "Two Hundred Dollars Reward." Baltimore Sun 10 July 1856: 2. Baltimore Sun Historical Archive.

4.     William Still. The Underground Railroad (Philadelphia, PA: Porter & Coates, 1872) 183.
         Bryan Prince. A Shadow on the Household: One Enslaved Family's Incredible Struggle for Freedom (Toronto: McClelland and Stewart, 2009) 118.

5.     Still 183, 187-188.
  

Researched and written by Rachel Frazier, 2010.

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