Tobias Martin (b. circa 1811 - d.?)
MSA SC 5496-050612
Part of large slave flight from Poolesville area, Montgomery County,
Maryland, 1831
Biography:
In September 1831, Tobias Martin fled his enslavement along with five other slaves: Collin Brooks, Joe Carroll, Clem Proctor, and the brothers Sandy Swine and George Swine. The slaveholder William Vinson advertised in the Daily National Intelligencer for the slaves' capture,1 describing Tobias Martin as "about 20 years of age, 5 feet 10 or 11 inches high, yellow complexion, thick upper lip, and prominent front teeth."2 All six fugitives wore clothing typical "this season for plantation hands." Vinson's farm stood in the Medleys District of Montgomery County. His slaves escaped one month after the Nat Turner rebellion in Virginia.3
The 1867 Montgomery County Slave Statistics, recorded slaves emancipated
in Maryland in 1864, included a forty-year-old Tobias Martin. Listd as a former
slave of William Vinson's daughter Anne E. Vinson, his age unfortunately matches that
of the Tobias Martin who had fled slavery in 1831.4
1. "150 Dollars Reward." Daily National Intelligencer 14 September 1831: 3.
2. Ibid.
3. Albert Bushnell Hart. Slavery and Abolition: 1831 to 1841 (New York and London: Harper & Brothers Publishers, 1906) 218.
4. MONTGOMERY COUNTY, COMMISSIONER
OF SLAVE STATISTICS, (Slave Statistics), 1867-1868, [MSA C1140-1]. July
17, 1867.
Researched and written by Rachel Frazier, 2010.
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