Feb 21, 2008 - Sale 2137

Sale 2137 - Lot 8

Price Realized: $ 1,680
?Final Price Realized includes Buyer’s Premium added to Hammer Price
Estimate: $ 2,500 - $ 3,500
SAMUEL SPRIGG, FUTURE GOVERNOR, ORDERS 1000 COPIES OF A RUNAWAY SLAVE BROADSIDE (SLAVERY AND ABOLITION.) SPRIGG, SAMUEL. Two Hundred Dollars Reward. Ran Away from the Subscriber. . . . Autograph Letter Signed to Washington D.C. printers Gales and Seaton. Folio, single leaf folded to form four pages, written on two and docketed on a third. Excellent condition. Prince George County, Maryland 24 June, 1815

Additional Details

Sprigg writes: "You may oblige me by having one thousand copies of the inclosed (sic) advertisement struck immediately. You will have it inserted in your country paper."
"Two Hundred Dollars Reward. Ran away from the subscriber on the night of the 21st inst., a mulatto man named Billy (who calls himself William Whitington). A stout, well made fellow about six feet high and thirty years of age--had on coarse linen shirt and overalls, hat and shoes, and took with him a new shirt of coarse linen, and a dark great coat--at the same time in company of a Negro man named Clem (Clem Hill). He is a tall, handsome black fellow upwards of six feet high, about twenty years old and remarkably active--his dress was coarse linen pretty much worne (sic) and a hat--I will give the above reward for the two if brought home--but for both or either of them if secured in any jail so that I get them again, I will give the rate of sixty dollars each." Samuel Sprigg, the sixteenth governor of Maryland, was born in Washington County, Maryland in 1783. His early education was in the common schools of the state. He later studied law and was admitted to the bar in 1808. He served three terms as governor of Maryland.