Mar 21, 2013 - Sale 2308

Sale 2308 - Lot 3

Price Realized: $ 7,200
?Final Price Realized includes Buyer’s Premium added to Hammer Price
Estimate: $ 2,500 - $ 3,500
FUTURE SIGNER OF THE DECLARATION ORDERS THE CAPTURE OF FIVE RUNAWAYS (SLAVERY AND ABOLITION--COLONIAL VIRGINIA.) LEE, RICHARD HENRY. Autograph Document Signed, a search warrant for five runaways. Single 4to leaf, written on one side; some cracks where folded; paper unevenly toned. Signed by Lee with his seal as Justice of the Peace for Westmoreland County Virginia. 26 April 1769

Additional Details

Richard Henry Lee (1732-1794), delegate to the first Continental Congress, sixth President of the U. S. Congress, and signer of the Declaration of Independence, was appointed Justice of the Peace in 1757, and elected to the Virginia House of Burgesses in 1761.
Apparently five slaves, four women and one man, had run away following their purchase, or "deed." The administrator for Daniel Lamkin owner of the "deed" for the slaves asks that the court find them. In this document, Lee commands his constables "to search diligently for the said Negroes Alice, Judy, Sue, Alice and Will, and to make Hue and Cry after them, from Town to Town, and from County to County, as well by Horsemen as Footmen, and when you have apprehended them that you then carry them to the said Matthew Partridge, Administrator for the said Daniel Lamkin's deed.