Philadelphia Wilmington Baltimore Railroad Notice to all col

Sale 2105 - Lot 69

Price Realized: $ 9,000

?Final Price Realized includes Buyer’s Premium added to Hammer Price

Estimate: $ 10,000 - $ 15,000

AN EXTRAORDINARY BROADSIDE ANNOUNCEMENT Philadelphia, Wilmington Baltimore Railroad. Notice to all colored people. All Colored People (Bond or Free) wishing to travel on the Philadelphia, Wilmington and Baltimore Railroad, will be required to bring with them to the ticket office, President Street Depot, some responsible white person, A Citizen of Baltimore, known to the Undersigned, to sign a bond to the Company before they can proceed. Passengers from the South or West having Colored Servants, will please prepare themselves to comply with the above rule before proceeding to the Depot, as it will save them much trouble and vexation. Wm. Crawford, Agent. Broadside, 12x9 1/4 inches, printed in silver and gilt on black glazed paper; professional archival repair and restoration along the margins, and partially into the text in the lower left margin; small printer's slug at the bottom margin reads "Wiley Pr, American Building." Baltimore, 1 March 1858

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This broadside was no doubt born out of the complex Passmore Williamson case (see Finkelman, Slavery in the Courtroom, pp 39-43), and other precedents brought about by the Fugitive Slave Law of 1850. In 1855, John Hill Wheeler was en route to New York, on a boat that had docked at the port of Philadelphia. He had with him his slave Jane and her two children. Abolitionist Passmore Williamson slipped aboard the boat with five free black accomplices, and after creating a diversion, was able to urge Jane and her children to leave the boat. Once on Pennsylvania soil, according to Pennsylvania law, they were free. Wheeler, however, brought suit against Williamson and the State, claiming that Jane was a "fugitive," and that Williamson was guilty of aiding her in her escape. The case, involving the collision of federal and state law became a "cause celebre," and dragged on for years. Both steamship companies and railroads instituted rules such as that stated in this broadside to avoid being entangled in litigation. We could find no reference to this poster.