Jones on the Free Black Family in Antebellum Baltimore (and Building Trivia)

Next Friday, October 18, Martha Jones of the University of Michigan will present her paper “Governing the Free Black Family: Reflections on Scenes from Antebellum Baltimore" to the Triangle Legal History Seminar from 4 to 6 pm.  We'll be meeting at UNC Law School's boardroom.  If you're in the triangle I hope you can make it.  (Email me if you're planning on attending so I can arrange for the right amount of parking. And here is a pdf file with directions to UNC Law School.)  This paper is part of Martha's work on African Americans, law, and citizenship in antebellum Maryland.  I blogged about another piece of this project last week, Jean Baptiste, un Créole De Saint-Domingue: Narrating Slavery, Freedom, and the Haitian Revolution in Baltimore City.  Another piece of this expansive and exciting project appeared in the North Carolina Law Review last spring, "Hughes v. Jackson: Race and Rights Beyond Dred Scott."   Also, if you're setting your calendar further ahead than next week, Martha will be giving a public lecture at the National Humanities Center on November 7,  "Citizenship Before Birthright: The Puzzle of Free African Americans Prior to the 14th Amendment."

I'm going to combine this announcement with an antebellum building trivia question that Martha's sent along.  What's the building?  (Since the last building trivia question that Martha sent along was of a Maryland Courthouse I'm guessing this, too, might be a courthouse.)

Comments

[Owen]

The Chowan County Courthouse in Edenton, NC... Haunted by the malarial ghost of Justice Wilson, still trying to escape his creditors.

[Alfred Brophy]

Owen, you are, of course, correct. Nicely done. I don't know the story of Justice Wilson, but this is where State v. Mann was tried, I believe. Sally Greene will know infinitely more about this than I do. And I think Martha also has a story about a manumission that took place here....

Really beautiful courthouse isn't it?

[Owen]

James Wilson, the only Supreme Court Justice to spend time in debtors' prison, was riding circuit in Edenton when he died in 1798. At the time, he owed Senator Piece Butler of South Carolina the tidy sum of $197,000.

[Martha Jones]

Cograts, Owen, and yes, Al. It's fascinating to observe how the Chowan County Courthouse tries to tie together its pasts. (Remember my earlier submission of the Talbot County Courthouse where they have "dueling" monuments: one to the Talbot Boys (who found for the Confederacy) and another to Frederick Douglass.) At Chowan, slavery is tied to the history of the courthouse through the "Harriet Jacobs" self-guided tour brochure. Recall Jacobs escaped from enslavement in part by hiding in her grandmother's attic for seven years. We are told: "In 1828, Hannah Pritchard purchased Molly Horniblow [Jacobs' grandmother] after her owner's death. Miss Pritchard petitioned the Chowan County court to emancipate Molly on April 28, 1828." We didn't find any mention of State v. Mann during our visit.