In 1840, almost 30 years before the first Juneteenth celebration, the population of Carroll County was 17,421. Three years earlier, in 1837, there were 1,044 slaves living in the County. According to Nancy Warner’s “Carroll County Maryland--A History 1837-1976,” there was even a value of $220,400 placed on the aggregate number of slaves in Carroll County. In one of the many ironies of the history of slavery in Carroll County, the northern part of the county, whose residents did not generally own slaves, supported the southern states during the American Civil War. Southern Carroll County, which owned two-thirds of the slaves in the county, supported the northern states. Maryland emancipated its enslaved population on Oct. 13, 1864 upon the ratification of the Maryland Constitution of 1864. On March 22, 1867, the Maryland General Assembly passed legislation to record the number of slaves who had been emancipated in 1864. A number of years ago, local historian Duane K. Doxzen reported in research for the Historical Society of Carroll County that Carroll County appointed Lewis Welsh as Commissioner of slave statistics, and the compilation was finished in 1869. “The original (‘slave statistics’) records are housed in the office of the Clerk of the Circuit Court in Westminster. Copies of these records are part of the collection of the Historical Society of Carroll County,” notes Doxzen. In additional research on freeing slaves in Carroll County, Doxzen reports, “After the formation of Carroll County in 1837 from parts of Baltimore and Frederick counties, the register of wills in Westminster began recording manumissions of slaves from wills of county residents. Some of Carrolls slaves, though not most, were freed through the wills of their masters before the end of the Civil War and the abolition of slavery in Maryland.” The ‘Manumissions From Wills’ record for this county, covering the years 1837-1865, is located at the office of the Register of Wills/Clerk of the Orphans Court in Westminster. Morning Sunday, reporting
Posted on: Tue, 11 Mar 2014 17:05:34 +0000
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