ABSTRACT
Samuel Curtis was a slave to Joseph Spear, at North Carolina. He was an active, intelligent man and was employed in transporting tar that was manufactured by his master, and other matters, the produce of the place, down Tar river to a town called Tarborough. After some time Samuel came to the conclusion, if possible, to be free, and he accomplished his object in the following manner. His name, while he resided in North Carolina, was Manuel but there was a free colored man who lived in the same neighborhood by the name of Samuel Curtis, and he proposed to him to get a pass, and he would buy it of him. Curtis accordingly applied to the Clerk of the county where he resided, and procured a certificate of his freedom, duly authenticated, with the county seal attached, and sold it to Manuel for two dollars, who now determined to make the best of his way to Philadelphia. The next trip he made to Tarborough, after delivering his cargo as was customary, he left his boat at that place and started for the North. He now assumed the name of Samuel Curtis, and was afterwards known by it. Having “a free paper,” he had no difficulty on his journey. Some months after he arrived at Philadelphia he commenced the business of a chimney sweep-had several boys, and soon laid by money. After being in that city a year or two, he met, in the street, one of his master’s near neighbors, who was well acquainted with him. The stranger accused Curtis with being a runaway, apprehended him and took him to Robert Wharton 2 who was then Mayor. Upon appearing before that magistrate, the stranger informed him that the prisoner was a fugitive slave, who had eloped from one of his neighbors. Curtis denied that he was a slave, and exhibited his certificate of freedom. The stranger admitted the authenticity of the document, and observed that he 80knew the signature was in the proper hand-writing of the Clerk, and said the seal affixed was the seal of the county, but he informed the Mayor that the name of the man he had arrested was Manuel, and not Samuel Curtis–that he also knew Samuel Curtis, who was a free man then living in North Carolina. The Mayor remarked that he could not receive parole evidence on contradiction of a public record, and accordingly set Curtis at liberty. Curtis considering himself no longer safe in Philadelphia, went to Boston, and he had been there but a few days, when he met the man in the streets of that city, who had arrested him in Philadelphia. Fearing he might not succeed as well there as he had in the place he had but a little time before left, he determined to return to Philadelphia. While in Boston, during his absence from his lodgings, his trunk was broken open and about one hundred and fifty dollars stolen. He now began to conclude his lot was hard, and that he should never find a place of safety; however, he returned to Philadelphia, and there pursued his business with diligence and industry, and every year saved some money, which he regularly put out to interest, in safe hands. At length he took a lot on Powell street, in that city, and erected a good three story brick house on it, in which he resided as long as he lived.
