ABSTRACT
SAMUEL CLARK, a free colored man, lived in West Nottingham, Chester County, Pennsylvania, near the line that separated that State from Maryland. He was orderly and industrious, and had a wife and several children, whom he supported comfortably. On the night of 25th of 10th mo. 1801, his house was suddenly broken open and five men rushed into it with great violence, and immediately seized several of the family and attempted to carry them off. Clark was at no loss to discover the object of his assailants, and resisted them to the utmost of his power, when one of the company fired a pistol, and wounded the old man in his hand and arm severely, and a daughter, about eighteen years old, received a shot in the neck, which, after a few days, caused her death. Clark and his wife were considerably advanced in life, and the child of whom they wore thus bereft, was of much service to them in supporting the family. After a hard struggle, they succeeded in carrying away a brother to the girl they had thus deliberately murdered. He was a young man, and, at the time, confined to his bed with severe illness. They beat him on the head with an axe helve, until they had almost deprived him of life. They then conveyed him a few miles, to the house of a man by the name of Reynolds Hare; they ordered him to go into the meadow and get some horses, on which they intended to carry him away. He was bruised and wounded, and almost covered with blood, and they, no doubt, thought he was so crippled that he would be unable to make his escape. However, after getting out of their sight, he went into a barn and secreted himself under some chaff and straw. Not returning as soon as they expected, they went in search of him, and he said they literally walked over him, and he heard them swear they would kill him if they could find him. But they were disappointed; and after they were gone, he made an 90attempt to go home. When within about a mile of his father’s house, and in the woods, he fainted and did not recover sufficient consciousness to find the way home for more than twenty-four hours, and when he arrived there, he found his sister languishing under the wound she had received from the ruffians who had kidnapped him, and the whole family overwhelmed with grief. His parents had given up the prospect of ever seeing him again, and when he made his appearance among them, it seemed, as the old man afterwards expressed himself to a friend, as though he had risen from the dead.
