ABSTRACT
A colored woman, who was a slave to a person residing in Lancaster county, Pennsylvania, left his service and went to Philadelphia, where she married a free man by the name of Abraham Morris. She lived in that city several years with her husband. They had things comfortable about them, and appeared to enjoy life as much as their more wealthy neighbors. But this happy state was not of long duration. Her master by some means discovered where she was, and in the year 1810, sent a man duly authorized to arrest, and either sell her or take her home. He proceeded to Philadelphia and apprehended the woman. Abraham Morris was an intelligent, industrious man, and had by him some money. He applied one hundred and fifty dollars of it to redeem his wife from bondage. The parties applied to Daniel Bussier, 2 a magistrate in the district of Southwark, Philadelphia, to draw up a manumission. The money was paid, the manumission duly executed, and the business settled satisfactorily to all parties. But the man entrusted to arrest and sell the woman, put the amount he received for her into his own pocket, and absconded.
