ABSTRACT
A colored woman and three of her children, (two sons and a daughter,) were slaves to Joshua Purnell, of Dorchester county, Maryland, and about the year eighteen hundred and six, left his service, and went to Philadelphia. The mother was near forty years old, and all the children were between the ages of twelve and eighteen. They had resided in Philadelphia about a year, when Purnell was informed where they live, which was in the Northern Liberties. He went to that city, and after procuring the requisite authority, had them all arrested and committed to prison as his slaves. They had but recently left him, and when taken, readily confessed that they were his slaves. The magistrate before whom they were taken, Frederic Wolbert, told me he very much regretted that he was under the necessity of sending them to prison, but as they acknowledged they were the slaves of Purnell, and had run away, he could not avoid doing so.
