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‘A Servant Boy’
16 Year Old Chattel Barney Campbell Stole Himself
© 2017 James LaFond
SEP/24/17
September 29, 1768
The Pennsylvania Gazette
Lancaster, September 20, 1768.
RUN away from the subscriber, a servant boy, [1] named BARNEY CAMPBELL, born in the north of Ireland, about 16 years of age, about 5 feet high, well set, black hair, is pitted with the small pox, and hath a scar on his right cheek, near his eye. [2]
He hath for some time past been at the tanner business, and hath no other clothes with him (it is thought) than such as are much dirtied, and appear as if worn by a person accustomed to work at that business, which are thought to be a light coloured cloth coat, a coarse linen shirt and trowsers, shoes, and an old hat. [3]
It is supposed he is gone towards Carlisle, as he hath been seen on the road leading from Lancaster to that place.
Whoever takes up the said servant, and secures him in any goal, so that his master may have him again, shall have Twenty Shillings reward; but if brought home to his master, the subscriber, in Lancaster, Thirty Shillings, and reasonable charges, paid by CASPER SINGER.
N.B. It is supposed he is with one John O'Brian, a runaway, an artful fellow, and knows most parts of the country.
Notes
1. Boy is the original English term for a male slave. Servant is a term designating any unfree person, adopted for use in the King James bible to denote a variety of slave types.
2. He has likely been beaten by his master.
3. He has one change of worn, dirty clothes and no shoes.
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