Escape of a Slave

Marietta Intelligencer, June 19, 1845

On Wednesday the 11th inst., the Steamboat "Allegheny Mail" passed this place bound for Pittsburgh. She grounded on Carpenter's bar, five miles above this place, and in the course of the night a servant boy of John O. Price of Maryland, aged 15 years, made his escape from the boat to parts unknown.

The account Mr. P. gives of the matter is this. He had been to Cincinnati and while there this boy was permitted to go where he pleased. He made no attempt to escape, and was apparently anxious to return home to Maryland with Mr. Price, who thinks the boy would never have left him had he not been over-persuaded by professed friends, as his mother and other relations are in Mr. P's hands.

When he was missed on the morning of the 12th inst., it was feared that he had fallen overboard. But some of the hands on the boat say that in the course of the night, they overheard a man in the garb of a Quaker, who is from the western part of this county and who got on board the boat at Harmar, talking with him and endeavoring to persuade him to escape. He was also missing and it was then concluded that they had gone off in company.

Mr. Price desires it to be understood that if the boy wishes to remain at liberty, he can do so. He will give no reward to any body to return him or give information where he may be found unless the boy wishes to go back. If however he desires to return, and will call at Mr. John Marshall's in Marietta, Mr. Marshall will "ship him" to Wheeling and make arrangements so that he can get to Mr. Price's residence at Golden P.O., Maryland.

If the boy is half as anxious to get back as his late master thinks he will be, he will doubtless be thankful to us for giving him information that he can have the privilege of returning. But if he prefers liberty to slavery (and strange as Mr. Price may think of it, there are a great many black as well as white boys who do prefer it), he will perhaps make good use of the privilege he has already taken and save any body the trouble of "shipping him" to Wheeling or elsewhere.