Across the River to Freedom: Early Black History in Sandwich, Ontario

Schedule of Documents - 6A

Territory of Michigan

County of Wayne

Personally appeared before the undersigned Justice of the Peace in for the said county John M Wilson Esquire who being duly sworn desposeth and saith that on the 10th day of June 1833, Ruthy a mulattos woman the respected wife of Thornton Blackburn was in the custody of the deponent as sheriff of the county of Wayne in the said Territory, in the goal of the said County by virtue of a precept directed to the deponent by Henry Chipman Esquire a Justice of the Peace in and for the said County, commanding the deponent to arrest the said Ruthy as a person held to labour in the state of Kentucky and to deliver her to the agent of the claimant in the said precept named, agreeably to the provision of the act of the Legislation Council of the said Territory in such case made and provided and there on the night of the said 11th day of June the said Ruthy broke and escaped from the said custody in the said goal and the deponent has reason to believe and verily does believe that the said Ruthy unlawfully conspired with some person or persons unknown to the deponent of his own knowledge, to effect her escape.