As we continue to trace persons enslaved by Richard Bennett III of Bennett’s Point, Queen Anne’s County, on the Eastern Shore of Maryland, I have been intrigued by the case of “Dick,” the only enslaved person whom Bennett manumitted in his September 1749 will. As I have previously noted, Bennett devotes a paragraph to this manumission and to gifting Dick his carpentry tools and apparel:
“Item, I do give my Negro man Dick the carpenter his freedom and hereby manumit and set free and at full iiberty my said Negro man Dick, and do him hm all the chest of tools and other tools of every sort which he usually works with, and do also order my executor to give the said Negro Dick one suite of Cloathes made of narrow cloth of shilligngs stocking of hard, two shirts of Irish linen of one shilling and five p? of yard and two shirts of spring ozenbuggs? line, one part of good shoess and one part worsted stockings. one castor hatt and two Romal hankerchiefs. ” (p. 476)
It seems likely that Dick is the same person referenced sixteen years earlier in Criminal Court proceedings in adjacent Kent County, as having been improperly married to a white woman, Amy Nabb, a “spinster,” without due authorization. The court in its August 1734 session sanctions neither Dick nor Amy, but rather the Anglican Rector of Shrewsbury Parish, Rev. Richard Sewell, who one year earlier (22 July 1733) had performed the wedding ceremony:
“Richard Sewell of Shrewsbury parish [on the] twenty second day of July at the parish afd [aforesaid] in the County afd within the same Jurisdicion did joyn Negro Dick the proper slave of Richard Bennett Esq.r and Amy Nabb of the same parish and CountySpinster then within the same parish residing in Marriage without any publick cation according to the rubrick of the Church of
England of their intent to Marry at any Church or Chappel..”
Rev. Sewell acknowledged the charges against him, and the Court fined him as follows:
The afd (aforesaid) Richard Sewell be find [fined] the sum
of five thousand pounds of Tobacco Debt according to Act of
Assembly in such case made and provided as a fine for
joyning the afd Negro Dick and Amy Nabb in Marriage
Contrary to the Act of Assembly thereof in such case made
in form afd confest and also pay the sum of two hundred
and ninety eight pounds of Tobacco costs accruing on the
premisses afd to the officers of this Court &c” (Source: Archives of Maryland. Vol 567, pp, 551-52. Kent County Criminal Court Records, 1728-1734
https://msa.maryland.gov/megafile/msa/speccol/sc2900/sc2908/000001/000567/html/am567–552.html
The first church in Shrewesbury Parish, one of the oldest Anglcian parishes in the Province of Maryland, was constructed around 1693 at the head of Turner’s Creek, and rebuilt in brick in 1729. The parish had initially been within the bounds of Cecil County, but is now located in Kennedysville, in northern Kent County, about 45 miles north of Bennett’s Point, the principal residence of Richard Bennett III after his marriage to Elizabeth Rousby.
In 1697, Rev Richard Sewell was appointed by Governor Rev. Francis Nicholson to what were known as the two parishes of Cecil County, North and South Sasafrass, which encompassed Shrewsbury.
Richard Bennett III asserted that all his enslaved people were instructed in the Catholic faith, so it is a little puzzling that Dick was married in an Anglican ceremony; perhaps Rev Sewell was the only local clergyman willing to perform the nuptials.
In any event, Rev Sewell appears to have been well situated in the county. His daughter Mary Anne Sewell married Thomas Hepbourn around 1745 and bore at least four children. i do not see any other criminal complaints recorded against him during his long tenure in the parish.
The Shrewsbury Parish records (MSA SC 2513-1, M 339) record weddings, births and deaths in the parish during the 1730s, but I see no reference to the matrimony of Amy Nabb and Dick. Perhaps, given the legal complexities, the reference was deleted from the register.
Who was Amy Nabb and how did Dick know here?
Richard Bennett owned extensive land in Kent County, including in Shrewsbury Town, evidently near the church where the 1733 wedding was conducted. In 1692, Bennett acquired Worton Manor on Steel Pond Creek in Kent County, a property he subsequently resurveyed and expanded; it is possible that Dick was placed at one of Bennett’s Kent County properties the 1730s and met Amy Nabb there, or they may have had a different connection.
I have not yet seen another reference to an Amy Nabb in Eastern Shore records.
I see two Nabbs in Kent County late 18th century records:
- Elisha Nabb, who served in Maryland’s Captain John Dane’s Company (Queen Anne’s County) during the American Revolution, who is listed in the Kent County assessment records in 1783 (Elisha Nabb. KE 1st District, p. 10. MSA S 1161-7-1 1/4/5/50) and in the 1790 census, when he owned 8 slaves; he subsequently moved to Havre de Grace.
2, Margarette Nash in the 1790 census in Kent County, owning five slaves.
Perhaps, Amy Nabb was a daughter of John Nab or Nabb, who died in Queen Anne’s County in 1710 or his brothers Charles Nabb and Richard Nabb, all sons of John Nabb who died in 1707. Charles Nabb married Elizabeth Wyat on 20 Apilr 1737 in Queen Anne’s County. James Nabb, whose will is dated 1 December 1756, names his wife Elizabeth his executor. In turn Elizabeth Nabb (widow of James Nabb) died in 1768 and leaves her estate to be divided among her children, none of them named Amy. Joseph Nabb, who died in 1776, mentions his daughters Rebeccah and Mary (?) but no Amy.. The 1776 Maryland census for Queen Anne’s County lists a Sarah Nabb, in the Town Hundred (MSA Box 2, f. 19, p. 4. MSA S 1419-11-11773)
What was the relationship between Dick and Richard Bennett III?
Since “Dick” is a nickname for Richard, the same first name as Richard Bennett, and since Dick was the only slave of Bennett’s to be privileged with manumission (and accorded matrimony with a white woman by Reverend Sewell) it seems a reasonable hypothesis that Dick was the biological son of Richard Bennett III and an enslaved woman.
Presumably, after the 1734 court ruling the marriage of Dick and Amy ceased to have any legal force: I do not know if they continued to cohabit. Any child birthed by Amy Nabb, as a white woman, would have been considered freeborn and not enslaved. It is possible that Dick sired children with an enslaved woman or women on the Bennett plantation or elsewhere; if so, all the children mothered by enslaved women would have legally been considered enslaved.
What happened to DIck?
The 1776 Maryland census does not list a free Black man “Dick” in Queen Anne’s County, but does list a free Black man “Dick” residing in Mill Hundred of adjacent Talbot County (Box 2, f. 23, p. 5. MSA S 1419-1-11835)
Regularized freedom certificates were not issued in Maryland until 1805, which was probably too late to record Dick, who might have been born around 1710. The Register of freedom certificates in the state may well have recorded his descendants. (See QUEEN ANNE’S COUNTY REGISTER OF WILLS (Certificates of Freedom) MSA CM856-1 and MSA CM856-3)
I would be grateful for any guidance as we search for records of the free man Dick and his descendants.
Mark Auslander 