Participant Info

Slaveholder

Edward Dawson

Locations

Prince George's County, Maryland, 1700s. The plantation was Edward Sr.'s 214-acre "Mill Land" tract on the west of Rock Creek — in what is now Montgomery County, Maryland (Montgomery was carved from Prince George's in 1776).

Researcher

Jesica Dolin

Researcher's E-mail

jesicadolin AT yahoo.com

Researcher Location

Oregon

Comments

While researching for non-online family genealogy, I came across primary records that contain names of those enslaved by my ancestors. Direct free public links to the primary source documents can be found in the website section, along with my summary of what they mean, and my hypotheses about what they could mean. I am the direct descendant of Edward Dawson, and will continue to add more information if I find more. If the direct links don't work anymore, feel free to reach out to me directly, as I have saved high resolution electronic copies of all original documents. I also have a PDF of everything I am putting in the section below, happy to share directly if helpful.

On-line Tree or Website

Part 1 — URLs for the original source documents The primary documents are four Maryland Prerogative Court records from Edward Dawson Sr.'s 1732 estate. One has a direct FamilySearch persistent identifier; the other three are findable on FamilySearch by Liber/folio citation (FamilySearch hosts the Maryland Prerogative Court records as a browse-only collection). Will of Edward Dawson Sr., 15 December 1729, probated 28 June 1732. Maryland Prerogative Court Will Books, Liber 20, folios 398–400. Direct URL (needs free account): https://www.familysearch.org/ark:/61903/3:1:3Q9M-C914-G93L-Y?lang=en&i=686 Estate inventory of Edward Dawson Sr., 28 August 1732. Maryland Prerogative Court Inventories, Liber 16, folios 628–629. Appraisers Ninian Magruder and Ralph Crabb. Supposedly findable on FamilySearch via the Maryland Prerogative Court Inventories collection (browse to Liber 16 / Liber CC No. 11, covering 1730–1732). I found it through this direct link (May 2026): https://mdhistory.msa.maryland.gov/msaref10/msa_te_1_049/pdf/msa_te_1_049-0514.pdf Inventory attestation, 30 November 1732 (the page that names the creditor and the next-of-kin and explains the pre-appraisement seizure). Maryland Prerogative Court Inventories, Liber 16, folio 630. Supposedly findable in the same Liber 16 / Liber CC No. 11 series on FamilySearch. I found it through this direct link (May 2026): https://mdhistory.msa.maryland.gov/msaref10/msa_te_1_049/pdf/msa_te_1_049-0515.pdf Administration account, 26 November 1734. Maryland Prerogative Court Account Books, Liber 12, folios 666–667. Supposedly findable on FamilySearch via the Maryland Prerogative Court Accounts collection (browse to Liber 12 / Liber CC No. 9, covering 1733–1735). I found it through this direct link (May 2026): https://mdhistory.msa.maryland.gov/msaref10/msa_te_1_049/pdf/msa_te_1_049-0483.pdf Two derivative sources cited for corroboration and additional context, both freely accessible: Mike Marshall, Early Colonial Settlers of Southern Maryland and Virginia's Northern Neck Counties — https://colonial-settlers-md-va.us/. Individual report on Edward Dawson Sr. is I16226; on his son Edward Jr. is I48158. WikiTree — Edward Sr.'s collaborative profile is Dawson-1490 (https://www.wikitree.com/wiki/Dawson-1490), which categorizes him as a Prince George's County, Maryland Slave Owner and flags the WikiTree project tag "USBH Heritage Exchange, Needs Slave Profiles." Part 2 — Clear facts from the documents These are the documented facts about the enslaved people held by Edward Dawson Sr. of Prince George's County, Maryland, at his death in 1732. The plantation was Edward Sr.'s 214-acre "Mill Land" tract on the west of Rock Creek — in what is now Montgomery County, Maryland (Montgomery was carved from Prince George's in 1776). The enslaver. Edward Dawson Sr. (born about 1677 in Charles County, Maryland; died June 1732 in Prince George's County). Will dated 15 December 1729, probated 28 June 1732. Wife Mary Henry Dawson (born about 1684; died after 26 November 1734) acted as executrix from 1732 to 1734. Three documented children: Edward Jr. (born about 1700), Mary Dawson Cash Traqueer (widowed 1726, remarried by 1729), and Elizabeth Dawson Perry. Grandchildren named in the will include John Cash Jr. (the son of daughter Mary by her first marriage), Edward Perry (the son of daughter Elizabeth), and Mary Harr (granddaughter, wife of William Harr). The seven enslaved people who appear in the records: Peter (older). "Old Negro Man Peter." Listed in the 28 August 1732 inventory at £25. Bequeathed in the 1729 will to Edward Sr.'s wife Mary Dawson (Mary Henry). Passed to her at probate. No further documentary trace yet found. Sarah (also written "Sary" in the inventory). "Old Negro Woman Sary." Listed in the 28 August 1732 inventory at £25. Bequeathed in the 1729 will to wife Mary Dawson. Passed to her at probate. The will writes "Sarah"; the inventory writes "Sary" — same person; both spellings should be searched. No further documentary trace yet found. Jack. "Negro boy 16 years old Jack" — born about 1716. Listed in the 28 August 1732 inventory at £25. Bequeathed in the 1729 will to Edward Sr.'s son Edward Jr. (with a substitute clause naming him as backup for the widow's bequest if Peter or Sarah died first). Passed to Edward Jr. at probate. Sarah (younger), also "Sary" in the inventory. "Negro girl 15 years old Sary" — born about 1717. Listed in the 28 August 1732 inventory at £22. Bequeathed in the 1729 will to Edward Sr.'s granddaughter Mary Harr (wife of William Harr), together with "all her future Children." The will attached an unusual restriction to this bequest only: "the said Negro [is] not to be Conveyed out of Maryland." She was the only enslaved person in the will who had any geographic restraint attached — a marker worth searching against later Mary/William Harr Maryland records. Unnamed infant. "Little Negro Child 10 Months" — born about October or November 1731. Listed in the 28 August 1732 inventory at £2. No name given in the inventory. No specific bequest in the 1729 will, which was written before the child was born. Maria. Named in the 1729 will only — not in the 1732 inventory. Bequeathed to Edward Sr.'s son Edward Jr. together with "the future Children of the said Maria," a chattel claim on her unborn children. Removed from the plantation before the August 1732 appraisement by creditors acting on a writ. The 30 November 1732 attestation states formally: "two Young Negroes part of the Estate of Edward Dawson Sen.r Deceased left by his Last Will and Testament unto Edward Dawson his Son were attached by his Cred.rs & Carryed away before our Appraisement & Valued at Thirty Pounds Currency." Maria was almost certainly one of these two. A second seized young enslaved person. Unnamed in any surviving document. Taken with Maria by the same creditor under the same writ. Their combined valuation: £30 currency. The creditor who took Maria and the second person. Isaac Lansdale (also "Langsdel"), Prince George's County, Maryland. Identified in the 30 November 1732 attestation as the sole creditor of Edward Sr.'s estate. He is named as a creditor in other Prince George's County estate accounts of the 1730s as well — a regular figure in the county's credit economy, likely a merchant. The 1734 administration account records no cash payment to Lansdale, which means the pre-appraisement seizure of Maria and the second person (valued at £30) was itself the settlement of the debt. (A separate listing on Beyond Kin will be made for Issac Lansdale.) Disposition of the five who remained in the inventory: The 1734 administration account records no sale of any enslaved person to settle administrative debts (£19:0:4 in funeral, sheriff, and Commissary fees were settled in tobacco and currency only). All five passed to heirs per the 1729 will. To Mary Dawson (Mary Henry), the widow: Peter (the older) and Sarah (the older). They were on her dwelling plantation in Prince George's County after 1732. Mary herself was alive at least through 26 November 1734. To Edward Dawson Jr. (born about 1700): Jack, and Maria's seizure-substituted equivalent (Mill Land plus the surviving Peter-or-Jack inheritance — the will's "Peter" name appears in both Mary's and Edward Jr.'s bequests, which may indicate two different Peters in the household or a doubled reference to one). Edward Jr. lived on Mill Land in what is now Montgomery County. His own subsequent will and inventory have not yet been located, so the post-1732 trajectory of Jack is open. To Mary Harr (granddaughter, wife of William Harr): Sarah the girl, with the "not to be Conveyed out of Maryland" restriction. Mary and William Harr's Maryland records would be the place to trace Sarah forward. The 10-month-old: not specifically bequeathed by name (the child was born after the will was written in 1729). If the child was Maria's, the will's "future Children of the said Maria" clause would have passed the child to Edward Jr.; if the child was not Maria's, the will doesn't speak to the child's destination and the residuary clause would govern. Part 3 — Open questions and speculations Four questions remain unresolved, and the research notes below are speculative — included only because they may help a descendant searcher orient toward records we have not yet examined. 1. The identity of the second seized young enslaved person (taken with Maria, valued at £30 together). No surviving document names this person. Three readings have been considered, in order of strength of documentary fit: A younger Peter, distinct from the "Old Negro Man Peter" of the inventory. The will names "Peter" in both the widow's bequest and the son's bequest, which could mean either two different Peters in the household or one Peter referenced twice. If the two-Peters reading is correct, the younger Peter is a strong candidate for the second seized person. A child of Maria's. The will explicitly anticipates "the future Children of the said Maria," and if she already had a child or children by 1732, the creditor may have taken one with her. An enslaved person not named in the 1729 will but added to the household between 1729 and 1732 — possibly through purchase or birth. None of these can be picked between with the records currently in hand. The most tractable lead for resolving it is Isaac Lansdale's own probate and land records in Prince George's County (1730s–1740s), since whatever he took in settlement of the debt would have appeared in his subsequent estate or transaction records. 2. The mother of the unnamed 10-month-old infant. The inventory gives the child's age (10 months) and value (£2) but no name and no mother. Candidates in order of documentary fit: Maria. Strongest. Maria's seizure is documented; the will anticipates her future children; and as a matter of pattern in colonial Maryland, creditors typically removed the productive adult while leaving an unproductive infant on the estate to be cared for by the surviving household. Sarah the girl (age 15 in August 1732, so age 14 at the infant's birth in late 1731). Moderate. The will's "all her future Children" language for Sarah-the-girl anticipates her bearing children, and at 14 she was biologically capable. Unlike Maria's case, however, no corroborating documentary signal beyond the will language survives. The second seized young enslaved person — if she was a young woman, the same removal-and-leave-infant pattern could apply. Possible but undocumented. Sarah the woman. Weakest. The "old" designation in this period's appraisal language typically meant past childbearing age, though late-life births did occasionally occur. 3. Why Sarah the girl had the "not to be Conveyed out of Maryland" restriction. She is the only enslaved person in Edward Sr.'s 1729 will to whom any geographic restraint was attached. The language is unusual. Two readings have been considered; neither is provable: The restriction was meant to keep Sarah the girl near family. Her mother, father, siblings, or other kin may have been enslaved on a neighboring Maryland plantation, and the testator's express clause was meant to prevent the legatee (Mary Harr) from selling her out of state and separating her from those kin. The restriction reflects an acknowledged tie of some kind between Sarah the girl and someone in the Dawson family or their immediate circle. Paternity is one possibility, but other forms of acknowledged relationship are also consistent with the language. The records currently in hand do not let us choose between these. 4. The post-1732 trajectory of Maria and the second seized person. They left the Dawson estate alive (they were "Carryed away," not killed or recorded as dead). The most likely path forward is through Isaac Lansdale's records — his will, inventory, accounts, and any Prince George's County land or deed records of the 1730s and 1740s. If he settled by taking them outright, his own probate would name them; if he sold them on, the deed records may show the transaction. This research thread has not yet been pursued in our project but is the most tractable lead.

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