Inventory – stories of Then

paper trail’s Pulse: dissecting the search for Polly

The Baltimore Sun’s printer placed the ad in the last column of page 2, underneath a bounty for Peter Culver who had absconded with a “free boy, hired by me, named Alexander” and an ad for Ohio Flour.

A historical advertisement from the 1850s offering a reward for the capture of a woman named Polly, describing her as a mulatto, not less than forty years old, last seen near West River. — “$150 REWARD,” advertisement. *The Baltimore Sun* (Baltimore, Maryland), July 29, 1855, p. 4. Accessed through Newspapers.com, July 10, 2025. https://www.newspapers.com/article/the-baltimore-sun/176173526/.

Transcription of Bounty

$150 REWARD WILL BE GIVEN FOR THE POSITIVE CONVICTION of any one who shall be guilty of harboring my NEGRO WOMAN POLLY, after a knowledge of this notice, whom I purchased lately of the estate of Dr. Magill.—As I have bought Polly through motives of pure humanity, and at her own request, that she might enjoy the society of her husband and relatives, I feel satisfied that she will come to me unless deceived by some designing person in relation thereto. POLLY is not less than forty years of age, a mulatto of neat and tidy appearance, and was last seen on West River. I will give Twenty Dollars if in Anne Arundel, or Thirty if elsewhere, to any one who shall convince her of the fact of my purchase and secure her to me. I also subjoin a certificate of Dr. OGLE, the owner of Polly’s husband. WM. E. PEACH, M. D., Queen Ann, Prince George’s co., Md.

I hereby certify that I have talked with PETER, the husband of Polly, and he says he is very anxious that she should come home to her master, Dr. Peach, immediately. Peter is in bad health and unable to leave the house. [jy25-St*] GEO. C. OGLE.

Within this mundane context of commerce and control, William E. Peach’s advertisement primarily sought the conviction of the “designing person” who “deceived” Polly and harbored her away from Peach who had purchased her “through motives of pure humanity” and while placing a bounty on the return of Polly so he could “secure her to me” almost as an afterthought.

the skeleton layer: who, what, and where

The basic facts of the notice form the skeleton of the story. In July 1855, Wm. E. Peach, M.D., living near Queen Anne in Prince George’s County sought the return of Polly, “not less than forty years of age” who was purchased from Dr. Magill’s estate. In her escape, she was last seen near West River in Anne Arundel County. He offered a tiered $20-30 for Polly’s return and a significantly larger sum of $150 dollars for the conviction of the “designing person”.

the sinews layer: the network of kin and property

The names in the advertisement are held together by a dense network of marriage and property. William E. Peach, son of Queen Anne District landowner Samuel Peach, had married Sarah Alexander Ma[c]gill in 1852. Sarah was the orphaned daughter of Dr. James Ma[c]gill and Julia Ann Compton, having lost her father in 1840 and her mother in 1846. Her life was split between Prince George’s and Anne Arundel Counties. Before her father’s death, she lived on his 740-acre estate along present-day Annapolis Road, situated between the Jesuit’s White Marsh plantation and Magruder’s Tavern, adjacent to Bel-Air, the Ogle estate.

After Dr. Ma[c]gill’s death, Sarah’s world was destabilized. Her mother’s remarriage to Septimus J. Cook and her mother’s subsequent death resulted in Sarah and her sister, James Anna, being shuffled to Anne Arundel County to live with their aunt and uncle, Samuel and Mary Carr. The Carrs owned land near the Ma[c]gill property at West River, which had been inherited by Sarah’s brother, James P. Ma[c]gill. The 1839 will of Dr. Ma[c]gill had stipulated that Polly and her children be conveyed specifically to his other son, Thomas Ma[c]gill.

This 1861 map of the Queen Anne District illustrates the dense network of kin and property that defined Polly’s world. Highlighted are the lands of S. Peach (the family of her new owner, William E. Peach), Dr. Geo. C. Ogle (the enslaver of her husband, Peter), and Dr. Jas Macgill (her previous enslaver). The close proximity of these estates visualizes the community she was desperate to remain within, turning her flight into a calculated risk to preserve her family bonds.

the heart: her husband and relations

As the estate was divided and re-divided, first through the death of James and then through the death of James’ relict and again, as the children came of age, Polly, “a mulatto of neat and tidy appearance” watched as her extended family was separated, corralled and moved from estate to estate. Individuals were sold to new husbands or liquidated to cover bequests and estate charges.

Amid this decade of instability, a transaction was initiated that would move Polly from her legal owner, Thomas Ma[c]gill, to his sister’s new husband, William Elson Peach. Seizing on this moment, Polly appealed directly to the young doctor, requesting that the terms of his purchase ensure she “might enjoy the society of her husband and relations.” Her husband, Peter, was enslaved by the Ogles at Bel-Air, the neighboring estate. According to a “certificate” from Geo. C. Ogle referenced in the bounty notice, Peter was “in bad health and unable to leave the house.” For Polly, a move away from the Queen Anne area would mean the permanent loss of her husband and the kinship network she fought to maintain.

the skin layer: the language of control and value

At “not less than forty years old,” Polly was an elder in her community. Her labor was likely shifting from fieldwork to tasks essential for the plantation’s maintenance: cooking, nursing, gardening, and sewing. In the logic of chattel slavery, Polly’s advanced age meant her external market value had diminished. This is starkly visible in the twenty-dollar bounty Peach placed on her body; he valued the conviction of the person who disrupted his power more than seven times higher than the return of Polly herself. Peach’s language paints him as a paternalist allowing Polly to “enjoy” her family, yet he simultaneously admits his authority is so weak that he needs help to “convince her of the fact of his purchase” and to “secure her to me.”

Daina Ramey Berry, in The Price for Their Pound of Flesh, discusses the range of attitudes toward elderly enslaved people. While the enslaved community valued their wisdom and the connections they fostered, enslavers saw only a diminished capacity for labor. This led to either “neglectful paternalism” or “disregarded isolation.” Polly, legally conveyed to an orphaned son whose estate was managed by a series of guardians and second husbands, had likely endured years of disregarded isolation as her value was debated in inventories and accounts. Sarah’s marriage to the paternalistic William Peach provided Polly an opportunity to navigate from disregarded isolation into neglectful paternalism. In this transition, she found an opening to assert her own agency.

the blood of the veins: the flow toward kin

Polly was likely living in the Queen Anne District on the former Ma[c]gill estate when Peach finalized her purchase. From there, she had access to travel lanes and turnpikes leading toward Washington, D.C., and the free states north of Maryland. Yet Peach’s ad reports she was last seen in Anne Arundel County near West River, a journey east, away from the most direct path to freedom. This eastward movement was not a mistake; it was a choice. It suggests Polly was seeking reunification with the family members who had been separated from her years before, when James Ma[c]gill first established his Anne Arundel property. Her journey suggests she was seeking reunification with children or other kin who, despite the legal lines drawn in the will, were physically located at the family’s Anne Arundel property. Her flight was therefore a calculated risk, flowing toward the heart of her kinship network, wherever it was located.

I want to acknowledge historians Daina Ramey Berry (The Price for Their Pound of Flesh) and Edward E. Baptist (The Half Has Never Been Told), whose scholarship was foundational to the anatomical metaphor used as an analytical tool in this research.

For those who wish to delve deeper into these topics, I highly recommend reading these books. You can learn more about them on Bookshop.org (I do not receive a commission from these links)

Berry’s Price Per Pound @ bookshop.org

Baptist’s Half Has Never Been Told @ bookshop.org

goodwood: calvert-carter alliance

George Calvert‘s position as a nexus in the Wootton’s Landing Neighborhood was cemented not only through his vast landholdings but also through strategic affinal kinship ties that extended his influence into Virginia. This was a common practice within the planter class to consolidate wealth and forge powerful alliances. This pattern is evident in the 1830 marriage of his daughter, Rosalie Eugenia Calvert, to Charles Henry Carter, a son of the Carter family of Shirley Plantation, one of Virginia’s most powerful slaveholding dynasties. This alliance forged a strategic affinal bridge between a powerful Maryland enslaver network and the Carter dynasty of Virginia.

The scale of the Calvert operation that Carter would come to control is evident in earlier tax assessments. While George Calvert resided at Riverdale in the Bladensburg District in the 19th century, his maintained his Mount Albion plantation in the Wootton’s Landing Neighborhood. In 1828, George Calvert was assessed for 2,777 acres and 93 enslaved people in the Horsepen and Patuxent Hundreds. By 1833, his personal property assessment for the Third District (including what would be Queen Anne District) showed an increase to 100 enslaved people on one list, likely representing the workforce at Mount Albion. Another 1833 list for the same district enumerated 26 enslaved people, possibly those at Oatlands, another Calvert property in the Partnership Neighborhood of Queen Anne District.

Image from 1836 Deed of Trust | mdlandrec.net
Calvert George H_Rosalie Eugenie Carter + husband_AB-11-32-Deed of Trust

Calvert would transfer this property to his daughter in the 1830s. This transfer of property was not merely a familial gift but a calculated transmission of a massive agricultural operation and the enslaved labor force that made it profitable. A Deed of Trust dated November 12, 1836, solidified this alliance and detailed the significant transfer of wealth. The indenture documents how George Calvert conveyed a substantial estate into a trust for his daughter Rosalie’s sole and separate use, managed by himself and Robert E. Lee of Arlington. The assets included a 728 ½-acre tract of land known as “Goodwood,” formerly the core of Mount Albion. Critically, the deed also explicitly transferred the legal title to a community of enslaved people, listing 42 men, women, and children by name and age in an attached schedule. This single transaction established the material basis for Charles H. Carter’s standing within the Prince George’s County enslaver network.

The enslaved population at Goodwood grew under Carter’s control, from the initial 42 individuals in 1836 to 52 by the 1840 census, 58 in 1850, and 76 by 1860. After Rosalie Carter’s death in 1848, the land was conveyed directly to her husband, fully transferring this portion of the Calvert family’s Maryland wealth into the Carter lineage. By 1860, Charles H. Carter’s real estate was valued at $70,000, and his personal estate—a value primarily derived from the external market value of the people he enslaved—was assessed at $55,000. This concentration of wealth and power in the Wootton’s Landing neighborhood was further solidified in the next generation through the marriages of Carter’s daughters, Rosalie Eugenia Carter and Alice Carter, into the Francis Magruder Hall and Oden Bowie families, respectively, perpetuating the cycle of elite kinship consolidation within Prince George’s County.

The reconstruction of kinship networks among the people enslaved at Goodwood is fundamentally obstructed by a documentary void. Two key record sets that typically name enslaved individuals from the late antebellum and emancipation era are missing: a probate inventory for Rosalie E. Carter and a post-emancipation compensation claim from Charles H. Carter. While Rosalie E. Carter created a will, it functioned primarily to affirm the conditions of the 1836 Deed of Trust, which stipulated that all real and personal property would be conveyed to her husband for his lifetime, precluding the need for a separate probate inventory. Furthermore, Charles H. Carter, as a nephew of Robert E. Lee, did not file a compensation claim in 1867 for his formerly enslaved human property, likely due to his Confederate ties.Consequently, research must proceed using a limited set of documents. The primary sources are the 1836 Deed of Trust, which provides a schedule of 42 named individuals, including one, Nelly Brown, with a family name, and the anonymous demographic data in the 1840, 1850, and 1860 U.S. Census Slave Schedules. This direct evidence is supplemented by three runaway slave advertisements that identify additional family names: Lloyd Wood, William Brown, John Williams, Dory Williams, Daniel Nelson, and Davy Hall.

Adverstisements

Daily National Intelligencer, Dec 16 1839 | newspapers.com

📍 wootton’s landing

geographic mapping

enslaver network

Wootton’s Landing Neighborhood, located in the southeastern part of Queen Anne District, bordered the Patuxent River to the east and Marlboro District to the south. The neighborhood’s namesake, Wootton’s Landing, provided direct control for enslavers over the collection, storage, and transport of agricultural commodities produced by enslaved labor. Martenet’s 1861 map shows the landing situated south of Queen Anne Towne and near a mill. This area’s proximity to the Patuxent River, a vital waterway for connecting inland agricultural production to the global market system, and its shared border with Marlboro District, which contained the county seat of Upper Marlboro, underscored its economic significance in pre-emancipation Prince George’s County.

Excerpt from Simon Martenet’s Map of Prince George’s County highlighting Queen Anne District.
Edits by the researcher from original map sourced from Library of Congress.

An 1851 advertisement placed by Margaret Wootton in The Baltimore Sun details the logistical importance of these riverfront properties. In seeking to lease her two landings, Wootton described them as being ‘in the heart of a rich country, producing heavy crops of wheat and tobacco,’ a direct acknowledgment of the output generated by the region’s enslaved workforce. The landings had large stores and granaries to hold both tobacco and grain. Some of the landings were accessible by steamboats, while others required scows, flat bottom sailboats to transfer the goods to the larger vessels likely traveling to Baltimore where merchants would handle the inspection, sale, and final shipment of the hogsheads to international buyers.

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THE GREEN LANDING FOR RENT.– The undersigned wishes to lease for the year, or for a term of years, her TWO LANDINGS on the Patuxent river. These Landings are in the heart of a rich country, producing heavy crops of wheat and tobacco. One of them, known as the “Green Landing,” is the highest point on the river, accessible by steamboats at all times. It has a splendid wharf attached to it; a large Store House sufficient to hold 80 bhds. of tobacco, and an extensive Granary. The other Landing, called “Wootton’s Landing,” and purchased of William Elliott, is still higher up the river, being near Queen Anne. It is accessible at all times by “scows,” which have always carried off an immense deal of freight to boats moored at the Green Landing. There are erected on this Landing also a Store House and Granary, in good repair and of good size. MARGARET WOOTTON. Queen Anne, August, 1851.

Baltimore Sun, Sep 16, 1851 | newspapers.com

calvert nexus: influence and alliances in the Wootton’s Landing neighborhood

This economic significance was directly tied to the individuals who comprised the enslaver networks in the Wootton’s Landing Neighborhood, profoundly shaping agricultural production and commerce. The enslaver networks of Wootton’s Landing were influenced by George Calvert (1768-1838), who married Rosalie Stier, and was one of the wealthiest landowners and enslavers in Prince George’s County during the Imperial Tensions Generation.

The enslaver networks of Wootton’s Landing were dominated by figures like George Calvert (1768-1838), who married Rosalie Stier and, during the Imperial Tensions Generation, became one of the wealthiest landowners in the county. As a lineal descendant of Benedict Swingate Calvert of Mt. Airy, George Calvert inherited a vast portfolio of land that he consolidated into the Mount Albion plantation. This holding, totaling 2,233 acres, was composed of numerous tracts, including “Swanson’s Lot,” “Part of Coolspring Manor,” “Addition to Leaving,” “Griffith’s Purchase,” “Part of Cuckolds Delight,” and “Part of Riley’s Landing,” among others, firmly rooting his economic power in the Wootton’s Landing neighborhood.The 1798 Federal Direct Tax provides a stark inventory of the infrastructure required for such an operation. On this land, Calvert maintained a frame dwelling house, a kitchen, a ‘brick cow house and stables,’ a large corn house, and, critically, an overseer’s house and 14 quarters for enslaved people. This collection of buildings documents a large, forced-labor camp designed for the mass production of tobacco and other crops. The tax list assessed Calvert for 69 enslaved people, making him the largest single enslaver in the Patuxent and Horsepen Hundreds. The scale of his operation, built on the labor of these 69 individuals, surpassed even that of the Jesuit-owned White Marsh plantation managed by John Ashton.