Dr. Smith is known to have owned as many as three enslaved persons, one of whom tried to escape twice. He arrived in Chestertown with one enslaved person, a teenaged or young woman named Dinah. She no doubt worked in the Smith home under the direction of Dr. Smith’s wife, Rebecca.
The second was a young man named Cyrus, who tried to run away twice, but was captured each time. He was put up for sale or hire in 1803 after Dr. Smith had left Chestertown. The sales advertisement described him as an able farm worker “immoderately given to drink.” This latter characteristic he apparently shared with Dr. Smith himself!
In 1783, Dr. Smith purchased a boy named Primus, who was described as “a favorite Negro body-servant of Dr. Smith.” Primus was part of the Smith household until he died in 1801.
Dr. Smith solicited funds from major land holders across the Eastern Shore to establish his college.
Albin Kowaleski, a 2007 alumnus of Washington College, researched 1790 census data and learned that only 14 of the 356 original donors did not own slaves. Those first subscribers included some of the state’s most prominent citizens, including members of the Lloyd family, William Paca, and several members of the Goldsborough family, as well as George Washington, who gave his name and the sum of 50 guineas to the institution.
Further evidence of the involvement of Chester Parish in slavery is documented in the federal census of 1790. Comparing a list of parishioners who rented pews in 1772 with that census for Kent County shows that 63 of 72 pew owners were owners of enslaved men and women.
The Ringgold family was one of the most prominent families in Kent County in the 18th century and most of them were members of Kent Parish Chapel, the predecessor of today’s Emmanuel Episcopal Church. Thomas Ringgold, a member of that church who died in 1772 at the age of 82, is known as one of the biggest slave traders in the county. Other Ringgold church members include William Ringgold, who owned 11 slaves, James Ringgold who owned 10, and a second James Ringgold who owned 31.
Members who served on the vestry or as wardens in 1772 were Thomas Wilkins and Moses Alford, who owned two enslaved persons each. In subsequent years, church leaders who held human beings in slavery were John Angier, owner of six enslaved people in 1774; Michael Corse and Simon Wickes, who owned seven and 14 enslaved persons in 1779; and in 1802, Thomas Worrell and Simon Wilmer, who owned six and 19 enslaved persons respectively.
This article concentrates on the period from 1767 until 1802, because later records are not available. Yet these records show just how deeply Chester Parish was involved with slavery. Slavery was abolished by a new constitution in Maryland in 1864, which barely managed to be approved by a majority of the state’s voters. In fact, it was only the votes of Union soldiers that took it over the top. It was not approved by a majority of Eastern Shore voters.
