Penningtons, runaways from Smith & Grove, Sharpsburg, 1854

Slaves Arrested

A telegraph despatch to the Baltimore Sun announces that the slaves of Capt. David Smith and Jacob H. Grove, Esq. of Sharpsburg in this county, three in number, were arrested in New York, on Thursday last. They acknowledged themselves to be slaves; were immediately given up by the Commissioner and sent to Baltimore.— They ran away from their owners on the previous Sunday. We copy the following additional particulars from the Baltimore Sun of Monday —

"The three fugitive slaves, Stephen H. Pembroke, aged 45, Robt. Pembroke, aged 17, and Jacob Pembroke, aged 20, arrested in New York on Friday, and given up without any undue excitement, arrived in this city on Saturday morning. Two of them belong to Mr. David Smith, and the other to Mr. Jacob H. Grove, of Washington County. Mr. Culver, counsel for the fugitives, obtained a writ of habeas corpus just as they were leaving New York, but too late to prevent. It is said they expressed a willingness to return home. The Tribune publishes the pedigree of the Pembroke family, who, it says, are descendants of a Mandingo Prince taken from Africa about a hundred years ago. The Rev. Dr. Pennington, a colored clergyman in New York, is said to be a brother of the fugitive Stephen Pembroke. A sympathy meeting was to have been held in Pennington’s church last evening. It appears that in going to New York, Messrs. Smith and Grove were in the same train, which left Philadelphia with the fugitives. The latter got out at Newark, and subsequently went on to New York where they were soon after arrested, being found secreted in a room in Thompson street, Deputies U. Marshals De Angelis and Horton accompanied the fugitives back to Baltimore, to prevent a scene.