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“To all whom it may Concern.”
The Governor of this State gives notice, that application has been made to him for the pardon of Nace Dorsey, (free negro) convicted in the Circuit Court for Washington County at its November Term, 1855, and that he will take up the case for final decision, on or after Monday the 7th of April next, until which time protests against the said application will be heard. Nace was convicted of the stealing of one mackerel, worth three cents, and for this huge offence against the laws of God and man, was sentenced to the Penitentiary for eighteen months.
The petitions for Nace Dorsey’s pardon are found in Petition of Peter Middlekauf, Wm Kemple, Samuel King el al., 18 March 1856. Maryland Governor, Miscellaneous Papers, MdHR. Max Grivno in Gleanings of Freedom: Free and Slave Labor along the Mason-Dixon Line, 1790-1860 noted that in the Sharpsburg area Dorsey, a freeman, lived with slaves and passed his evenings in a tavern with white laborers and other "Plain folk".