News of Slaves and Free Blacks

SLAVES LIBERATED. –

Col. THOMAS HITE, aided by other philanthropic disposed citizens of Jefferson county, Va., set free eighty of their slaves on Thursday last. The Col., as the agent of the owners, accompanied the negroes to Middleburg, Pa., when handing each individual $40 in money and equipping them all with sufficient clothing, they were set at liberty, and allowed to go wherever they please. – Mail

A lady in Weverton appeals through the New York Journal of Commerce for contributions amounting to $150 to purchase the freedom of James Dent, an old slave, in order that he may emigrate to Liberia where his wife and four children went several years ago, having been liberated by their master. He has raised $100 by his own labor but $150 more is required to secure his liberation.

Runaway Negroes.

We have been informed that a batch of 6 or 8 slaves belonging to Mr. Elias Cheney, of Funkstown, has been missing since Sunday last, and are supposed to have decamped for the good old Democratic Land of Penn. In reference to runaway negroes, we find the following melancholy item of information in the last Williamsport Times:
“Last week we stated that a negro man had been drowned, some distance below Dam No. 6, and yesterday, (Friday,) another negro man was found drowned, near "Duck Island," about 1 ½ miles above town.

Black vs. White-

Four or five persons, male and female, were last week tried in our Court, upon an indictment charging them with being negroes, and with having come from another State into this contrary to the statutes made and provided in such cases. Their genealogy was thoroughly investigated and their features and complexions rigidly scrutinized, but the evidence was insufficient to identify them with the African race, and they were acquitted.

The Circuit Court.

The Trial of Mary Ellen Thomas.

In another column, a brief notice appears of the conviction, in our Circuit Court, of Mary Ellen Thomas (free negro) of murder in the first degree. The murder was committed upon an infant about four months old, son of Mr. William T. Baer, near Sharpsburg in this county, and the facts in the case, as they were detailed by the witnesses, are thus stated by a Hagers-Town Correspondent of the Baltimore Clipper :—

A Painful Injury.

A colored man was brought to the Alms-House in this town, on Monday last, whose foot had on that day been torn from his leg, at or near Williamsport. We could not obtain a correct account of the accident, but we believe the man was working about a Canal Boat, and his foot becoming entangled in one of the ropes, was twisted off in a shocking manner.

Samuel Galloway.

We have received an obituary on the death of Samuel Galloway, an aged colored man, which occurred recently in this place, but as we are not in the habit of inserting obituary notices of colored persons, we can see no good reason for doing so in this instance although we know that Sam was one of the most estimable of our colored population, and has left behind him a character worthy of imitation by those of all colors.