In Kent County, in the northern part of the State of Maryland, there was at the time of my earliest recollections (and I suppose it yet remains), a small town known as George Town Cross Oats, having a population of about 500 or 600. It was in this town, on the 14th day of May, 1822, A. D., that I inhaled my first supply of air, that my eyes, for the first time, were brought in contact with the beautiful light surrounding the terrestrial world, the earthly home of mankind, and the first sound of

Chestertown was quite a thriving place, having five thousand or more inhabitants, and was the county seat for Kent County. It bordered on the Chesapeake Bay, where we had ready transportation to Baltimore, Md., three or four times a week. There were a large number of wealthy families living there at that time who owned large plantations. On being introduced to my master the next morning I was informed what I was expected to do. I was told that I was coming sixteen years old the next spring, and

On the following Saturday night, after hearing this news, I hired a horse from an old colored man, Jim Willmer, for a bushel of oats. These were waste oats that I had saved from time to time from the horse’s feed. That night I rode to George Town Cross Oats, the place of my nativity. I went in search of a colored man by the name of Joe Brown, arriving at his house about eleven o’clock that night. He had not gone to bed but was smoking his pipe; his wife had retired for the night, so everything w

On Saturday morning, we bid our kind host and benevolent daughters good-by and started on our journey. On account of not being acquainted with the road, we did not reach our destination until about seven o’clock that night. Going down (what we afterwards learned to be Market Street,) we found the markets open and crowded with people. I cannot say we were surprised, but I must confess that we were wonderfully frightened at seeing so many people at one place at the same time. The like was never se

Being at this age a man of an enterprising turn of mind and inclined to be somewhat of an adventurer, or, as some of my readers will say, only extending an acquired habit, I was ready to enter upon any new enterprise that might hold out inducements for benefiting my condition or the advancement of the human family. For the purpose of furthering those ambitious ideas I sought the fraternity of the best and most popular societies as a means to carry out that end. Coming thus far in my history ther