Bedford County, Pennsylvania
Certificates of Claim

The following items are transcribed or extracted from the "Bedford County Prothonotary and Clerk of Courts Miscellaneous Slave Records," on microfilm number 6586 (LR-278) at the Pennsylvania State Archives, Harrisburg.  Because all three claims followed the exact same legal form, we have fully transcribed only the first claim.  We have listed extracted data for the other two claims.  These are legal copies of the original forms, the originals being supplied to the slaveholders, who took them along with them when they returned to Virginia with the men that they claimed as their property.  The president judge of the Fourth Judicial District, which included Bedford, Huntingdon, Mifflin and Centre Counties, was Judge Jonathan Walker.

Certificate of Claim to Abner Reiley (a negro man)

Filed 5th Nov. 1825
D. Mann Clk.

Pennsylvania Bedford County
Be it remembered that on the fifth day of November AD 1825 before me the subscriber president Judge of the Court of Common Pleas of said county John Boyd of Middleburgh Louden [sic] County State of Virginia having seized & arrested Abner Reiley a negro charged to be a fugitive from labour & the slave & property of the said John Boyd. Whereupon the said John Boyd produces witnesses to wit John B. Hereford and John Adams on the oaths of which witnesses it is proved to the satisfaction of the subscriber that the said Abner Reiley [two words unreadable] is the runaway slave and the property of the said John Boyd all which is hereupon certified accordingly & This certificate thereof delivered to the said John Boyd. The name of the said negro appears to the subscriber as above stated of the male sex of the height of five feet three inches chunky person round full face. The names of the witnesses were as above stated. The place of residence of the said John Boyd is Middleburg Louden [sic] County Virginia & the residence of the said witnesses is Farquiar [sic] County Virginia.

[signed] [copy]

Certificate of Claim to George & Henry (negro men)
(extracted data)

Filed 5th Nov. 1825
D. Mann Clk.

Extract of data:
Claimant: John Adams, Fauquier County, Virginia
Witnesses: John Boyd and John B. Hereford
Descriptions of Men Claimed as Slaves: "George is of the height of five feet six inches square built. Henry is of the height of five feet seven inches spare person."

Certificate of Claim to Charles Peters (a negro man)
(extracted data)

Filed 5th Nov. 1825
D. Mann Clk.

Extract of data:
Claimant: David M. Sheffield, agent of Noble Beveridge, Middleburg, Loudoun County, Virginia
Witnesses: John B. Hereford and John Boyd
Descriptions of Man Claimed as Slaves: No description provided.

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