The daily morning journal and courier., 1897-08-21
CONNECTICUT SLAVES.
Black and White Ones in The Nutmeg
 State.

Black and White Ones in The Nutmeg
 State.
 In the Litchfield correspondence of the Hartford Times is the following: One of the oldest lawyers in this his torlc elm-clad village found two enter taining documents in the handwriting of Oliver Wolcott, the Yale graduate, governor of the state and prominent man of affairs in the last century, a signer of the Declaration of Independ- ence, who made 40,OQ0 bullets out of the Bowling Green statue of King George IT., and who was son of Roger Wolcott and the father of Oliver Wolcott, jr., both governors of Con- necticut.
 The papers in question are of eSpe- cial interest because they deal with se- were old Connecticut laws, now obso- lete, concerning the attachment of the bodies of negro slaves for debts of their masters and the selling of white men 1 into slavery because of their poverty or wrong-doing. Both of the papers were executed by Wolcott as high sheriff, scarcely decade before he as sign err put his name to the sentiment that All men are created free and equal: | that they are endowed with certain in alienable rights; that among these are life, liberty and the pursuit of happi- ness"
 | Wolcott's first paper is dated at Sails bury, in this state, October 21, 1757, and is a receipt for colored slaves, attached, as almost any property would now be. 1 for debt, and turned over to brother of the defendant for safe-keeping. It reads in part:
 Received by me, Gabriel Butcher, of Salisbury of Oliver Wolcott, of Litch- field, sheriff of Litchfield county, four negroes. The one of said negroes is named Tom, aged about 50; another 50; another named Zach, aged about il; named Mary, a woman, and aged about another named Adam, aged about 6 years, which said negroes were on this day taken before ye sd Wolcott by vir- tue of an execution granted out in favor of Jeremiah Hogoboom of Claw crack, against John Butcher of Sails bury. Said execution demands 695-7-2. New York money, and said estate is taken from ye said John, which said estate I hereby promise well and safely to keep till ye tenth day of November next, and then to deliver ye said ne- groes to said Wolcott at ye public sign post in Salisbury"
 When delivered at the post the slaves were invariably sold if the execution by this time had not been satisfied.
 The second instrument has to do with the white mans bondage in this state. and sets forth that whereas the Litch- fin1I A,,yt i,,I oy,t against Nathaniel Chapell a transient person, convicted of theft from Isaac Lawrence of Canaan and Benjamin Richmond of Sharon, he should pay 70 shillings fines and 31 pounds shillings and Il pence costs of court.
 ITO enforce which fines and costs, the said Nathaniel is now committed to His Majesties gaol in Litchfield in said county, as no estate of his was found to satisfy said law.
 And whereas the said court author ized me to dispose of the said Nathan iel in service to any of His Majesties subjects to satisfy said demands for the term of five years, by virtue of which power l hereby dispose of and sell him, the sd. Nathaniel, to Ebenezer Leaven- worth of Woodbury, in sd. county for the term of five years next coming; to have to all intents and purposes him, the said Leavenworth as his master, according to the. law required in such cases.
 As witness my, hand and office in Litchfield, this 20th day of October, A. D. 1762, in the 2d year of His Majesties reign.
 OLIVER WOLCOTT, Sheriff.''
 Investigation of the county court rec ords shortly after the date of this in- strument shows that Chapel did not relish his bondage, for he finally ran away from his master Leavenworth then brought suit against the county to recover the money he had paid for his white slave. He lost the case, how ever.
 The above-mentioned documents are now in the possession of w. L. Ran som, Litchfield lawyer. It is thought they are the only ones of this character in the state. They may be presented tc the Connecticut Historical society.