The defense attorney’s request for a trial by jury was granted. Under the Fugitive Slave Act of 1793, accused fugitive slaves were tried by local judges or magistrates, and not by jury trials. This Mount Holly trial is the only known jury trial to rule on a fugitive slave case, and this one exception has been nearly forgotten.
Frederick Douglass reprinted the details about the trial in The North Star. The National Era [Washington, D. C.] had printed the article under the same title in its November 18, 1847 issue, a week after briefly mentioning the story in a shorter version and crediting the Daily News for the original report. The Daily News was apparently a Philadelphia newspaper that published under that banner in 1847.
December 3, 1847
The North Star
Rochester, New York
THE INTERESTING SLAVE CASE OF MOUNT HOLLY.
FIRST TRIAL OF THE KIND IN THIS COUNTRY BY JURY – VERDICT IN FAVOR OF THE MASTER – THE MILTIARY CALLED OUT!
We subjoin a brief statement of facts of the arrest of three negroes at Mount Holly, under the plea that they were slaves. Independent of the natural abhorrence which exists among us against slavery, the trial has an interest, as being the first ever held in this country. We give the facts as narrated by a friend.
This highly interesting and important slave case took place in Mount Holly, New Jersey, and was very unexpectedly decided last evening. It was a claim made by Mr. John Roth, a slave holder, who resides in Cecil County, State of Maryland, to recover, as fugitive slaves, Perry Henson, Noah Henson, and Rachel Pine, three respectable colored citizens, who have been residing for several years in the neighborhood of Mount Holly – two of them being married and one having a family of children. These persons were seduced from their homes on Thursday last, on the pretended claim for taxes. On arriving at Mount Holly, in the evening, they were all seized as fugitives, by a warrant, and taken before Judge Hayward. Some of their friends hearing of it that night, assembled very early in the morning, and employed for them as counsel Mr. R. D. Spencer, of Mount Holly, who went before the said judge, and demanded a trial by jury, under a recent law by the state of New Jersey, which was granted, and the hearing postponed until yesterday morning, when Messrs. Stratton and Moffit, of Mount Holly appeared as counsel for the claimants, and Mr. Spencer, assisted by Mr. Paul Brown of Philadelphia, for the defendants. At the onset of the case, Mr. Stratton attempted to prevent the exercise of peremptory challenge of three jurors, which however was overruled by the court. Upon the jurors being called by Mr. Charles Collins, sheriff of Burlington County, it was found that he had returned twelve men, and no more; consequently, upon the defendants’ counsel three jurors, the panel was exhausted.
The claimant produced several witnesses from Maryland, who testified that they had known these alleged fugitives for several years, and believed they had formerly belonged to Mr. John Roth Sen., who as stated by one witness, died insolvent, and that they now considered them the property of the claimant, because they had seen them living with him. One witness testified that he was the administrator of John Roth, Jun., the present claimant, by orphan’s court.
Upon these grounds the counsel for the plaintiff rested their case.
Mr. Spencer then commenced his speech for the defendants, in which he most energetically appealed to the jury, as citizens of New Jersey, to stand by their own state laws, made for the defense of human liberty. He then stated that the plaintiffs had not made out their case according to the requirements of the laws of New Jersey, for the following reasons:
1st. Because they had not produced properly authenticated documentary evidence that Maryland was a slave state.
2d. Because they had not satisfactorily presented the title of the preset claimant to these three persons either by bill or otherwise, and that neither of these points being unsustained, must prove fatal to their case. He proceeded by showing that under these views of the case, the jury must pause, before returning into hopeless bondage three respectable inhabitants of this district. – This speech was most ably delivered, and had a thrilling effect upon the large audience there assembled.
Mr. David Paul Brown then followed upon the same side, in a most emphatic manner, showing the great importance of the present decision, on account of this being the first occurrence of the kind in this or any country. He then went into the legal merits of the case which he handled in a masterly manner, and fully sustaining the views presented by his colleague, and urging the importance to the jury of keeping the claimants strictly to the laws, and not to infringe in the least upon the rights of these unfortunate persons, who stood charged with no crime, save that of color.
This most powerful appeal was listened to with the greatest attention, and appeared to produce great effect upon the court and jury, as well as all present.
Mr. Stratton then followed for the claimants, in which he acquitted himself with ability, but did not attempt to answer the objections on the other side.
Names of the Jury. – Charles Stratten, Benjamin Wilkins, Wm. C. Shinn, John Fairholm, Phineas Kirkbright, Samuel Reed, James A. Powell, John C. Millvine, Wm. Pugh, T. Collins, Joseph W. Cole, name of others not taken down.
The jury returned in about twenty minutes, with a verdict in favor of the plaintiffs; and as the officers were about removing the prisoners, one of their number made some resistance or an effort to escape, when he was seized, and the court was immediately cleared of colored persons, who retired without the least disposition being manifested by them to make a riot. Yet notwithstanding this, the sheriff drew his pistols, and threatened to shoot the citizens if they attempted to interfere. The slave-dealers and their allies also flourished pistols and dirks, and some with oaths threatened to shoot the first “nigger” they could find.
Ropes were called for, and the prisoners tied very securely. One of them was treated in a very barbarous manner, and the voices of a number of respectable inhabitants were raised, to beg of them to desist from such cruelty. While they were still lying upon the floor, with their hands pinioned behind them, the military of the town who it seems had been called out, made their appearance.
They were then conducted to the prison by military escort, and the people quietly dispersed. We understand that during the night military accompanied slaveholders to secure them the safe custody of their human “property.” There was no reasonable pretext for this disgraceful proceeding of calling out the military. During the whole of the trial, although there was a large number of colored people present, they behaved with the utmost propriety; they were respectable in appearance, and made not the least demonstration of attempt at riot or rescue.
It is but proper to say that many of the respectable people of Mount Holly expressed themselves as deeply outraged by this transaction, and pronounce upon it the strongest censure.
Douglass added no comment of his own on the report.
Despite the verdict, advocates for the rights of accused fugitive slaves to a trial by jury may have hoped for more of them. But realistically, it could not make a difference in a judicial system in which the enslavement of over 3,000,000 men, women, and children was protected by legislation and rulings by the United States Supreme Court. A vocal extremist minority determined to protect slavery controlled the federal government, and pervasive racism insured their tight grip on political power.
Why this one exception, and why in New Jersey?
New Jersey was in a unique position to conduct a trial by jury for accused fugitive slaves. Joseph C. Hornblower, Chief Justice of the New Jersey Supreme Court in an 1836 ruling, State v. Sheriff of Burlington County, questioned the constitutionality of the Fugitive Slave Act of 1793 for denying the right of a jury trial. But this opinion was not officially presented. In the final verdict, Hornblower based his decision on the violation of the state constitution and held that the state was obligated to try accused fugitive slaves by jury. The decision led the New Jersey legislature to enact a law in 1837 that allowed defendants accused of escaping from enslavement to demand a jury trial, which the lawyer did in this case. For those interest in more detail about this background and its significance, see this article by legal historian Paul Finkelman (http://njlegallib.rutgers.edu/slavery/finkelman.pdf). Finkelman was seemly unaware of the Mount Holly trial at the time the journal article was published.
The Prigg v. Pennsylvania decision of 1842 upheld the constitutionality of the Fugitive Slave Act of 1793 and should have precluded the Mount Holly jury trial; had the claimant lost, he could have appealed based on that ruling. But the verdict was favorable to Roth [spelled Wroth in some records], and he had no reason to contest the legality of a jury trial. Awareness that the United States Supreme Court had upheld the Fugitive Slave Act of 1793, and the passage of the Fugitive Slave Act of 1850, likely ended any further jury trials for accused fugitive slaves.