On the 6th of August 1734, Gerard Fowke wrote his last will and testament. Gerard was 72 years old and he was in “…a languishing and weake state of health…” but otherwise of sound mind. He knew his time on this earth was short and he wanted to make sure that his worldly possessions where distributed to family members of his choice and not by the dictates of a court overseeing an intestate estate. His will made bequests to his wife Sarah Fowke, his son Chandler and Chandler’s children, the children of his deceased son Roger, and his daughters Ann Alexander and Frances Brown. The last child, Frances Brown was the wife of Dr. Gustavus Brown of Rich Hill and Middleton Plantation on the Nanjemoy. Gerard gave Frances a tract of land in Nanjemoy and a third of his cattle, hogs, and sheep. He also confirmed his earlier gift of an enslaved woman named Hannah to Frances.[i] Unfortunately, there is no inventory for Gerard Fowke’s estate, so Hannah’s age in 1734 is unknown.
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Portion of Gerard Fowke's Last Will and Testament dated 6 August 1734, admitted for probate 20 January 1734/35. Charles County, Maryland Probate Records Wills Liber 4, folio 38 |
I believe Hannah may be the woman named “Nan” who appears in Dr. Gustavus Brown’s 1762 estate inventory.[ii] Nan is a common diminutive for Hannah. The woman in Dr. Brown’s inventory was 74 years old, placing her birth in about 1688. Frances Fowke Brown was born 2 February 1691/92. The two women were close in age and may have grown up together on Gerard Fowke’s plantation. Enslaved children were sometimes given as “gifts” to the owner’s own children. The relationship between these children was unequal and was a way for the owner to establish dominance over the enslaved child that would last for a lifetime. It was also a way of teaching the child how to manage and discipline their slaves when they became adults.[iii]
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Child of the Van Rensselaer Family and Servant circa 1730, attributed to John Heaton Metropolitan Museum of Art, Accession Number 2024.396. |
When Frances married Gustavus Brown in 1710, Hannah followed her mistress to her new home. Hannah’s responsibilities probably included helping Frances with the births of her 12 children, tending to the infants, and possibly acting as a wet nurse. She would also have had a hand in the raising and caring of the eight Brown children that survived infancy.
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Frances Fowke Brown, 1742, Gustavus Hesselius Smithsonian American Art Museum, Accession number: 1969.152_3 |
When Frances Brown died on 8 November 1744, she was away from Rich Hill visiting at Dipple Plantation in Virginia. At the time of her death she was staying with her daughter Frances Moncure who had lost her first child a few months previously. Frances was buried in the Aquia Church yard where her son-in-law was the vicar. Hannah or Nan stayed on at Rich Hill after her mistress’s death. When Dr. Brown died in 1762, she was living at the dwelling plantation at Rich Hill, not at the Middleton Plantation. By the terms of Dr. Brown’s will, she became the property of the Rev. Richard Brown, the only surviving son of Dr. Gustavus and Frances (Fowke) Brown. She disappears from the records after 1762.
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Grave of Frances Fowke Brown, Aquia Episcopal Churchyard Aquia, Stafford County, Virginia Find A Grave Memorial 5316806 |
Dr. Gustavus Brown also enslaved a woman name Ann. While Nan is also a diminutive for Ann, this woman is probably not the same person as the elderly Nan in the 1762 inventory. Ann was born circa 1708 or 1709, which would make her age in 1762 as either 53 or 54. The other Nan in the 1762 inventory is a younger woman who was 40 years old (born in about 1722). It is unlikely that Ann was either of the two Nans.
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The two Nans listed in Gustavus Brown's 1762 inventory taken 29 May 1762, admitted to probate 27 July 1768. Charles County, Maryland Probate Records Inventories 1766-1773, folio 205. |
We know about Ann from an incident that occurred in early 1727. In 1726, Dr. Brown returned to his home country of Scotland on business. He either took Ann with him or purchased her while he was there. In early February 1727 they were in Glasgow and it was at that moment that Ann made a bid for freedom. Two days after her escape Brown placed an advertisement for her in the Edinburgh Evening Courant:
RUN
away on the 7th Instant from Dr. Gustavus Brown’s Lodgings in Glasgow, a Negro
Woman, named Ann, being about 18 Years of Age, with a green Gown and a Brass
Collar about her Neck, on which are engraved these Words [“Gustavus Brown in
Dalkieth his Negro, 1726.”] Whoever apprehends her, so as she may be recovered,
shall have two Guineas Reward, and necessary Charges allowed by Laurance
Dinwiddie Junior Merchant in Glasgow, or by James Mitchelson, Jeweller in Edinburgh.
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Edinburgh Evening Courant, 7 February 1727 https://glasgowmuseumsslavery.co.uk/2018/08/14/gustavus-browns-runaway-slave/ |
The collar Anne wore is dated 1726. According to a nineteenth-century biographer of Gustavus Brown, he returned to Scotland with his family for a short while, but returned to Marylnd in 1734 because Frances did not like Scotland. The latter date is incorrect, as he was back in Maryland by October 1728, when the Assembly appointed him as a commissioner to regulate the Anglican parishes in the colony.[iv] Setting the return date aside, it was probably during this trip to Scotland that Brown purchased or inherited the properties and title of Laird of Mainside and house Byers.[v] He’d grown wealthy in Maryland where he owned numerous slaves and two large plantations - one on the Nanjemoy River (Middleton) and the other near the Zekiah (Rich Hill), upstream from Newport. He also had a successful medical practice and his father-in-law, Gerard Fowke, was a man of some consequence having served in the Lower House of the Maryland assembly as well as holding numerous local government and parish positions.[vi] Now he could style himself as Laird Gustavus Brown.
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Dr. Gustavus Brown, 1742, Gustavus Hesselius, Smithsonian American Art Museum, Accession number: 1969.151_1 |
One way to make a statement about ones’ wealth was through display. An enslaved person wearing a collar announced that she or he belonged to someone of importance. Portraits of wealthy men and their families, both of the nobility and merchant class, that were painted throughout the American colonies and Europe during the eighteenth century often included their enslaved attendant, many of whom were wearing collars. Examples include the 1719 A portrait of Elihu Yale with Members of His Family and an Enslaved Child[vii] or the 1733 Allegory of Elector Max Emanuel being reunited with his family by Joseph Vivian, a detail of the latter is included here.[viii]
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Detail of Allegory of Elector Max Emanuel being reunited with his family 1719, Joseph Vivian Schleißheim State Gallery, Bavaria, Germany. |
It is possible that Ann had tried to escape earlier and that Brown had the collar made to stop her from attempting to escape again. If the latter, the collar was obviously not a deterrent. The collar was dehumanizing and humiliating. It clearly marked Ann as thing, not as a person, and so she took her chances and she ran. Whether Ann managed to successfully make her escape is unknown. She was not listed in the 1762 inventory for Dr. Brown’s estate. My hope is that Ann was successful, but the collar probably made her success an impossibility.
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Brass Slave Collar,
circa 1806,
inscribed : "J.S. Glenn/Glenn/Montgomery Co., NY"
New York Museum, Albany, New York
[i]
Will of Gerard Fowke, dated 6 August 1734, admitted for probate 20 January
1734/35. Charles County, Maryland Probate Records, Wills Liber 4, folio 38.
[ii]
Inventory of Dr. Gustavus Brown, taken 29 May 1762, admitted to probate 27 July
1768. Charles County, Maryland Probate Records, Inventories 1766-1773, folio
203.
[iii]
Jacobs, Harriet. Incidents in the Life of
a Slave Girl: Written by Herself. Penguin Classics. 2000 [1861]. Van De
Wiele, Emmma. “Education of Oppression: Slaveholding in Southern Childhood.” Annotations & Abstracts: the Boston
College Historical Commons. 2023. Electronic Document. Accessed 29 June
2025. https://sites.bc.edu/historicalcommons/2023/11/13/education-of-oppression-slaveholding-in-southern-childhood/
[iv]
Hayden, Horace Edwin. Virginia
Genealogies: A Genealogy of the Glassell Family of Scotland and Virginia...etc.
E. B. Yordy, Wilkes-Barre, Pennsylvania. 1891. Proceeding and Acts of the General Assembly, 1727-1729: With Appendix
of Statues, 1714-1726. Archives of Maryland Vol 36, page 298.
[v]
Will of Dr. Gustavus Brown, dated 9 December 1755, admitted to probate 12 May
1762. Charles County, Maryland Probate Records, Wills Liber AD no. 5, folio 219.
[vi]
Papenfuse, Edward C., Alan F. Day, David W. Jordan, Gregory A. Stiverson. A Biographical Dictionary of the Maryland
Legislature, 1635-1789. Volume 1: A-H. Page 326. The Johns Hopkins
University Press, Baltimore and London. 1979.
[vii]
Original title: Elihu Yale; William
Cavendish, the second Duke of Devonshire; Lord James Cavendish; Mr. Tunstal;
and an Enslaved Servant. Attributed to John Verelst. Accession Number
B1970.1. Yale Center for British Art, New Haven Connecticut. For a discussion
of the painting see: https://britishart.yale.edu/new-light-group-portrait-elihu-yale-his-family-and-enslaved-child.
[viii]
Schleißheim State Gallery, Bavaria, Germany.
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