A Just and True Return will aggregate, digitize, and contextualize slave registry data from fourteen counties where there are extant materials: Adams, Allegheny, Bedford, Berks, Bucks, Centre, Chester, Cumberland, Dauphin, Fayette, Lancaster, Northampton, Washington, and Westmoreland.
Although Blair County was not established until 1846 and the Huntingdon County registry has not surfaced, documents from the Bedford and Cumberland county registries shed light on Blair County’s early Black history.
Nell, Bill, Paris, and Hannah were registered as lifetime slaves in Cumberland County on October 12, 1780 by Adam Holliday. In the 1790s, these men and women helped to establish the community that now bears the name of their enslaver. Today, Hollidaysburg is the Blair County seat.
Sall was registered as a lifetime slave in Bedford County on October 28, 1780 by Adam Holliday’s brother, William. Probate records suggest that Sall had at least three children, Duncan, Mave, and Hannah, who experienced term slavery under Pennsylvania’s gradual abolition law. When William passed away in 1796, he bequeathed Duncan, Mave, and Hannah to three different heirs, breaking up Sall’s family in order to enrich his own. Sall does not appear by name in William’s last will and testament.
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