Compensation claim of Dr. Noble Young, May 2, 1862

Dublin Core

Title

Compensation claim of Dr. Noble Young, May 2, 1862

Subject

Slaves--Emancipation--Washington (D.C.)

Description

At 1862, Dr. Noble Young, Professor of the Principles and Practice of Medicine in Georgetown College's Medical Department, petitioned the federal government for compensation for the freedom of seven persons he owned, who were released by the 1862 DC Emancipation Act. Lucy Lancaster and her children, Henry, Matthew, Rachel, Henny, Eliza, and John, were included in Young's petition. Dr. Young estimated the family's worth at $8600, but the government only paid him $2,737.50 in compensation.

Dr. Noble Young was one of four doctors who helped establish Georgetown College's Medical Department in 1850. In the 1860 census, two more people, Flodoardo Howard and Johnson Elliot, are named as slaveowners. Dr. Young also worked as a physician in the United States Penitentiary in Washington, DC, for many years.

A "Certificate of Slaves Manumitted" from the DC Emancipation records, which is included here, reveals that Lucy Lancaster's children had the surname Douglass rather than Lancaster (as Young had indicated in his petition), and they appear in later census and other records with the surname Douglass rather than Lancaster. Lucy Lancaster is listed as a cook in Dr. Young's home in 1870, along with her children, Rachel Wright and Eliza Douglass.

Creator

Civil War Washington

Source

Records of the Board of Commissioners for the Emancipation of Slaves in the District of Columbia, 1862-1863, M520, National Archives. Available through Ancestry.com. See also Civil War Washington for a transcription of Young's petition.

Publisher

Georgetown Slavery Archive.

Date

1862-05-02

Contributor

Adam Rothman. Transcribed by Civil War Washington.

Format

PDF

Language

English

Type

Petition

Identifier

GSA217