The runaway slave ad pasted below has intrigued me for some time. One of my earliest known ancestors was Edmund Wilkins (b. 1835, Brunswick County, Va.), and some of my research indicates his family were owned by a prominent lawyer/physician family, the Wilkins' of Brunswick Co. There was at least one Edmund Wilkins in the estate owner's family, a man who died in 1830. He (and later, my great-great-grandfather)could have been named for the man named in the advertisement below.

Ad Date: May 26, 1775
Publisher: Purdie
Name: David
Age: about 22
Residence: Brunswick Co., near Hick's Ford
Seeker: Edmund Wilkins

Clothing:

old hat

check shirt

negro cotton jacket

old black breeches

mixed gray worsted stockings

old shoes with steel buckles

Misc: Held in Norfolk jail and taken out May 8, 1775.

Escaped again that night.

And does anyone know what the material "Negro cotton" was? I ask because that clothing description appears in more than one 1775 Brunswick County runaway slave ad.

If you'd like to see the entire listing of county ads for 1775, Google "Edmund Wilkins, runaway"

Bijan