Joseph Coats, Jr., Reward Announcement,

The collection consists of a handwritten announcement regarding a runaway slave from the Cuckoo-ville neighborhood of Louisa County, Virginia. Dated August 3, 1840, this letter describes in detail -- including physical characteristics and temperament -- the escaped 18 year old slave named Sam. The author of this document, Joseph Coats Jr., presumably the slave's owner, offers a ten dollar reward to "any persons who will deliver him to me at my house, or secure him in such a manner that I get him again."

It is unclear how this written announcement was meant to circulate, whether as a handbill or possibly a submission to the local newspaper. The first line reads much like a newspaper's run-away slave advertisement: "Run Away. From the subscriber living in the neighborhood of Cuckoo-ville, a negro boy eighteen years of age named Sam..."