LAST SAW SON WHEN HE WAS SOLD.
Aged Negro of East Boston Advertising
for News of Brothers and Son, Who
Were Sold Before the War.
In one of the weekly papers devoted
to the interests of the colored people,
and published widely throughout the
country as a religious paper, recently
appeared a peculiar advertisement, which
reads substantially as follows:
INFORMATION WANTED of my brothers
Washington, James, Joseph, Henry and Lafay-
ette [Lafayette] Bond, who were the sons of Moses and Lina
Bond, and brothers of Milla Bond, who later be-
came [became] Milla Dawsey. All were born in the fam-
ily [family] of Daniel Kent, Maryland.
INFORMATION WANTED of John Wesley
Dorsey, born of Low Maller, Maryland, sold at
6 years from his parents, Milla and Nelson Daw-
sey [Dawsey]. Any information concerning tlie above will
gladly be received by Mrs MILLA DAWSEY,
262 Lexington st, East Boston.
Mrs. Dawsey is trying to find her long
separated brothers and son. The adver-tisement [advertisement] comes about 35 years after the
freedom of the American negro slave,
and shows that she herself was a slave.
Back of this advertisement is a story
that is pathetic. A mother looking for
her child that was sold away from her
in slavery over 45 years ago, and which
she has never seen or heard of since; a
sister looking for her long lost brothers,
who, too, were sold away when children.
Mrs Milla Dorsey is, as near as she
can ascertain, about 72 years old, and
has until very recently been living with
her niece, Mrs John Coffee, at 262 Lexington
st, East Boston. She has gone
on a visit to her nephew, Thomas Isaacs,
of [Indecipherable]12 Wayne st, Baltimore.
Mrs Dorsey was born a slave on the
Daniel Kent estate in Calvert county,
Md. Her parents, Moses and Lina
Bond, reared a large family, and as was
customary upon nearly all of the plan-
tations [plantations] of the south during the slave
period, several of their children were
sold to help carry on the estate.
There was born to them Washington,
James Lafayette, Joseph Henry,
Queen Rebecca, Melinda Amphielia and
Milla. These children were early scat-
tered [scattered], and only after the close of the
war and by the merest accident did Mrs
Dorsey ever succeed in finding any. Of
her brothers she has never heard. Her
sisters she has met, and it is with their
children that she spends the remain-
der [remainder] of her days.
According to the slave manner, she
was married to Nelson Dorsey. At that
time they were living in Low Mallow.
Two children were born, a girl and a
boy. The girl died and the boy lived, as
far as Mrs Dorsey can recollect, to be
about 6 years old, when he was sold to
another master. The last that she saw
of her only son was when his new mas-
ter [master] was leading him away.
Time passed and her husband died.
Shortly after that she was sold and car-
ried [carried] to Atlanta, Ga, where the breaking
out of the war and the subsequent eman-
cipation [emancipation] of the slaves found her.
Hoping to reach her brothers and per-
haps [perhaps] her son, Mrs Dorsay has taken to
advertising for them in several papers.
It is doubtful if she will ever be able
to find her son or her brothers. If they
are living, it is doubtful if they would
recognize the names under which she is
advertising for them. Slaves accepted
any name which their masters chose to
give them.
When slaves were found on the plan-
tations [plantations], at the time of the enumeration
shortly after the war, many took their
masters' names. Thus it may have hap-
pened [happened] that Mrs Dorsey's son and broth-
ers [brothers] may have taken the name of their
last masters, and may have never known
their own family name.