In 1669, concerns began to develop among the Lord Proprietor and General Assembly of Maryland. They were troubled by the alarming number of servants and criminals who escaped the grasp of the province’s enslavers or justice system while seeking refuge in neighboring colonies. It was evident to the lawmakers that measures were needed to curb the occurrences.
Situated along the border with Pennsylvania and the Lower Colonies, northeastern Maryland was a common place for these daring flights to freedom. So, sensing an opportunity, Augustine Herrman, a prominent landholder in the region, embarked on a campaign to persuade the Assembly to choose his vast estate, Bohemia Manor, as the location for a prison. Having been granted this land in Baltimore County in the early 1660s, Herrman saw the northeastern edge of the territory and his manor as the best site to erect a prison. (It would become Cecil County in 1674.)
After considering the situation, lawmakers passed “An Act for p’venting servants & Criminall psons from Running out of this Providence,” It authorized Herrman to build a twenty-foot log prison to serve as a place for “surety and safe keeping” of runaways and fugitives until they could be claimed by an enslaver or meet justice before the Maryland courts. To compensate for the building of the log prison, the freemen of the province were assessed a levy of ten thousand pounds of tobacco.
But the commitment didn’t end there. The colony also agreed to compensate the First Lord of Bohemia Manor for apprehending and remanding runaways from Delaware Bay and other Northern plantations to the newly established prison.
