O Say Can You See

Caleb Clarke of Prince George's County aged forty seven years being sworn on the holy evangely of Almighty God, deposeth and saith that he knows Ned the petitioner, and the defendant, and has known them both for many years: that he knows Phillis a mulatto woman who lives with the said John Ashton, but does not know that she is the mother of Ned; Being asked if he knew the grandmother of Ned? answers he never did: That he has often heard his mother, Mary Clarke, who has been dead about eight years, and was about sixty nine years old when she died, say that a yellow woman called Mary Queen was brought into this County by Captain Larkin [strikethrough] as she had been frequently told by her Father Marsh Mareen Duvall: that she said Larkin frequented her said Father's house, and was known by his said Mother; that James Carrick also frequented it; and the said Carrick and his aforesaid the deponent's grandfather lived within sight of each other; and he has heard knew his mother say often in conversation that the said Mary Queen was owned by the said James Carrick, and that her father had often heard the said James Carrick and Mary Queen quarrelling and wrangling about her freedom as he had told her that the said James Carrick would say to her, poh! have patience you will be free by and by, or you will get your freedom, by and by, or words to that effect, and would promise what he would do for her; that he has often heard the same from his Aunt Fowler who was his mother's   sister, and from his aunt Carrick another sister, and also from John Carrick, husband of his aunt Carrick; that his said aunts were many years older than his mother; Being asked how much older they were than his mother, answers he does not know exactly, but that he knew his aunt Fowler well, and she must have been at least twenty years older than his mother, and his aunt Carrick about ten or twelve years older than his mother; and that his said aunts and the said John Carrick are all dead: and further he saith that he has understood from some of the persons aforesaid that the said Mary Queen was left or given by the said James Carrick to Anthony Carrick and sent across the Bay to him. And further he saith not.

Allen Quynn