Sam (Curry)

Sam (Curry) was an enslaved man in Monroe County.
In the book "The Allegheny Frontier, West Virginia Beginnings" by Otis K. Rice, it states that in 1818, Robert Curry of Monroe County was arraigned for "feloniously, wickedly, and with malice aforethought" beating his Negro boy, Sam, with a cowhide "in and upon the head, breast, back, belly, and sides and otherparts ofthe body; during which Curry gave Sam several mortal strokes, wounds, and bruises". Also in this book it states that "More than any other crime, murder was capable of outraging frontier sensibilities, and it usually evoked the death penalty. The incidence of murder appears not to have been unusually great, but its perpetration drew the scorn of the pioneer even when the victim was a slave".