Jilson Dove

Dove was born in the state of Virginia around 1785.{{cite web |work=United States Census, 1850 |via=FamilySearch |url=https://www.familysearch.org/ark:/61903/1:1:MX6M-T27 |title=Entry for Robert Allen and Ann Allen, 1850}} Dove was married in Baltimore, Maryland in 1810 to Mary Drugan.{{cite web |work=Maryland Marriages, 1666-1970 |via=FamilySearch |url=https://familysearch.org/ark:/61903/1:1:F4V9-TQH |title=Jilson Dove, 1810}} Dove served as a sergeant in the District of Columbia militia during the War of 1812.{{cite web |work=United States War of 1812 Index to Service Records, 1812–1815 |via=FamilySearch |url=https://www.familysearch.org/ark:/61903/1:1:Q29K-9TRN |title=Entry for Jilson Dove, from 1812 to 1815}} In 1813, when he was about 28 years old, he announced in the newspaper that he was ending his business partnership but would continue in the brickmaking business independently.{{Cite news |date=1813-07-28 |title=Dissolution of Partnership |url=https://www.newspapers.com/article/united-states-telegraph-dissolution-of/147132947/ |access-date=2024-05-11 |work=United States' Telegraph |pages=3}}{{efn|Coincidentally, at least two other Chesapeake-region slave traders also worked as brickmakers: Moses Hindes and James F. Purvis of Baltimore.}} Dove advertised twice in the Alexandria Gazette in 1816; in February he had for sale some Waterloo-striped calico fabric,{{Cite news |date=1816-02-24 |title=Waterloo stripe calico |url=https://www.newspapers.com/article/alexandria-gazette-waterloo-stripe-calic/147136420/ |access-date=2024-05-12 |work=Alexandria Gazette |pages=2}} and in June he offered newly arrived pickled oysters.{{Cite news |date=1816-06-06 |title=Pickled oysters |url=https://www.newspapers.com/article/alexandria-gazette-pickled-oysters/147136256/ |access-date=2024-05-12 |work=Alexandria Gazette |pages=2}} In 1819 he was suspended from his Masonic lodge for "unmasonic conduct".{{Cite book |last=Freemasons Grand Lodge of the District of Columbia |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=6z0wAQAAMAAJ&dq=%22Jilson+Dove%22&pg=RA2-PA41 |title=Proceedings of the Grand Lodge of Free and Accepted Masons of the District of Columbia |date=1898 |publisher=Grand Lodge |language=en}} The same year, he was to take the oath of an insolvent debtor in an Alexandria, District of Columbia courtroom.{{Cite news |date=1819-10-06 |title=District of Columbia, Alexandria County - oath of an insolvent debtor |url=https://www.newspapers.com/article/alexandria-gazette-district-of-columbia/147132150/ |access-date=2024-05-11 |work=Alexandria Gazette |pages=4}}

File:Jilson Dove War of 1812.jpg

In spring 1820 he was advertising real estate to Alexandria buyers.{{Cite news |date=1820-04-14 |title=For sale, a tract of land |url=https://www.newspapers.com/article/alexandria-gazette-for-sale-a-tract-of/147137561/ |access-date=2024-05-12 |work=Alexandria Gazette |pages=3}} He was enumerated as a resident of Washington, D.C. at the time of the 1820 census.{{cite web |work=United States Census, 1820 |via=FamilySearch |url=https://www.familysearch.org/ark:/61903/1:1:XHLQ-5CF |title=Entry for Jrlson Dove, 1820}} His obituary later stated that he had moved from Virginia to D.C. in around 1820.{{Cite news |date=1853-06-15 |title=Died |url=https://www.newspapers.com/article/the-daily-republic-died/147131740/ |access-date=2024-05-11 |work=The Daily Republic |pages=3}} By 1821 he was operating a fish market at the Red House Landing below Alexandria.{{Cite news |date=1821-04-04 |title=Red House Landing |url=https://www.newspapers.com/article/alexandria-gazette-red-house-landing/147133945/ |access-date=2024-05-11 |work=Alexandria Gazette |pages=1}} Two years later he was to be confined in prison as a debtor.{{Cite news |date=1823-01-02 |title=District of Columbia, Washington County |url=https://www.newspapers.com/article/daily-national-intelligencer-and-washing/147132372/ |access-date=2024-05-11 |work=Daily National Intelligencer and Washington Express |pages=4}} His fortunes seemed to turn somewhat after that, as he became a host of the Union Hotel,{{Cite news |date=1824-06-29 |title=Union Hotel |url=https://www.newspapers.com/article/washington-gazette-union-hotel/147137031/ |access-date=2024-05-12 |work=Washington Gazette |pages=3}} which boasted of its fine green turtle dinner,{{Cite news |date=1824-07-26 |title=Fine Green Turtle |url=https://www.newspapers.com/article/washington-gazette-fine-green-turtle/147137354/ |access-date=2024-05-12 |work=Washington Gazette |pages=3}} and canvasback ducks available for either dinner service or for sale to home cooks.{{Cite news |date=1825-01-03 |title=Union Hotel |url=https://www.newspapers.com/article/daily-national-journal-union-hotel/147133548/ |access-date=2024-05-11 |work=Daily National Journal |pages=4}} By the end of the decade he operated and advertised an "elegant refectory" adjacent to a coffeehouse,{{Cite news |date=1828-11-12 |title=Elegant Refectory |url=https://www.newspapers.com/article/daily-national-journal-elegant-refectory/147137162/ |access-date=2024-05-12 |work=Daily National Journal |pages=3}} and he also sought to buy and sell quality secondhand furniture.{{Cite news |date=1829-01-30 |title=Money for secondhand furniture |url=https://www.newspapers.com/article/daily-national-journal-money-for-secondh/147136685/ |access-date=2024-05-12 |work=Daily National Journal |pages=3}}

In June 1833, Benjamin Lundy, a highly influential early abolitionist, mentioned Jilson Dove in his newspaper Genius of Universal Emancipation:{{sfnp|Lundy|1833|page=128}}

{{blockquote|text=Last week, a very decent, orderly-looking, colored woman, was coming over the bridge to our city to get employ, it is said. She was seen by a man, named Jilson Dove, a constable, who buys and catches negroes for the traders. The woman finding she was about to be taken to the pen or enclosure,{{Mdash}}where all kidnapped and others are put, before taken to the south,{{Mdash}}got loose, and attempted to run away from the constable{{Mdash}}but he followed her so close, she had no way to escape but by jumping into the river, where she was drowned. No fuss or stir was made about it,{{Mdash}}she was got out of the river, and buried{{mdash}}and there the matter ended.{{sfnp|Lundy|1833|page=128}} }}The abolitionist poet Sara Jane Lippincott later used this report as the basis for the poem "The Leap from the Long Bridge: An Incident at Washington."{{Cite web |date=1850-12-13 |title=The Leap from the Long Bridge—An Incident at Washington, by Grace Greenwood |url=https://www.newspapers.com/article/the-liberator-the-leap-from-the-long-bri/158743941/ |access-date=2024-11-10 |website=Newspapers.com |language=en-US}}{{multiple image

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| footer = Various Jilson Dove advertisements of the 1820s and 1830s

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It was in the 1830s that Dove turned to slave-trading on a continuing basis, although he continued to engage in other work. He was a third-ward constable for the District of Columbia Police Department in 1832, a salaried job that paid $50 a year.{{Sfnp|Sylvester|1894|page=26}} In February and March of 1833 U.S. Senator Henry Clay paid Dove to drive Clay's cattle from Kentucky to Pennsylvania.{{sfnp|Clay|2014|page=618}} In 1832 a Welsh newspaper reprinted several slave-trade ads from the Washington Intelligencer, including one of Washington Robey's, and commented that they would be read with "astonishment and disgust."{{Cite news |date=1832-04-14 |title=American Papers |url=https://www.newspapers.com/article/caernarfon-and-denbigh-herald-american-p/147025817/ |access-date=2024-05-10 |work=Caernarfon and Denbigh Herald |pages=3}} The first listed was placed by Jilson Dove and stated "Money ! Money ! Money !— I wish to purchase from twenty to thirty likely young Negroes of both sexes from twelve to twenty-five years of age. For all or part I will give more money than anyone in Washington City or Montgomery County, Md. Apply to the subscriber near the corner of the 13th and E streets Nov 24 JILSON DOVE." In 1833, Dove was working out of the Hendley Tavern and was willing to trade houses for "servants," which was one of the polite euphemisms for slaves.{{Cite news |date=1833-01-16 |title=Jilson Dove - 1833 |url=https://www.newspapers.com/article/daily-national-intelligencer-and-washing/147133337/ |access-date=2024-05-11 |work=Daily National Intelligencer and Washington Express |pages=1}} In Slave-Trading in the Old South (1931), historian Frederic Bancroft wrote that: "Jilson Dove, probably a real estate agent, wished 'to purchase from forty to fifty Negroes of both sexes, from the age of twelve to twenty-five', and to give in exchange two two-story brick houses in the business part of Washington. Obviously he was agent for some interstate trader when he later 'wanted immediately from 25 to 30 negroes of both sexes'. As this was more than the District was likely to supply, it was an appeal to Maryland and Virginia. The trading in District slaves{{mdash}}which was relatively slight, spasmodic and carried on chiefly by agents{{mdash}}also comprised, of course, sales to settle estates, collect debts and pay for fines and jail fees".{{sfnp|Bancroft|2023|pages=48–49}} The Journal of Negro History observed that "in 1837 Jilson Dove, in an advertisement in the National Intelligencer, offered his services as an agent to secure for the people of the District of Columbia servants for their own use, also to dispose of those servants whom the owners desired to be kept in the District".{{sfnp|Laprade|1926|page=31}} Historian Steven Deyle commented on this, writing that slave traders "adjusted their practices to cater to their customers' (and society's) paternalistic tastes...Many made direct appeals to owners' paternalistic sensibilities...Some even appeared to specialize in this market. Most of Jilson Dove's notices were for purchases in the interregional trade, but during the summer of 1837 he offered 'his services as an agent to the citizens of Washington to furnish them with servants for their own use. Persons wishing to sell their servants, to remain in this place, will please give me a call, as I can at all times get them a good home'."{{Sfnp|Deyle|2005|page=222}} In 1838 Dove was offering to trade land in Illinois for "negroes".{{Cite news |date=1838-05-24 |title=Negroes Wanted |url=https://www.newspapers.com/article/daily-national-intelligencer-and-washing/147133122/ |access-date=2024-05-11 |work=Daily National Intelligencer and Washington Express |pages=4}} That year he apparently traded out of Lloyd's Steamboat Hotel on Seventh Street "opposite the Center Market House".{{sfnp|Fiske|2016|page=19}} In 1839 he offered a house and lot in exchange for valuable servants.{{Cite news |date=1839-05-07 |title=House and Lot for Sale |url=https://www.newspapers.com/article/daily-national-intelligencer-and-washing/147136840/ |access-date=2024-05-12 |work=Daily National Intelligencer and Washington Express |pages=1}} As the decade turned, Dove began working as a slave trader from a location on Pennsylvania Avenue.{{sfnp|Forret|2020|page=4}}

File:Jilson_Dove_in_H.R._Exec._Doc._No.5,_30th_Cong.,_1st_Sess._(1847).jpg and other wild Indians at the seat of government" (H.R. Exec. Doc. No. 5, 30th Cong., 1st Sess. 1847 via University of Oklahoma)]]

Meanwhile, according to a history of Native American treaty delegations in Washington, Dove apparently also was known to intercede in potential scraps between intoxicated indigenous men and local street toughs: "Street gangs turned the intemperance of the Winnebagos into a cruel sport. They would wait outside the hotel for the inebriated Indians to stray their way and then 'beat them severely & [were] even disposed to kill them.' The Winnebagos were frequently saved from catastrophe by Jilson Dove, a street vendor who took a samaritan-like interest in their welfare. Described as 'a very powerful & resolute man,' Dove would rescue the Winnebagos from the hooligans and return them to their quarters. The Indian Office gave Dove eighty dollars in appreciation for this valuable service after the Winnebagos left Washington".{{sfnp|Viola|1995|page=128}} Dove was paid $66 in 1852 for "serving as police officer in charge of Indian delegation" for visitors to Washington from the "wild prairie tribes".{{Cite book |last=United States Congress |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=KogFAAAAQAAJ&dq=%22jilson+dove%22&pg=RA1-PA341 |title=House Documents, Otherwise Publ. as Executive Documents: 13th Congress, 2d Session–49th Congress, 1st Session |date=1854 |pages=341 |language=en}}

File:"Cash for Negroes" Daily National Intelligencer and Washington Express, August 17, 1842.jpg

Dove seemed to slow down a bit in the 1840s. In 1841 and 1844 he was paid to whitewash the Center Market House.{{Cite book |last=Washington (D.C.) |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=V7MwAQAAMAAJ&dq=%22jilson+dove%22&pg=RA1-PA121 |title=Laws of the Corporation of the City of Washington, Passed by the Fortieth Council: Printed by Order of the Council |date=1843 |publisher=J. and G.S. Gideon |language=en}} He advertised "cash for negroes" once in 1842,{{Cite news |date=1842-09-01 |title=Cash for Negroes |url=https://www.newspapers.com/article/daily-national-intelligencer-and-washing/147133750/ |access-date=2024-05-11 |work=Daily National Intelligencer and Washington Express |pages=1}} and reported that he had found a pocketbook on the road to Bladensburg containing cash and a gold ring.{{Cite news |date=1845-08-08 |title=Pocket-Book Found |url=https://www.newspapers.com/article/daily-national-intelligencer-and-washing/147137968/ |access-date=2024-05-12 |work=Daily National Intelligencer and Washington Express |pages=1}} In 1844 he was paid $150 for the work of "taking up incendiaries," that is, investigating a series of arson fires in the area and arresting the culprits.

Dove died in Washington, D.C. in 1853 at age 68. Dove and his wife are both buried at Trinity United Methodist Church Cemetery in Alexandria, Virginia under an obelisk-shaped grave marker.{{Cite web |last=McBride |first=Louis |date=August 1999 |title=Trinity United Methodist Church Cemetery, Fairfax County, VA -Cemetery Reading |url=http://files.usgwarchives.net/va/fairfax/cemeteries/trinity.txt |access-date=2024-05-11 |website=USGenWeb Archives |type=txt}}

• List of American slave traders
• History of slavery in Washington, D.C.
• Slave markets and slave jails in the United States
• Bibliography of the slave trade in the United States
• {{anl|Snow Riot}}

{{notelist}}

{{reflist}}

{{refbegin|indent=yes}}

• {{cite book |last=Bancroft |first=Frederic |title=Slave Trading in the Old South |year=2023 |author-link=Frederic Bancroft |publisher=University of South Carolina Press |edition=Reprint |series=Southern Classics Series |location=Columbia, S.C. |language=en-us |type=Original publisher: J. H. Fürst Co., Baltimore |orig-date=1931, 1996 |isbn=978-1-64336-427-8 |oclc=1153619151 |lccn=95020493 |others=Introduction by Michael Tadman }}
• {{Cite book |last=Clay |first=Henry |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=zJwfBgAAQBAJ&dq=%22Jilson+Dove%22&pg=PA618 |title=The Papers of Henry Clay: Candidate, Compromiser, Whig, March 5, 1829–December 31, 1836 |year=2014

|publisher=University Press of Kentucky |isbn=978-0-8131-5672-9 |language=en}}

• {{cite book |last=Deyle |first=Steven H. |year=2005 |title=Carry Me Back: The Domestic Slave Trade in American Life |isbn=978-0195160406 |location=New York |language=en-us |lccn=2004056840 |oclc=61342034 |ol=7390529M |publisher=Oxford University Press}}
• {{Cite book |last=Fiske |first=David |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=FFHEEAAAQBAJ&pg=PA19 |title=Solomon Northup's Kindred: The Kidnapping of Free Citizens before the Civil War |year=2016 |publisher=Bloomsbury Publishing USA |isbn=978-1-4408-3665-7 |language=en}}
• {{Cite book |last=Forret |first=Jeff |title=Williams' Gang: A Notorious Slave Trader and his Cargo of Black Convicts |publisher=Cambridge University Press |doi=10.1017/9781108651912 |year=2020 |isbn=9781108651912 |s2cid=240924397}}
• {{Cite journal |last=Laprade |first=William T. |date=January 1926 |title=The Domestic Slave Trade in the District of Columbia |url=http://www.journals.uchicago.edu/doi/10.2307/2714021 |journal=The Journal of Negro History |language=en |volume=11 |issue=1 |pages=17–34 |doi=10.2307/2714021 |jstor=2714021 |issn=0022-2992}}
• {{Cite magazine |last=Lundy |first=Benjamin |author-link=Benjamin Lundy |title=[There appears to be very little protection afforded to free blacks...] |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=1HcSAAAAIAAJ&pg=PA128 |magazine=Genius of Universal Emancipation |date=June 1833 |volume=XIII |issue=284 |id=No. 8, Vol. III Third Series |pages=113–128 |publisher=B. Lundy |location=Washington, D.C. |language=en}}
• {{cite book |last=Sylvester |first=Richard |year=1894 |title=District of Columbia police: a retrospect of the police organizations of the cities of Washington and Georgetown and the District of Columbia, with biographical sketches |others=Pub. for the benefit of the Policemen's Fund |location=Washington, D.C. |publisher=Gibson Bros. |url=https://catalog.hathitrust.org/Record/000205235 }}
• {{Cite book |last=Viola |first=Herman J. |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=FeGEhXY-4aEC&pg=PA128 |title=Diplomats in Buckskins: A History of Indian Delegations in Washington City |date=1995 |location=Norman, Oklahoma |publisher=University of Oklahoma Press |isbn=978-0-8061-9935-1 |oclc=231726046 |lccn=95005146 |language=en}}

{{refend}}

{{DEFAULTSORT:Dove, Jilson}}

Category:1780s births

Category:1853 deaths

Category:19th-century American slave traders

Category:American federal police officers

Category:American municipal police officers

Category:American militiamen in the War of 1812

Category:History of slavery in the District of Columbia

Category:Law enforcement officials from Washington, D.C.

Category:Native American history of Washington, D.C.

Category:Year of birth uncertain

Category:Slave catchers