Biography
Samuel D. Burris was a free Black Underground Railroad conductor from western Kent County, Delaware, documented in William Still's "The Underground Railroad." In July 1847 he was imprisoned for assisting the freedom seeker Maria Matthews; convicted in two of the cases against him, he was sentenced to be sold into slavery by the state. At his auction the Pennsylvania Abolition Society secretly raised $500 and bought his freedom. He later moved to Philadelphia and then San Francisco.
The Delaware Byway historical-resource study identifies Samuel D. Burris as a Wilmington schoolteacher born in the Willow Grove area west of Camden. It describes him conducting the Hawkins family from Camden to John Hunn’s farm near Middletown with a letter from Ezekiel Jenkins. This provides context for his Underground Railroad work; the plan’s abbreviated account of his later imprisonment and sale is not used to replace the more detailed archival chronology or convert the ten-month imposed sentence into actual time served.
The Delaware Archives research compilation records Burris's plea of not guilty (non cul) in all three October-term cases. Historian Robin Krawitz's June 9, 2015 report records acquittal in case 13 and on the first count of case 23, alongside the convictions in case 12 and the second count of case 23. Governor Jack A. Markell signed a posthumous pardon for the convictions on November 2, 2015. The pardon recognizes his actions as acts of freedom and bravery in the face of injustice. This posthumous pardon does not change the historical dates or duration of his imprisonment.
The original October 1847 indictments are signed by Attorney General E. W. Gilpin through Deputy Attorney General E. G. Bradford. The manuscript record also contains an August 4 recognizance and a jacket stating that Burris, having given the required bail, was discharged, followed by further bond proceedings on August 9. Modern research in the same compilation says additional charges prevented his release. These records do not resolve whether any physical discharge and rearrest occurred between the different proceedings. No uninterrupted actual-service total is inferred from the July 1847 arrest and September 1848 final freeing event. A crossed-out $500 sheriff-account entry is not proof that a sale occurred on that account's certification date.
