John Platt

In the summer of 1751, 23-year-old John Platt was sentenced to 14 years transportation after being convicted of breaking into a home and stealing a dozen silver spoons and a pair of silver tongs. The following September he arrived in Annapolis along with 18 other convicts on the Biddeford, commanded by Capt. John Knill. His indenture was purchased by Dr. Charles Carroll for work on his Georgia plantation. However, Platt seemed determined not to serve as he attempted at least three escapes during in his first year in Maryland. 

Within a few weeks of arriving, Platt sought his freedom from Dr. Charles Carroll’s home near the Baltimore Iron Works. He escaped with a fellow transported convict named John Wakefield, who was held by a Carroll neighbor.

An advertisement just one week later revealed that Platt was apprehended near Joppa and imprisoned. But he escaped his captor as he was being returned to Dr. Carroll. The ad described Platt as a husbandman, a farmer, who pretended to be a butcher and could speak  “good English.”

Five months later, Platt sought his freedom from Dr. Carroll for the third time. In the advertisement, Dr. Carroll described him as “of a lazy disposition, which is the only cause of his running away.” He was also suspected of having stolen a roan gelding, 14 ½  hands high, that had also gone missing from Dr. Carroll’s.