Currently, the only information available about Clem comes from a runaway advertisement, published in the Delaware Gazette. Clem self-liberated from enslavement in 1790, leaving the Jones Neck of Kent County, DE. William White, who had enslaved Clem, placed a runaway advertisement in the Delaware Gazette offering a six dollar reward for Clem’s capture and return. The same advertisement was published at least four times in the same newspaper, on February 27, March 13, March 20, and March 27 of 1790.
The runaway advertisement described Clem physically as well as the clothing that he went away wearing, which was not unusual for that type of publication. Through those details, modern researchers have a better understanding of Clem’s appearance, but the written perspective was limited and tells nothing of Clem’s perspective, personality, skills, dreams, or aspirations. The final line of the runaway advertisement is significant in that, four years prior to Clem’s escape, John Dickinson had unconditionally manumitted the people he personally enslaved, freeing them all in 1786. That information was clearly widespread and common enough knowledge to be used by a person seeking their freedom from enslavement in the St. Jones Neck area. The rest of Clem’s story is unknown.
Reproduced below is the transcribed text of the runaway advertisement:
Six Dollars Reward.
RAN AWAY from the subscriber, living in Jones’s–
Neck, Kent County, in the State of Delaware, on
the 15th of February, a Negro Man named
CLEM, about 35 or 40 years of age, and about 5 feet
4 or 5 inches high; a young looking fellow, stout made,
and somewhat hard of hearing. Had on, when he went
away, a home made dark grey cloth great coat, a jacket
of the same cloth, a pair of linsey fulled trowsers, (black)
a wool hat half worn, and a pair of shoes almost new[.]
Whoever takes up the said Negro Man, and confines
him in any gaol [jail] in the United States, so that his master
or owner may have him again, shall have the above re-
ward, paid by WILLIAM WHITE.
Feb. 25.
N.B. It is probable that the Negro will pass for Dickin–
son’s Negro.