Throwback Thursday: Prime, Rina, and Primus

We Further Our Research into the Tragically Undocumented Lives of Enslaved People at Yellow Springs

Setting the Scene

Throughout 2026, the Moore Archives at Yellow Springs conducted extensive research using archival materials and online sources to better understand life at Yellow Springs during the Revolutionary War.

Through this work, we uncovered stories of community, care, triumph, and tragedy. However, the darkest and most unclear chapter we encountered is the difficult story of enslaved people at Washington Hall.

We began with three names: Rina, Lucia, and Kitte. As we explained in a previous post, these names appear only in the 1780 Slave Registry of Chester County. At this time, Pennsylvania had begun a gradual process of abolishing slavery, which required all enslaved people to be recorded in a registry.

The Chester County Archives and Records Department has compiled these records into an index, which is available online.

Using this index, we restored names to three enslaved people who were previously listed only as “wench” and “ditto” in the index tied to Dr. Samuel Kennedy’s property. For several weeks, we could not find additional documented information, although we suspected there was more to the story. We knew that Sarah Kennedy’s father, Job Ruston, enslaved a large number of people, which suggested deeper connections.

To better understand the Kennedy household, we continued reviewing Chester County court records. We discovered that Samuel Kennedy was held responsible for one of his enslaved people, a man named Prime, after Prime stole buttons from another household.

Court Record featuring Prime

Unfortunately, we could not determine what happened to Prime after he was charged with theft.

During this period in Pennsylvania, enslaved people were rarely documented because of the nature of slavery. People often did this on purpose. Enslaved people were treated as property rather than as people within planter-class society, and those in power worked to remove their agency and humanity.

As a result, tracing Prime’s life after 1772 has proven difficult, and we have even less information about him than we do for Rina, Lucia, and Kitte.

We then found a clipping from the Independent Gazetteer dated October 12, 1782. It references an enslaved young man named Primus and Sarah Kennedy of Yellow Springs. The similarity between the names Primus and Prime stood out, although it alone does not prove a connection.

The article also mentions that the young man’s mother lived in the household of the widow Kennedy. This detail led us to examine the clipping more closely and consider its importance.

Primus

The advertisement placed by Robert M. Malcom in this newspaper describes Primus in harsh terms. It calls him “sullen” and “down-looking,” and labels him an “infamous rogue.”

Primus is an eighteen-year-old desperate to escape enslavement, so he wades through a green briar swamp. The enslaver notes thorns likely cut his skin during the escape. The advertisement mentions a “hole” on his cheek, likely a scar. It suggests it resembles a “shot hole,” likely a bullet wound.

The experiences Primus endured in his short life are difficult to understand today. Records give little detail about the cruelty he faced and the conditions he lived under. However, this advertisement shows his experiences left him with visible scars that identified him throughout his life.

We checked the Chester County 1780 Slave Registry for Primus and found no record of him or Robert Malcolm. We then examined Bristol’s location and learned it is in Bucks County, not Chester County. We will need Bucks County records instead.

The Bucks County Department provides links to registry records. These include images of the 1783 registry of enslaved people, likely begun in 1782. We reviewed them for Robert Malcolm, James Thompson, Primus, Prime, and related names, but found no record.

This gap is a setback, but it shows how much historical documentation is missing, even when records should have existed. It also shows how difficult it is to reconstruct lives from incomplete sources.

There are several reasons Primus may not appear in the registry. Robert Malcolm may not have lived in Bucks County or Bristol in 1783. Records may be lost or destroyed, or he may not have complied with the abolition act.

Primus is likely Rina’s son. Robert Malcolm states Primus wants to return to his mother, who lives with Sarah Kennedy. Rina is the only enslaved person in the Kennedy household who matches this description.

Primus and Prime

One may note that “Primus” and “Prime” are very similar. In eighteenth century records, spelling was not standardized. Clerks wrote names phonetically and often made errors, so the same person can appear under different spellings. Because of this, we could suggest Prime and Primus might be the same person.

However, age creates a problem. From our work with Lucia, Rina, and Kitte, we know ages were often imprecise and rounded down. Even so, adulthood and childhood still mattered. The Malcolm advertisement calls Primus a lad and places him at about 18 years old, allowing us to date it to 1782.

Our only record of Prime in the Kennedy household dates to 1772, when he would have been a man. If Primus was 18 in 1782, he would not be described as fully grown in 1772. A younger “boy” classification would be expected. Because of this, we tentatively conclude they were two different people.

It is also worth considering that neither Prime nor Primus are described as “mulatto” in the records we currently have. Again, this is not conclusive, since they appear in documents that may not record racial classifications consistently, but it is quite possible that both would have been categorized simply as “negro” within the broader racial caste system of Pennsylvania at the time. This means that they would have had ancestry that is strictly of African decent.

That said, this interpretation is somewhat uncertain, since the records we have for Prime and Primus do not come from the same registry in which such classifications would have been more strictly enforced. We also know that in more informal documentary contexts, the designation “mulatto” was sometimes omitted, as is the case in the index of Dr. Samuel Kennedy’s property, where all three are referred to as “negro.”

This matters because, since Rina was almost certainly Primus’s mother– the person he appears to have longed to return to– then his father was likely an enslaved man as well. This possibility aligns with what little we can infer about Prime from what little we have.

What Does This Mean?

It can be difficult to understand what these records looked like for the people who lived through these events. We do not know where Prime, Rina, Lucia, Kitte, or Primus came from or how people enslaved them. We can only make informed guesses about the conditions in which they lived.

We feel confident that Rina likely came from the household of Job Ruston, Sarah Kennedy’s father. We also think Lucia and Kitte may have been her daughters. We now have strong evidence that Rina had a son named Primus. We also think Prime may have been his father, but records only mention Prime once, and that record does not provide neutral information.

The Kennedy household may have purchased Prime after Samuel Kennedy placed an advertisement in the Pennsylvania Gazette on February 27, 1772. This may not be true, though, since this scenario makes it less likely that Prime fathered Primus. We also know the Kennedy family likely owned more enslaved people than the 1780 records show.

We are left with a tragic picture.

These names may be all that remain of a family that people separated and sold to others as property. We also consider another possibility. Prime and Primus may have been the same person. In that case, Primus may have been a young child who experienced severe punishment for stealing a few buttons. This scenario seems less likely, since legal records usually described children as “boys” in such cases.

We cannot confirm these relationships with certainty, but the connections between these names suggest a deeply fragmented history shaped by slavery and incomplete records.

To Us, Today

It feels frustrating today to examine this story without clear answers. Still, we can know one thing for certain, and we must remember it as we reflect on Prime, Primus, Lucia, Kitte, and Rina.

These people lived real lives, formed real bonds, and felt real emotions. A system designed to strip away their humanity shaped their lives. When we read Malcolm’s advertisement that offers a reward for the return of Primus, we see his callous treatment of enslaved people.

But when we look more closely at whom Malcolm believes Primus tries to reach, we see something meaningful. The young man pushes through a briar-filled swamp and risks his life to reach his mother. This situation remains tragic because he must endure such danger, but it also reveals the love and care between them.

Even with the entire corrupt system working against them, that sense of care and community survives.

We do not know what happened to Primus after 1782. He does not appear in the enslaved persons index that was completed in 1783. This absence does not give us certainty or clarity, but in a way, it allows us to hope a little that he truly escaped and found safety.

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Bibliography

Chester County Archives and Records Services. “1780 Slave Register.” Chester County, Pennsylvania. Accessed April 23, 2026. 1780 Slave Register.

“Advertisement from Dr. Kennedy.” The Pennsylvania Gazette (Philadelphia), February 27, 1772. Accessed May 7, 2026. Via Newspapers.com.

“The Enslaved People of Pennsylvania.” Bucks County, Pennsylvania. Accessed May 7, 2026. The Enslaved People of Pennsylvania.

Pennsylvania State Archives. “RG-47: Records of the County Governments (Microfilm Copies), Bucks County, Prothonotary, Register of Slaves, [ca. 1783–1830].” Pennsylvania Historical and Museum Commission. Accessed May 7, 2026. Via online portal.

“Sixteen Dollars Reward for Negro Lad Primus, Issued by Robert M. Malcolm.” The Independent Gazetteer, October 12, 1782. Accessed May 7, 2026. Via Newspapers.com.

“Trial of Prime, the Negro of Samuel Kennedy.” Court for the Trial of Negros. Chester County Laserfiche Public Portal. Accessed May 7, 2026. Court for the Trial of Negros.