In May 1798, amongst the many advertisements for the capture of runaway slaves, and the sale of slaves at Vendue House on the Bay, it is extraordinary that we find the administration notice for the estate of a free black, in the Bahama Islands newspaper. We know nothing of her save her name. Her name was Mary Sinclair. What we can extract from the notice is that she must have been a woman of some means, for it not only asks for those whom the estate may have owed to submit claims, it also asks for those who may have owed her to pay up.
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ALL Persons having Demands against the Estate of Mary Sinclair, late of the Island of New Providence, free Black Woman, deceased, are desired to render in the same properly attested and those anywise indebted to the said Estate, are desired to make Payment, to
Frederick Stage, Administrator.
May 11, 1798
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Who was the stated Administrator, Frederick Stage?
Biography
Frederick Stage was likely a Loyalist who arrived in the Bahama Islands in the 1780s.
Frederick placed an advertisement for a runaway slave named Daniel in the Bahama Gazette 8 April 1786.
He was married twice: first, to the mother of daughters Norah and Ann Stage, who were born in the Bahamas in the 1780s, and second, Harriet Roberts, in Christ Church, Nassau, Bahamas 27 June 1798.
Frederick Stage died sometime before 1818, the year that the widow Harriet Roberts Stage married William Farrington.
Sources
Christ Church, Nassau, Bahamas, Marriage Records, 1798.
