The Howard County Jail, located at 1 Emory Street in the Historic District of Ellicott City, Maryland, held freedom seekers and people charged with encouraging enslaved persons to run away or rise up against their masters, along with those facing similar charges, from January 1852 until slavery ended in Maryland on November 1, 1864. The Maryland General Assembly passed an act authorizing the Board of Commissioners of Howard District to levy taxes to create the jail, and it was accepted for use on December 16, 1851. Prisoners held there included runaways such as Augusta Spriggs and Richard Martin, who was held as a fugitive without a pass.