Augustus Price

Information about Augustus Price’s birth and early life remains unknown. According to the editors of the Andrew Jackson papers, he was a free Black resident of Washington, D.C. From November to December 1833, President Andrew Jackson sent Price on a trip to New York to exchange a carriage for a new one made by “Messhrs. Kowles & Thayer.”¹ 

Although details of his time in the White House are scarce, he was still working there in July 1835. A letter from Andrew Jackson to his adopted son, Andrew Jackson, Jr. stated, “I will thank you to direct Augusta to see that the foot of the crippled horse is bathed & worked daily…it will require attention or it will not heal soon.”² This letter indicates Price likely worked with horses. It is possible he was a coachman or stable boy at the White House. In 1835, he co-authored an address to the Fifth Annual Convention for the Improvement of the Free People of Colour [sic] in the United States.³ Price married a woman named Sarah Ann Carroll on April 8, 1837.⁴ Details about his later life and death remain unknown.