Historical Records Show Some of Lawrence Township's Wealthiest Families Owned Slaves

While Lawrence Township was “not a slave society,” many of the more wealthy families in the township owned slaves in the days before abolition, with one tavern-owner in the township having as many as seven slaves at one point, two Rider University professors revealed during the Lawrence Historical Society’s eighth annual Mary Tanner Lecture.

Speaking in the Science and Technology Center of Rider’s campus in Lawrence Township Sunday afternoon (Oct. 23), Dr. Roderick McDonald provided a historical overview of slavery and abolition in New Jersey before Dr. Brooke Hunter offered some details – gleaned from old documents and records – about slavery within Lawrence Township’s borders.

Established in 2003, the lecture series honors Mary Tanner, one of the township’s most-active community organizers and an instrumental member of the Lawrence Historical Society’s board of trustees.

The first woman elected to township council, serving from 1976 through 1981, and co-founder of Lawrence Meals on Wheels, Tanner was active with the League of Women Voters, Eggerts Crossing Village, the Lawrence Township Cultural and Heritage Committee, Lawrenceville Presbyterian Church, Homefront, the D&R Greenway Land Trust and several other organizations. She now lives in Maryland.

When the Lawrence Township Council, at its Sept. 20 meeting, officially proclaimed October to be , Lawrence Township Historian Dennis Waters described the then-upcoming lecture as “a groundbreaking piece of research” and explained that the two professors from Rider’s history department had “dug into the details of census data, courthouse records and other primary sources to document the extent and nature of slavery in Lawrence.”

Introducing the lecture on Sunday, Waters said he hoped audience members would find it “interesting and enlightening” and, in his role as the historical society’s membership chairman, urged people to join the society.  

McDonald, who teaches Caribbean, Latin American, African and African-American history and who was named a 2009 John Simon Guggenheim Fellowship recipient, started the lecture by explaining that the first presence of Africans in what is now New Jersey began in the 1620s when Dutch vessels carrying slaves arrived to provide labor to fellow Dutchmen for farming enterprises.

What was unique about the slave population in New Jersey, said McDonald, was that the enslaved “worked and lived in relative isolation, ethnically speaking.” Most slaves in New Jersey labored on rural farmsteads that were agricultural small-holdings. Gang labor was not employed, he said. Instead, there were usually only a few slaves – two or three – “working in close proximity with the owners.”

Not all New Jersey residents supported slavery. Slaveholding declined among Quakers in New Jersey during the late 18th century. Benjamin Lay Quaker – one of McDonald’s favorite historical figures of that period – condemned slavery with a memorable demonstration in which a sword was thrust through a hollowed-out Bible that contained sheep’s blood.

In 1804, the state legislature approved “An Act for the Gradual Abolition of Slavery.” But, as McDonald related, this was the merely beginning of what would be a “long journey to freedom.”

The 1804 act ruled that only children born after July 4, 1804, were free, but it required those “free” children to serve as apprentices until they reached the age of 21 for females or 25 for males. So even though New Jersey was characterized as a free state, thousands still remained in bondage and would continue to serve as slaves, McDonald explained.

The free black population steadily increased while the enslaved population decreased between the 1820s and 1860s. Yet free blacks in New Jersey, said McDonald, still occupied a subordinate position in society: “Politically emasculated, socially discriminated, economically disadvantaged and educationally deprived.”

Hunter, who teaches American History and was honored this year with the Rider Distinguished Teaching Award, spoke after McDonald. Her part of the lecture focused on research, conducted with Rider University history majors, into slavery in Lawrence Township.

Hunter explained that “limited sources make reconstructing history a challenge.” However, Hunter found in her research that Lawrence was “not a slave society.”

By looking at tax documents, probate records and census data, Hunter concluded that slaveholdings in Lawrence Township were small – the average holding was a single slave. The largest holding found recorded was by a tavern owner, William Phillips, who reported seven slaves, she said.

Hunter found that slaveholding in Lawrence was not only small but also confined to an elite group of families in the township, including some memorable names connected to the founding of the town: “Hunt, Phillips, Mershon, Lanning, Bainbridge, Green, Brearley, Jones, Smith, Cook, Van Cleve, Howell, Stevens.”

The most difficult information for Hunter to find was information about the slaves’ experience. Unfortunately, she has not found any diaries or letters from slaveholders in Lawrence Township. It is known, however, that the slaves and their owners were “living and working side by side” and “very closely connected,” said Hunter.

It is also important to remember that “small scale does not equal more humane,” Hunter reminded the audience. She shared newspaper clippings and other documentation about a incident of slave brutality in Lawrence Township that involved a man named Samuel Hunt, of the Hunt family that helped settle the township.  

The afternoon’s lecture concluded with township historian Waters urging interested audience members to go to the New Jersey Historical Commission’s website  for information about the upcoming 28th annual New Jersey History Conference, which this year will focus on the Civil War and include discussions about slavery.

He also noted the Lawrence Historical Society also has several other events planned for the public:

Historical Talk: “The People’s Books: The Lawrence Library at 50”

Nov. 15, 7 p.m., at the Mercer County headquarters branch of the Mercer County Library

In this event, co-sponsored by Friends of the Lawrence Library, Waters will detail the 50-year history of the township library and show how it has grown and changed to match the township’s population.

Historical Tours:

Nov. 5 and Dec. 3, 10 a.m. - 12 p.m.

Nov. 20 and Dec. 18, 3 p.m. - 5 p.m.

Tours of the house, which has been restored to how it appeared in the 18th century, are given the first Saturday and third Sunday of every month. The house is located at the end of Meadow Road, off Princeton Pike.

Author Talk: “The Roebling Legacy”

Dec. 1, 7 p.m., at the Mercer County headquarters branch of the Mercer County Library

In this event, co-sponsored by Friends of the Lawrence Library, Author Clifford Zink will discuss his book on the Roebling family and their legacy.

Hogmanay Bonfire

Dec. 31, 6 p.m., at the

In this popular family event, participants say goodbye to 2011 with a grand fire in the Great Meadow. (Photos from last year’s bonfire can be found by .)

For more information about the Lawrence Historical Society and its upcoming events, visit www.thelhs.org, email webmaster@thelhs.org or call (609) 771-1728.