Slaves in the Olden Days
Reminiscences of Uncle Anthony and Aunt Betsey.
Slavery in New Jersey In the Beginning of This
Century - What Two Octogenarians say about
their Early Life - Cruelty of Dutch Farmers.
Uncle Anthony Thompson and Aunt Betsey Berry are
the only persons now living in Essex County, N.J., who were born
in slavery in New Jersey.
Uncle Anthony lives in a little weather-beaten cottage near the
base of Eagle Rock (Tory Corner), the highest point on the Orange
Mountains. In 1833 he purchased the place for $800, and he has
lived there ever since. He was born in Raritan, Somerset County,
N.J., in 1798. His mother was a slave in the family of Rev. Philip Duryee, of Raritan, and she and her
babe were sold to David Still, who resold them to Samuel M. Ward
of Cranetown, now Montclair, in Essex County.
Mr. Ward died in 1832, after promising to give Anthony and his
mother their freedom. Mrs. Ward a few months after her husband's
death, and then Anthony became a free man at the age of 34 years.
His mother, who was too old to work, was sold at auction by the
town, that being the custom in those days. Anthony got her and
cared for her until she died.
He entered the service of the grandfather of the Rev. Dr.
Williams, the present venerable Rector of St. Marks Episcopal Church, in Orange, and he
has known five generations of the family.
Anthony got a fair education in the district school, joined the First
Presbyterian Church, of which he was one of the three oldest
members until he joined the Second Presbyterian Church, and recently went
over to the First
Reformed Church. His maternal great-grandfather was a chief
of the Guinea Negroes in Africa.
Anthony has no children, but he has been married twice, his
second wife being a portly and pleasant woman about 50 years old.
He has large features, coal-black eyes and a frame that was once
muscular and powerful.
"I never saw a slave whipped in New Jersey unless he
deserved it," said Uncle Anthony to a Times reporter,
"but I heard of some cruelty up in the Dutch settlements
about Quackanock* and Stone House
Plains+. I was
kindly treated, and so far as I know, all the slaves in Essex
County had kind masters. Friends loaned me money to buy mother with, and I gave $100 to a young man
who bid her in for that sum up at the old Park House. He gambled
away the money and went to the bad, but the town gave me my
mother. She often told me that she had seen slave mothers sold
away from their children in New Jersey, and she had seen slave
women severely whipped.
"Some men in Newark and up on the mountain owned from five
to twelve slaves when I was a lad, and up in Bergen County all
the Dutch farmers had slaves. After I got my freedom I went into
the service of 'Governor' Benjamin Williams at Tory Corner, who
was the head man about Orange. He owned nearly all the land in
these parts, and he settled all the disputes among farmers. His
family and the Harrison family bought hundreds of acres of land
from the Indians for rum and old clothes, so the folks used to
say. I've heard Gov. Ben say that when Steve Harrison made a
four-wheeled wagon people came from all parts to see the
wonderful invention. Only clumsy ox-carts were known to the
farmers before that time, and a trip to New York was like going
to Europe now.
"When I was a small boy," said Uncle Anthony, "all
the country between the mountain and Newark was almost a howling
wilderness, with the exception of the few houses in Orange and
Bloomfield. There was no tavern until you got to Caldwell, beyond
the mountain, or else up at Stone House Plains, where young
fellows used to drink and dance with the girls. Nearly all the
land as far as you could see was owned by the Harrison, Williams,
and Dodd families, and everybody went to the First Church, in
Orange, where the slaves were boxed up in one corner like horses
in a stall. In the new First Church the slaves had a place in the
gallery.
"I married a daughter of 'Fiddler Tom' when I was a very
young man. He played for the white folks in Newark and over the
mountains, and when he drew the bow across the fiddle the girls
came from far and near. Apple-parings and potato-pulls were
followed by supper and a dance in the barns. At big weddings the
Dominie kissed the bride, drank apple-jack toddy and cider, and
got the pick of the eating."
-------
Aunt Betsey Berry was found in her cozy home on
Main Street, in East Orange, chatting with the pretty daughter of
one of her rich New York neighbors. She had on a neat black house
cap, a plain dress of brown stuff, with a white linen collar
about her neck, and her eyes shone like black diamonds when she
became excited. For over 40 years she has rented the little house
in which she lives and which is neatly furnished. Her husband
died 26 years ago (1856). He earned his freedom after they were
married. They had 12 children, 5 of whom are living.
Aunt Betsey has a kindly word for her neighbors, but she is very
bitter against the old families that owned slaves up in Bergen
County. She likes to have the Bible read to her, but she says
that she does not believe that the persons who were cruel to her
in slave days can now be occupying "reserved seats in
heaven." She was born at Quackanock*,
in Bergen County, and is now 85 years old.
"Folks as had slaves here in New Jersey was just as cruel as
the folks in the South," said Aunt Betsey to the Time's
reporter. "In every place there is good and bad folks, and
there was good and bad masters and missus in New Jersey. Families
was broke up and sold up in Bergen County in my time, and my
mother was sold away from me when I was a wee little baby, so
little I can't remember her except like in a dream. First I
remember I was called Betsey Jacobus, and that was because I was
owned by the Jacobus family up at Quackanock*.
"Henry Jacobus was my own master and he was good to me
sometimes, but the rest of the family cuffed me about. I knowed
slaves as was whipped so bad by the old Dutch farmers that they
died, and one man named Still had to bury his dead nigger under
the barn. I was small when I seen women whipped with bunches of
twigs until the blood ran in streams, and they afterward showed
me their backs all covered with cuts and black welts. Nobody
can't tell me that slaves wasn't whipped in them days, and nobody
can't scarcely believe how bad and cruel some masters was in them
days. Some of the slaves used to fight for themselves toward the
last, and you couldn't blame them if they did nigh kill the
masters sometimes. Good masters sent the black children to
school, but them kind of folks was scarce. Once I asked to go to
school, and old Jacobus said: 'What! You nigger. I'll take you to
the barn and give you school if you ever mention it again.' And
so I didn't get any learning.
"The farmers had from 3 to 12 slaves, and Miss Van Wagenen,
over nigh to Plainfield, had more than 20. And yet she died poor,
and I've had old Missus Jacobus ask me for help after I got free.
Them folks was too proud and lazy to work after the slaves was
freed, and so they lost their property.
"One of old man Jacobus' daughters-in-law once attempted to
whip me," Aunt Betsey went on to say. "The folks was at
church, and she told me to fetch some apple-jack from the cellar
barn. I wouldn't, because it was Sunday, and then she said she
would flog me. But I was a powerful strong young girl and dared
her to do it. She struck me once with the whip, and then I got
hold of her long black hair and yanked her down, and I tell you
what, didn't we have it lively for awhile, and didn't she holler
for help. I got her down with my knees between her shoulders, and
when she hollered I got up and run away. I was supple then, and I
meant to run away if they whipped me, but when old master got
home and heard the story, he scolded her for whipping me. He said
he could do all that business himself. He didn't like her and I
knowed it. That's why I showed fight.
"Another of the family once choked me by the throat and she
said she'd get her husband to whip me, but the old man called her
a she-devil, and warned her I was desperate. Women folks was
cruelest to the slaves. It's all right for some folks to boast of
their Dutch ancestors, but there is lots that hold their heads
high now who came from a cruel stock. They made slaves go
barefooted for fear they'd run off while church was in! That's
religion and piety for you! Black folks, they thought, hadn't
white souls. Wonder if the Lord thinks so?
"When the manumitting law** was
passed I was bound to get my freedom. Two men went my security,
and I was three years paying $350 for my free papers. I got 50
cents a day working out. Living was cheap, for butter was only 12
cents a pound and a quarter of flour only 50 cents. Besides, I
mostly got my meals at the house I worked a day in. Didn't I
scrimp and save every penny I earned and that was given me, and
wasn't I a proud woman when I was free! A Queen couldn't be
prouder!
"Before that I married James Berry, who was a slave for old Dr. Pierson here in Orange, but who was born in
the Berry family. My husband worked out his freedom for $400, and
was five years doing it. I tell my children that they don't know
what it is to live when they grumble about hard work. They's
ought to thank God every minute they is free, even if they only
live on one meal a day. Nobody can tell me how good the masters
was in New Jersey, for I know what I seen with my own eyes and
felt with my own body. Other slaves had twenty times worse than I
had, and my lot was bad enough.
"I've lived in Orange since I got my freedom," said
Aunt Betsey, after a pause, "and I must say that the folks
have been very good to me. I worked out washing 'till a year ago,
but now these bones of mine is getting stiff and lame."
* Acquackanonk - Present Day Passaic
+ Stone House Plains - Present Day
Bloomfield
** NOTE: New Jersey's gradual abolition
law freed future children at birth, but those enslaved before its
1804 passage remained enslaved-for-life. The December 6, 1865
ratification of the Thirteenth Amendment to the United States
Constitution ended slavery in the United States. New Jersey's
legislature did not approve the Thirteenth Amendment until
February 1866, two months after it had been ratified by a
three-fourths majority of the states.
Further research: Could Anthony
Thompson have been related to Niann Thompson mentioned in this document (1833)?
Excerpt from:
The History
of Essex and Hudson Counties, New Jersey,
Compiled by William Shaw, Volume II, 1884
Essex County's Last Slave—Anthony
Thompson, the oldest and best-known colored man in the Oranges
died at his residence, at the junction of Washington Street and
Eagle Rock Avenue, Tory Corner, West Orange,—-on Tuesday
night, Aug. 1884. He was the last of the old slaves of Essex
County, and died of old age and a complication of troubles.
Uncle Anthony, as all his neighbors
called him, was a tall, powerfully built man of great strength
and endurance. His great-grandmother was the queen of an African
tribe, and his grandmother, when a young girl, was stolen, with a
number of others, by a slave trader and brought to this country.
Uncle Anthony was born in Raritan, Somerset Co., in 1798, his
mother being a slave in the family of Rev. Dr. Philip Duryee,
pastor of the Dutch Reformed Church of that place. Two of Dominic
Duryee's grandsons, John G. and Joseph D. Harrison, are now
living and carry on the flour and feed business at No. 502 Broad
Street, Newark. While Uncle Anthony was a baby, Dominic Duryee
sold out and removed to Little Falls (now Passaic County), and
Anthony's mother was sold to one David Still, Anthony being sold
with her. About a year after Anthony and his mother were sold to
Samuel M. Ward, of Cranetown (now Montclair.) They lived with Mr.
Ward until the latter’s death, in 1822. In his will Mr. Ward
gave Anthony his freedom, but requested he should remain with
Mrs. Ward until her death. She died in September, 1828, and
Anthony, being then twenty-four years of age, was his own master.
His mother was too old to begin life
anew, and was a town charge. In those days the poor were sold off
to whoever bid the lowest price for taking care of them. Anthony,
though he was just starting out in life bought his mother for one
hundred dollars, took her home and cared for her until her death
in a most filial and kindly manner. In 1828 he moved to Orange
and bought a little place on Washington Street, West Orange. He
lived there till 1833, when he bought the place where he ended
his days.
