Hannah Leake
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This person of African descent has 2 related events in the database, listed at the bottom of this page.
- Identifier
- NJS-PER-04425
- Given Name
- Hannah
- Family Name
- Leake
- Sex
- Female
- Biographical Description
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Hannah Leake was a Black woman who lived in Deerfield, Cumberland County, at the turn of the 19th century. She was the wife of a Black man named Jack Leake and had sons George, Tubel, John, and Thomas. The Black Hannah Leake is not to be confused with the white woman named Hannah Leake née Fithian in whose household the Black Hannah was enslaved. The Black Leake family took on the last name Leake from the white family for whom they had toiled for many years.
Hannah and her husband and children were enslaved by Nathan Leake Esquire (the husband of Hannah Leake née Fithian) in Deerfield. Nathan Leake died in 1790 and freed Hannah's husband, Jack, by his will. However, Hannah and her sons, George and Tubel, remained enslaved by the estate of Nathan Leake. Jack Leake bought George and Tubel's freedom in the early 1790s, but Hannah still remained in bondage for several years and gave birth to another son, John, around 1796. Due to Hannah's status as a slave at the time of John's birth, John was born into slavery. John was eventually promised his freedom at age 24 by the Garrison family, heirs to Nathan Leake. John served in the household of Nathan Leake's daughter, Ruth Leake Garrison, and Ruth's husband, William Garrison, in Deerfield. It is possible that this is where John was born and that Hannah had resided with the Garrisons throughout the 1790s, but Hannah's actual place of residence in the 1790s remains unconfirmed.
In 1799, Nathan Leake's heirs signed a manumission deed freeing Hannah. See the 1799 manumission event for information about the five people who signed the deed, which included the Garrisons.
Around 1803, Hannah gave birth to another son, Thomas, who was born free. By the 1810s, the Leake family lived in Greenwich township in Cumberland County, according to a document from 1814 that recorded Jack Leake as a Greenwich resident. - Keywords
- African descent person
- Enslaved by
- Hannah Fithian Leake (1742-1824)
- Nathan Leake (1728-1790)
- Ruth Leake Garrison (1776-1823)
- William Garrison (1747-1819)
- Spouse of
- Jack Leake
- Record Contributor
- Jesse Bayker
- Linked Events
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Primary Participant in:
- 1799-06-14 Manumission: Hannah Leake (Role: Manumitted Person)
- 1810-06-27 Term Indenture / Promise to Manumit: John Leake (Role: Parent)
- Resource class
- Agent