Title

1804, Joe, Manumission

Identifier

NJS-EVE-00126

Event Description

Joe was manumitted by Samuel Cutter of Woodbridge, Middlesex County, New Jersey.

Samuel Cutter executed a deed of manumission for Joe on September 17, 1804. Joe was proximately 20 to 25 years old at the time. Cutter died several months later in 1805.

Approximately six years later, on April 8, 1811, William Bloomfield (the executor of Samuel Cutter's estate) brought Joe to court to complete the process and obtain a certificate of manumission for Joe. The certificate of manumission was signed by the Overseers of the Poor of Woodbridge (Ezekiel Ayers, Lewis Kelly) and Justices of the Peace for Middlesex County (Ichabod Potter, Ephraim Harriot). The document stated that Joe was examined in court and met the eligibility requirements for manumission in New Jersey, i.e. the person was 21 to 40 years old and was "sound in mind and not under any bodily incapacity" of obtaining a livelihood. This manumission was recorded by the Middlesex County Clerk (William P. Deare) on April 29, 1811.

The clerk also recorded a copy of Cutter's original deed of manumission from 1804, which states that Joe was "of about the age of twenty 'five' years" at the time the deed was issued. A notation below the document states "word 'five' in the sixth line being first interlined." It is possible that Joe was 25 years old at the time the deed was written by Samuel Cutter in 1804. It is also possible that Joe was only 20 in 1804 and that the word "five" was inserted between the lines (interlined) by William Bloomfield years later, closer to 1811.

Event Type

Legal: Manumission registration

Action Status

Completed

Date

17 September 1804 – 8 April 1811

Location

Woodbridge, NJ

Primary Participant

Joe

Sex

Male

Age

Adult

25

Freedom Status

Transition

Enslaver of Primary Event Participant

Samuel Cutter (1761-1805)

Officiator

Ezekiel Ayers

Lewis Kelly

Judge

Ichabod Potter

Ephraim Harriot

Additional Participant

William Bloomfield (1753-1821)

Source

Middlesex County Manumissions and Removals, page 101

Manumission of Joe (certificate dated 1811-04-08, deed dated 1804-09-17), recorded in Manumissions and Removals Book, p. 101. Middlesex County (N.J.) Records, 1688-1929, Vol. XI (MC 784.1). Special Collections and University Archives, Rutgers University Libraries.

Author

William Philips Deare (d. 1826)

Record Contributor

Isaac Guzmán

Jesse Bayker