Mary

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This person of African descent has 1 related event in the database, listed at the bottom of this page.
Identifier
NJS-PER-01414
Given Name
Mary
Sex
Female
Biographical Description
Mary was an enslaved woman who lived at the border of Middlesex County and Somerset County in New Jersey. Her date of birth is uncertain; she was likely born in the 1780s or 1790s. She had a daughter named Bet, who was born before 1813. Mary was enslaved by a man named James Harris of Piscataway, Middlesex County (who is also associated with Bound Brook, Somerset County). James Harris died in August 1813. He wrote in his will (penned in May 1813) that Mary and Bet should be set free. However, it would be another five and a half years before Mary gained freedom in February 1819. The executors of James Harris's will — his widow Jane Harris (who remarried and became Jane Covert by 1819) and friend Lefferd Waldron Sr. — completed the manumission process for Mary on February 3, 1819. Mary's exact age was not recorded on the manumission documents, but she had to have been under age 40 to be eligible for manumission in 1819. Thus it can be inferred that she was born after 1779.

Manumission documents for her daughter Bet have not been found in the Middlesex County Clerk's Book of Manumissions (which goes up to 1825).
Keywords
African descent person
Places
Piscataway
Enslaved by
James Harris (1755-1813)
Record Contributor
Jesse Bayker
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Resource class
Agent