Isabella Kearney (1716-1806)
- Research Tips
-
This white person has 3 related events in the database, listed at the bottom of this page.
- Identifier
- NJS-PER-02000
- Given Name
- Isabella
- Family Name
- Kearney
- Alternate Name
- Kearny
- Birth Date
- 1716
- Death Date
- 1806
- Sex
- Female
- Occupation
- Agriculture, Forestry, and/or Livestock
- Biographical Description
-
Isabella Kearney was an enslaver who lived in New Jersey in the 18th century. She was the daughter of Michael Kearney (c. 1669-1741) and Sarah Morris Kearney (1697-1736). On her mother's side, she was the granddaughter of New Jersey's Colonial Governor Lewis Morris (1671-1746) and his wife Isabella Graham Morris (1673-1752).
Isabella Kearney lived to be about 90 years old and never married. She likely spent some of her life at Morrisania Manor, her grandfather Lewis Morris's estate located in present-day Bronx or at his estate at Tinton Falls in Monmouth County. After the death of her parents and grandparents, she lived in the area of Shrewbury, Monmouth County, near her sister Graham Kearney Cooke. She was a member of the Christ Episcopal Church in Shrewsbury, where her sister's husband the Rev. Samuel Cooke was pastor, and she brought multiple enslaved people to be baptized at the church. In 1762, together with her brother-in-law, she purchased a 100-acre farm in the area of Marsh's Bog (present-day Farmingdale), Monmouth County, where she used enslaved labor to work the farm.
At the end of her life, she lived in Morris County at a place called Irish Lot, which was her brother Michael Kearney's home in Hanover. There she held in slavery a man named Mars Willson, to whom she promised eventual freedom, and who was manumitted after Isabella's death in 1806 according to the previously-established agreement. - Keywords
- white person
- enslaver
- Enslaver of
- Bella {daughter of Rachel}
- Chloe
- Daniel
- Dinah
- Margaret {daughter of Rachel}
- Mars Willson (b. 1773)
- Mary {daughter of Rachel}
- Phillis
- Rachel
- Robert Johnson {son of Rachel}
- Child of
- Michael Kearney (1669-1741)
- Sarah Morris Kearney (1697-1736)
- Sibling of
- Graham Kearney Cooke (1736-1771)
- References
-
Robert M. Kelly and Rick Geffken, “Anglican Slavery in New Jersey: A Focus on Christ Church Shrewsbury,” Christ Church Shrewsbury Website. https://christchurchshrewsbury.org/wp-content/uploads/2019/01/Final-Integrated-Anglican-Slavery-Paper.pdf.
Rick Geffken, Stories of Slavery in New Jersey (Mount Pleasant, SC: Arcadia Publishing, 2021), page 71.
This person is represented on the following page(s):
Find a Grave: https://www.findagrave.com/memorial/39125776 - Record Contributor
- Susan Bailey
- Jesse Bayker
- Linked Events
-
Additional Participant in:
- 1756-05-06 Baptism: Rachel, Mary, Margaret, Robert Johnson, Bella (Role: Enslaver)
- 1766-08 Baptism: Dinah, Daniel, Chloe, Phillis (Role: Enslaver)
- 1806-04-28 Manumission: Mars Willson (Role: Enslaver, Deceased)
- Resource class
- Agent