Archive · After 1783: the Berrien farm and the law of slavery
December 29, 1830 (recorded December 31, 1830)
Caleb Johnson’s deed of manumission for John Skillman (Jack)
The record that ended Jack’s legal enslavement, eight years after he was seized in Pennsylvania and carried back to New Jersey. Shown on Board 3.
What it says, in plain language
Caleb Johnson of Montgomery Township declares that he frees the man he holds as a slave, John Skillman, about 39, and gives up any claim to his labor, for himself and anyone claiming through him. Two overseers of the poor and two justices of the peace certify that Skillman is of sound mind, able to support himself, and between 21 and 40, the conditions New Jersey law set for freeing an adult without a bond. A justice records that Johnson acknowledged the deed, and the county clerk entered it in the register on December 31, 1830.
The story behind it
Jack was born about 1791 to “the estate of John Berrien,” the Rockingham farm where Washington had stayed in 1783. As a young man he came to believe that Judge Berrien’s will had freed him. He left New Jersey and found work on a Quaker farm in Pennsylvania, a state that had begun abolishing slavery in 1780.
In October 1822 Caleb Johnson of Montgomery Township, near Princeton, who claimed to own him, came with three armed men and seized him under the federal Fugitive Slave Act of 1793. Neighbors, Black and white, stoned the carriage, but Jack was carried back to New Jersey. Johnson then sued one of the Pennsylvanians who had tried to stop him. In 1833 a federal jury in Johnson v. Tompkins awarded Johnson $4,000, after Justice Henry Baldwin told the jury that “the foundations of the government are laid, and rest on the rights of property in slaves.”
By then Johnson had already freed the man he fought to recover. This is that record. Under New Jersey law an owner could free an enslaved adult without posting a bond only if two overseers of the poor and two justices of the peace certified that the person was between 21 and 40 and able to support himself, so that the township would not have to. The register names him John Skillman, age 39 “or thereabout.” The clerk recorded it on New Year’s Eve, 1830.
The next entry on the same page, also dated December 29, 1830, is Robert Bayles of Franklin Township freeing a woman named Dinah under the same rule.
p. 146
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Transcription
[p. 146] Somerset County ss. The State of New Jersey –
It is hereby made known that on this twenty ninth day of December in the year of Our Lord one thousand eight hundred and thirty I Caleb Johnson of the township of Montgomery in said County of Somerset have liberated manumitted and set free my negro slave called John Skillman of the age of thirty nine years or thereabout and I do hereby liberate, manumit and set free my said negro slave and discharge him from all service or demand of service to be hereafter made either by me or any person claiming by from or under me. In testimony whereof I have hereunto set my hand and seal the day and year aforesaid.
Sealed & Delivered in presence of us: Cornelius Kershow, Henry Duryea. Caleb Johnson [seal]
Somerset County to wit: We do hereby certify that on this twenty ninth day of December in the year of our Lord one thousand eight hundred and thirty Caleb Johnson of the township of Montgomery in the county of Somerset brought before us two of the overseers of the poor of said township and two of the Justices of the peace of said County his slave named John Skillman who on view and examination appears to us to be sound in mind and not under any bodily incapacity of obtaining a support and also is not under the age of twenty one years nor above the age of forty years: In witness whereof we have hereunto set our hands the day and year above written.
Cornelius Kershow, Henry Duryea, Overseers of the poor of the township of Montgomery. John Lowry [?], Cornelius P. Stryker, Justices of the peace in and for the said County of Somerset.
State of New Jersey, County of Somerset ss. Be it remembered that on the twenty ninth day of December in the year of our Lord one thousand eight hundred and thirty personally appeared [p. 147] before me Cornelius P. Stryker one of the Justices of the peace in and for the said county Caleb Johnson who I am satisfied is the within named grantor and being made acquainted with the contents thereof did acknowledge that he signed, sealed and delivered this instrument as his voluntary act and deed for the purposes therein mentioned.
Cornelius P. Stryker Justice
Received and Recorded Dec. 31, 1830 by J. M. Mann Clk.
[The page continues with a separate record of the same date: Robert Bayles of Franklin Township brings “his slave named Dinah” before two overseers of the poor and two justices for the same certificate, followed by his deed freeing her. Not transcribed here.]
Transcribed from the manuscript images for this project, checked against Founders Online where a text is published there. Original spelling and punctuation kept.