Phillis Sparrow
28, from New Brunswick. Sailed on the London for Port Roseway (Shelburne) and Birchtown.
Record: “Book of Negroes,” 1783
Read the story →Named in the records
The People
Every person named on the boards, grouped by where the records place them. Where a record counted someone without a name, they are here too.
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Sailed free from New York, 1783
Twenty-nine named people and an infant whose entries in the British register give a place in central New Jersey. Ages are the clerks’ estimates.
Nannis Sparrow
11, from New Brunswick. Sailed on the London for Port Roseway (Shelburne) and Birchtown.
Record: “Book of Negroes,” 1783
Read the story →Sukey Sparrow
9, from New Brunswick. Sailed on the London for Port Roseway (Shelburne) and Birchtown.
Record: “Book of Negroes,” 1783
Read the story →John Sparrow
3, from New Brunswick. Sailed on the London for Port Roseway (Shelburne) and Birchtown. Born free behind British lines.
Record: “Book of Negroes,” 1783
Read the story →Peter Pharo
35, from Millstone. Sailed on the L’Abondance for Port Roseway (Shelburne) and Birchtown. Applied for land near Birchtown, 1787.
Record: “Book of Negroes,” 1783
Read the story →Richard Sloane
40, from Rocky Hill. Sailed on the Grand Dutchess of Russia for Port Roseway (Shelburne) and Birchtown. Born free; in the Birchtown muster, 1784.
Record: “Book of Negroes,” 1783
Read the story →James Perrow
38, from Raritan Landing. Sailed on the London for Port Roseway (Shelburne) and Birchtown. “left free”.
Record: “Book of Negroes,” 1783
Read the story →Abigail
35, from New Brunswick. Sailed on the Ann for Port Roseway (Shelburne) and Birchtown.
Record: “Book of Negroes,” 1783
Read the story →An infant, four months old
Sailed with Abigail on the Ann for Port Roseway. The register does not give the child’s name.
Record: “Book of Negroes,” 1783
Read the story →Joseph Skinner
35, from Amboy. Sailed on the Beaver for Port Roseway (Shelburne) and Birchtown.
Record: “Book of Negroes,” 1783
Read the story →Tinnia Lynch
25, from Amboy. Sailed on the Beaver for Port Roseway (Shelburne) and Birchtown.
Record: “Book of Negroes,” 1783
Read the story →Sally Lynch
6, from Amboy. Sailed on the Beaver for Port Roseway (Shelburne) and Birchtown.
Record: “Book of Negroes,” 1783
Read the story →John Dunn
45, from Bound Brook. Sailed on the Montague for Port Roseway (Shelburne) and Birchtown. In the Birchtown muster, 1784.
Record: “Book of Negroes,” 1783
Read the story →Jack Richards
28, from Trenton. Sailed on the Tree Briton for Port Roseway (Shelburne) and Birchtown.
Record: “Book of Negroes,” 1783
Read the story →William Mannan
27, from Old Bridge. Sailed on the London for Port Roseway (Shelburne) and Birchtown.
Record: “Book of Negroes,” 1783
Read the story →John Longstreet
45, from Princeton. Sailed on the Nisbet for Port Mouton.
Record: “Book of Negroes,” 1783
Read the story →Robert Conway
51, from Woodbridge. Sailed on the Nisbet for Port Mouton.
Record: “Book of Negroes,” 1783
Read the story →Ben Field
38, from Piscataway. Sailed on the Nisbet for Port Mouton.
Record: “Book of Negroes,” 1783
Read the story →Eleanor Field
27, from Piscataway. Sailed on the Nisbet for Port Mouton.
Record: “Book of Negroes,” 1783
Read the story →Ben Field
4, from Piscataway. Sailed on the Nisbet for Port Mouton.
Record: “Book of Negroes,” 1783
Read the story →Sarah Field
2, from Piscataway. Sailed on the Nisbet for Port Mouton.
Record: “Book of Negroes,” 1783
Read the story →Phillis Farmer
30, from New Brunswick. Sailed on the Diannah for Port Mouton. Heads a family in the Birchtown muster, 1784; stayed in Nova Scotia.
Record: “Book of Negroes,” 1783
Read the story →Samuel Penilack
25, from Millstone. Sailed on the Lord Townsend for Annapolis Royal.
Record: “Book of Negroes,” 1783
Read the story →Susanna Van Ryper
24, from New Brunswick. Sailed on the Clinton for Annapolis Royal. Ship bound for “Annapolis and St. Johns”.
Record: “Book of Negroes,” 1783
Read the story →Peter Stogdon
23, from Princeton. Sailed on the Ann for Saint John River. No further trace found.
Record: “Book of Negroes,” 1783
Read the story →Cornelius McIntire
28, from New Brunswick. Sailed on the The Brothers for Saint John River. A miller, free.
Record: “Book of Negroes,” 1783
Read the story →Lissey McIntire
24, from New Brunswick. Sailed on the The Brothers for Saint John River.
Record: “Book of Negroes,” 1783
Read the story →Bill McIntire
6, from New Brunswick. Sailed on the The Brothers for Saint John River.
Record: “Book of Negroes,” 1783
Read the story →Edmund Hill
21, from Somerset County. Sailed on the Lady’s Adventure for Saint John River.
Record: “Book of Negroes,” 1783
Read the story →Cornelius Moss
30, from Woodbridge. Sailed on the Sovereign for Saint John River.
Record: “Book of Negroes,” 1783
Read the story →Yorktown and the Chesapeake, 1781 to 1783
People American leaders tried to recover after Yorktown and at New York.
Sukey and her children
Sukey, about 50, a cook; George Wilks, about 30, a bay pilot; Sal, about 25, a weaver; Ben, about 15; and Rachel, about 12. Taken on Chesapeake Bay and put aboard a French warship. Washington asked the French admiral to send them back. What became of the family is not recorded.
Record: William Fitzhugh to Washington, January 6, 1782; Washington to de Grasse, February 6, 1782
Read the story →Judith Jackson
Of Norfolk, Virginia. Escaped in 1779. A Loyalist who said he had bought her pulled her off a ship at New York. She sailed for Nova Scotia on November 30, 1783. The claimant carried her child back to Virginia. In 1784 she headed a household at Birchtown.
Record: Her petition to Sir Guy Carleton, September 18, 1783
Read the story →Rockingham and the Berrien family, 1783 to 1830
People enslaved on the Berrien farm, in Washington’s household, and by the Berriens afterward, and a free Black neighbor.
A person the tax list does not name
Counted as “1” in the “Slaves” column on Margret Berrian’s line, July 1784. One of 81 enslaved people counted in the precinct that year.
Record: Eastern Precinct tax list, July 1784
Read the story →Ned Philips
Listed as “Free Ned Philips,” a free Black householder, on the same 1784 tax list.
Record: Eastern Precinct tax list, July 1784
Read the story →William Lee
Washington’s enslaved horseman, who rode with him through the war. Freed immediately by Washington’s will in 1799. Possibly the man holding Washington’s horse in Peale’s painting.
Record: Washington’s will, July 9, 1799
Read the story →Isabella, Harriet, and Ess
Born in the mid-1780s and held by Samuel Berrien, the judge’s son, near Allentown. They left together on the first night of February 1805. He was still advertising for them seven months later.
Record: Trenton Federalist, September 9, 1805
Read the story →Martha Richards
Freed by a certificate Samuel Berrien and his wife signed in July 1805.
Record: Middlesex County Manumissions and Removals, p. 60
Read the story →Jack, later John Skillman
Born about 1791 to “the estate of John Berrien.” At thirty he claimed his freedom and went to Pennsylvania. Seized in 1822 under the Act of 1793 and carried back. Manumitted, as John Skillman, December 29, 1830.
Record: Deed of manumission, 1830; Johnson v. Tompkins (1833)
Read the story →Washington’s household, 1796
Ona Judge
Escaped from the President’s House in Philadelphia in May 1796. Washington tried for years to have her returned. She lived free in New Hampshire until her death in 1848.
Record: Erica Armstrong Dunbar, Never Caught (2017)
Read the story →