Sep 26, 2019 - Sale 2517

Sale 2517 - Lot 207

Price Realized: $ 1,625
?Final Price Realized includes Buyer’s Premium added to Hammer Price
Estimate: $ 700 - $ 1,000
(SLAVERY AND ABOLITION.) Potts, Richard. Manumission for an enslaved man in southern New Jersey. Autograph Document Signed by Potts and 2 witnesses, with paper seal affixed. One page, 5 1/4 x 8 1/4 inches; mat toning, folds, minor wear. New Hanover, NJ, 20 January 1794

Additional Details

"This is to certify that I, Richard Potts of the township of New Hanover in the county of Burlington, do hereby manumit and set free my negro slave named Pompy Steward and do hereby releas to him all my right and claim to his labour and futer earnings." A related certificate is held at the Clements Library, certifying that Steward is of an appropriate age and health for manumission.
Richard Potts (1733-1825) was a Quaker; he had manumitted several other enslaved people in 1779. See "Quakers and Their Allies in the Abolitionist Cause," page 137. As for the freed man, a Pompey Steward was living in Kent County, DE in the 1830, 1840, 1850, and 1860 censuses, and died in 1862 "aged 104 or 105 years, as near as can be ascertained."