Perth Amboy Ferry Slip: A Site of Memory

The ferry slip at Perth Amboy hosts a UNESCO port marker as a site of memory associated with the Middle Passage of the trans-Atlantic slave trade. Perth Amboy served as the primary port of entry for ships bringing enslaved persons from Africa and regularly hosted a slave market.

Figure 1: Perth Amboy ferry slip plaque (front), photo Jolyon Pruszinski

 

Figure 2: Perth Amboy ferry slip plaque (back), photo Jolyon Pruszinski

The text of the marker reads:

 

            Enslavement and the Trans-Atlantic Human Trade: 

 

Near this site enslave Africans disembarked at Perth Amboy, the principal port in eastern New Jersey. During colonial times, numerous slave ships such as the Catherine, William, Africa and Sally were present in Raritan Bay, sending their captives upon the city pier – now the present-day site of the Historic Ferry Slip. In one day alone, the Catherine arrived with 240 enslaved people, leaving 17 dead at sea, and depositing 130 survivors in Perth Amboy.

In Africa, traders captured approximately 24 million children, women and men, half of whom died on the march to coastal prisons or within the prisons awaiting transport across the Atlantic. Chained and tightly packed in dark, filthy, stifling hot cargo holds, 12 million endured ocean crossings that often took months. During these voyages, known as the Middle Passage, 2 million people died from disease, malnutrition, dehydration, abuse and suicide.

African slavery in New Jersey began with the early Dutch settlement named New Netherland. Ideally suited as a maritime port of entry, Perth Amboy, the colonial capital of East Jersey, was an arrival location for ships during the trans-Atlantic human trade. Because the colony of New Jersey imposed no tariff on the importation of captive Africans, many traders disembarked their human cargo at this location, avoiding taxation while supplying buyers in New Jersey and other colonies.

In 1790, New Jersey’s enslaved African population was 11,423. It was the last Northern state to adopt gradual emancipation in 1804. By 1854, the Eagleswood section in Perth Amboy became a major station of the Underground Railroad. Slavery was not completely abolished until 1865[1] by the adoption of the 13^thAmendment to the U.S. Constitution.

In 2019, Perth Amboy was designated a “Site of Memory” by the UNESCO Slave Route Project.

 

Anglicans and Episcopalians were intimately involved in the legal establishment of slavery in New Jersey, in defending the trade, and in profiting from enslavement.

One of the most recent instances of Episcopal engagement with the slave trade in Perth Amboy occurred in 1818 in connection with the Van Wickle slave ring. As many have documented elsewhere,[2]  Van Wickle was one of the most notorious enslavers during the period of gradual abolition in New Jersey. As a Middlesex County Judge he facilitated the illegal trafficking out-of-state of well over one hundred African-Americans who were either already free in New Jersey, or who would have become free under gradual abolition. They were permanently enslaved in the south through Van Wickle’s actions. Public outcry shut down the operation of the ring in late 1818, but not before Van Wickle had convinced the other lay leaders of St. Peter’s Episcopal Church in Spottswood to defend his actions in print.[3] Van Wickle managed to orchestrate the sailing of one last ship of enslaved persons out of Perth Amboy, late in 1818, after public pressure on the ring had already begun to mount. On October 26, 1818 the ring smuggled forty-eight people[4] out of Perth Amboy aboard the Schoharie. These are their names from the shipping manifest: 

 

William M. Clare, 25; John C. Marsh (of New York); John C. March (on board); Jafe Manning, 21; Robert Cook, 17; Ben Morris, 22; Sam Prince, 19; Sam Peter, 30; George Phillips, 18; James Thompson; Edward Gilbert, 22; Dan Francis, 20; James, 15; Charles, 19; Susan Wilcox, 36; Nelly, 18; Betsey Lewis, 28; Jane Clarkson, 23; Eliza Thompson, 21; Jane Cook, 15; Ann Moore, 29; Julian Jackson, 21; Jane Smith, 33; Peggy Boss, 21; Mary Harris, 21; Sally Cross, 20; Rosanna Cooper, 22; Mary Simmons, 18; Hannah Jackson, 18; Hanna Crigier, 18; Harriet Silas, 15; Fanny Thompson, 14; Elizabeth Ann Turner, 16; Susan Jackson, 20; Hanna Johnson, 20; Hannah, 18; Cane, 22; William Stone (New York); Jack, 22; Lewis, 22; Peter 14; Frank, 21; Caleb Groves, 50; John, 21; Collins, 35; Othello, 16; Anthony Fortune, 21; Joseph Henricks, 19; Jane, 23; Susan 21; Lena, 38. 

 

Van Wickle was never even indicted for his crimes.

Jolyon G. R. Pruszinski, Ph.D.

Reparations Commission Research Historian

Episcopal Diocese of New Jersey

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[1] This is an inaccuracy in the site marker text. Slavery was not fully abolished by the 13^th Amendment because the text of the amendment specifically allowed slavery as a legal punishment for a crime.

[2] See the various primary sources and public history project related to Van Wickle and the slave ring listed in Jolyon Pruszinski, “Jacob Van Wickle (1770-1854): Middlesex County Judge, Notorious Enslaver, and Respected Episcopalian Lay Leader,” DNJRJR, September 18, 2023.

[3] Again, see Pruszinski, “Jacob Van Wickle (1770-1854)” DNJRJR, September 18, 2023.

[4] Documented at https://lostsoulsmemorialnj.org.

The Enslaved in the Parish Register at Christ Church, Shrewsbury

This address and reading were delivered by Christ Church, Shrewsbury historian Jamie Greene and parishioners Bill Cuff, Connie Goddard, and Robert Maber at the Stations of Reparations service of repentance on March 25, 2023 at St. Peter’s Episcopal Church in Freehold.[1]

 

Figure 1: Christ Church, Shrewsbury parishioners at the Stations of Reparations Service, 2023.
Screen capture of the St. Peter's, Freehold recording: 
 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=K1x6bEZOmGU.

“As you enter the narthex at Christ Church, Shrewsbury, on the left you’ll see a large plaque commemorating Lewis Morris at whose home in 1702 our first church service was held. On the right you’ll see another plaque with a list of rectors including Samuel Cooke, the sixth rector, who was the driving force behind our current 1769 church building. Both men were slaveholders. Lewis Morris owned scores to work his bog-iron works. Rev. Cooke and his family had multiple slaves. But as slaveholders in Shrewsbury and Christ Church, Shrewsbury they were not alone. Historian Rick Geffken who is with us here today found that there were fifty-seven Shrewsbury slaveholders in 1771. Twenty-five of those worshipped at Christ Church. Rather than focus on the enslavers though, we’d like to remember today some of the fifty-four “negroes” and “mulattos” who were baptized at Christ Church between 1733 and 1775 using the original language found in our parish registers for those years.”

 

August 5, 1746.

John: Negro servant of Thomas Clayton, resident, Freehold; under sentence of death.

 

September 18, 1748.

Henry: Negro servant (of Mr. Leonard) whose name was “Fortune.”

 

June 13, 1749.

Peter: A free negro living with Mrs. Deuill.

 

September 8, 1749.

Zebulon: Son of a mulatto woman commonly called “Black Robin.”

 

September 22, 1749.

Anthony: A negro child belonging to Mrs. Jane Forman.

 

October 28, 1749. 

Edith: 8-month-old mulatto, infant daughter of Edith Finemore.

 

August 19, 1750. 

William: A negro servant of Mr. Tunis Dennis, commonly called “Forturian.”

 

July 24, 1751.

Sarah West: Father (Robin West) is a mulatto.

 

October 4, 1751.

Elizabeth: A negro woman of Mrs. Morford.

 

March 30, 1752.

Oliver: A negro child belonging to Samuel Leonard.

 

August 23, 1752.

Elizabeth: A negro woman belonging to the widow Forman.

 

August 23, 1752.

Diego: A negro belonging to Mr. Joseph Throckmorton.

 

May 6, 1756.

Rachel: Adult negro servant of Ms. Isabella Kearny [sister in law of Rev. Samuel Cooke] and the children of Rachel (Mary, Margaret, Robert Johnson, Bella).

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[1] Transcript created by Jolyon Pruszinski from the St. Peter’s, Freehold video broadcast of the service: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=K1x6bEZOmGU. Additional documentation is available in the article “Remembering the Enslaved at Christ Church,” hosted on the Christ Church, Shrewsbury homepage: https://christchurchshrewsbury.org/?p=6658. Note: often at this time, a designation of “mulatto” suggests rape as a likely circumstance of conception.

Sandy Hook: A Site of Memory

One of the most notorious Episcopal enslavers during the period of gradual abolition in New Jersey was Middlesex County Judge, and long-serving church warden of St. Peter’s Episcopal Church, Spotswood, Jacob Van Wickle. Culminating in 1818, he orchestrated an illegal slave-trading ring that resulted in the fraudulent removal out-of-state of well over one hundred enslaved African Americans, some of whom had formerly been free and had been kidnapped by the agents of the ring. Many scholars and public history projects have sought to document his actions,[1] and documentation of his Episcopal affiliation and leadership has been made previously on the DNJRJR, including the efforts of fellow church leaders to deny any illegal behavior.[2] On March 10, 1818 the first ship carrying individuals trafficked by the ring set sail from Sandy Hook, New Jersey.[3]

Figure 1: Sandy Hook, NJ from Mount Mitchill Scenic Overlook, photo by Jolyon Pruszinski

The ship manifest of the Mary Ann documents[4] the names and ages of those thirty-nine individuals kidnapped or trafficked under false pretenses and sold south into permanent slavery: 

 

Peter, age 15; Simon (age unknown, a free person); Margaret Coven (age unknown, a free person); Sarah, age 21; Dianna, age 7 months; Rachel, age 22; Regina, age 6 weeks; Hager, age 29; Roda, age 14; Mary, age 2; Augustus, age 4; Flora, age 23; Susan, age 7 months; Harry, age 14; James, age 21; Elmirah, age 14; George, age 16; Susan Watt, age 35; Moses, age 16; Lydia, age 18; Betty, age 22; Patty, age 22; Bass, age 19; Christeen, age 27; Diannah, age 9; Dorcas, age 1; Claresse, age 22; Hercules, age 2; Lidia, age 22; Harriett Jane, age 3; Bob (no age given); Rosanna (no age given); Claus (no age given); Ann (no age given); Rosino, a child; Jenette (no age given); Charles, a child; Elias, a child; Robert, a child.

 

Van Wickle was never indicted for his actions.

Jolyon G. R. Pruszinski, Ph.D.

Reparations Commission Research Historian

Episcopal Diocese of New Jersey

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[1] Some excellent documentation of primary sources related to Van Wickle and the slave ring are available through the Rutgers University Scarlet and Black Research Center which hosts New Jersey slavery records. See “Jacob Van Wickle (1770-1854)” at https://records.njslavery.org/s/doc/item/1284, accessed September 26, 2023. See also Francis Pingeon, “An Abominable Business: The New Jersey Slave Trade, 1818,” New Jersey History 109.3 (1991): 15-35; James J. Gigantino, II, “Trading in Jersey Souls: New Jersey and the Interstate Slave Trade,” Pennsylvania History: A Journal of Mid-Atlantic Studies 77.3 (2010): 281-302; Calvin Schermerhorn, The Business of Slavery and the Rise of American Capitalism (New Haven: Yale University Press, 2015), 69-80; Graham Russell Gao Hodges, Black New Jersey: 1664 to the Present Day (New Brunswick, NJ: Rutgers University Press, 2019), 79; and Gigantino, The Ragged Road to Abolition, 157-160. See also the presentation from the Lost Souls Memorial Project (“Inside the Van Wickle’s Slave Ring: ‘Exposing a Scene of Villany’” at https://lostsoulsmemorialnj.org/wp-content/uploads/Inside-Van-Wickles-Slave-Ring.pdf, accessed September 25, 2023); the material published by the East Brunswick Historical Society (“Van Wickle and Morgan Slave Ring Leaders East Brunswick, NJ (1818)” at https://purehistory.org/van-wickle-and-morgan-slave-ring-leaders-east-brunswick-new-jersey-1818/, accessed September 26, 2023); “The 1619 Project” article by Anne C. Bailey, “They Sold Human Beings Here,” New York Times, February 12, 2020 at https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2020/02/12/magazine/1619-project-slave-auction-sites.html, accessed September 26, 2023; the Rutgers University Scarlet and Black Research Center article “Removal to Louisiana: The Van Wickle Slave Ring,” at https://scarletandblack.rutgers.edu/archive/exhibits/show/hub-city/removal-to-louisiana, accessed September 26, 2023); Regina Fitzpatrick “New Jersey State Archives Van Wickle Slave Ring Free Digital Collection,” at https://www.njstatelib.org/news/vanwickleslaveringcollection/, accessed September 26, 2023; and the State of New Jersey, “Documents at the New Jersey State Archives relating to the Van Wickle Slave Ring,” at https://www.nj.gov/state/darm/WebCatalogPDF/VanWickle/VanWickleTableOfContents.pdf, accessed September 26, 2023.

[2] Jolyon Pruszinski, “Jacob Van Wickle (1770-1854): Middlesex County Judge, Notorious Enslaver, and Respected Episcopalian Lay Leader,” DNJRJR, September 18, 2023.

[3] Sandy Hook can be viewed from Mount Mitchill Scenic Overlook in Atlantic Highlands, NJ: www.monmouthcountyparks.com. Take Rte. 36 / Ocean Ave east to jug-handle signs for “Red Bank / Scenic Road.” Follow signs for the park.

[4] Also to be found at https://lostsoulsmemorialnj.org.