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| Stone marker at Tinton Falls African Burial Ground. Photo J. Pruszinski. |
An engraved stone at the Tinton Falls African Burial Ground[1] states the following:
ENSLAVED BLACKS, BROUGHT TO LEWIS MORRIS’S IRONWORKS IN 1675, WERE BURIED IN THIS AREA. THE BLACK PEOPLE ON MORRIS’S TINTON MANOR ESTATE WERE THE LARGEST POPULATION OF ENSLAVED BLACKS IN EAST JERSEY FOR NEARLY A CENTURY.
A nearby wooden plaque reads:
BURIAL GROUND
This area was a burial ground for enslaved African-Americans who worked at Lewis Morris’s Ironworks in the 1670’s. The Tinton Manor Ironworks was the first in New Jersey, relying on water power from the falls, local supplies of bog iron, and the labor of slaves buried here. Although no grave markers remain, the site is a reminder of our community’s early history and must not be forgotten.
There are no other markers for this site, but many things to remember.[2]
The Lewis Morris referenced in the engraving at the burial ground was the uncle of the man who would later become Governor of New Jersey. That younger Morris was the earliest prominent lay booster of the Anglican Church in New Jersey. He was named for his uncle, who had moved to the American colonies from Barbados to care for the young Lewis when his father died. When he emigrated, Morris’ uncle was sure to capitalize on the plantation land grants available in New Jersey for those who brought slaves, bringing at least forty enslaved Black people in 1677.[3] This enabled his accumulation of the 6000-acre Tinton Falls estate where the burial ground is located. There he established a bog-iron works, mill complex, plantation, and manor that, by 1690, enslaved at least sixty-seven Black people.[4] The younger Lewis Morris inherited his uncle’s holdings when he died in 1691. His own accounting of the number of enslaved Black people on the estate at that time was approximately double the number officially recorded in the will.[5]
The iron works was located on Pine Brook, the stream immediately adjacent to the burial ground. The enslaved people, through whose enslavement Morris’ vast wealth was produced, were forced into “backbreaking labor”[6] on the manor. In that place “a sawmill turned timber culled from the thousands of acres of surrounding forest into lumber for use in the manor and for export to New York markets. A gristmill produced flour from the acres of wheat, rye, barley, oats and corn.”[7] The enslaved “planted, tended and harvested these crops,” not unlike “the difficult field labor they [had] performed in the sugar cane fields of Barbados… the enslaved men were forced to work long hours and days with just enough sustenance to keep them going.”[8] Their “rudimentary shelter” involved sleeping on a “dirt floor with hay or straw.”[9] And the “most… dangerous and heavy-duty work for making the valuable bar iron [on the estate] was done by” the enslaved.[10]
The younger Morris accumulated great wealth through enslavement and heavily supported the Church of England as a “staunch patron” and “shining light,”[11] according to church historian Nelson Burr. Morris contributed to the establishment of St. Peter’s (Perth Amboy)[12] and Christ Church (Shrewsbury),[13] St. Michael’s Church (Trenton), and even attempted to establish the Church of England through the New Jersey legislature.[14] He was an early member of the Society for the Propagation of the Gospel (SPG) in New Jersey, served on the first vestry of Trinity Church (now known as Trinity Church, Wall Street), and ultimately became governor of the Province of New Jersey. He was one of the most influential lay Anglicans in New Jersey during the colonial period and may have been the most prolific enslaver in the American colonies at the time.[15] And lest we think that the Morrises’ practice of enslavement was somehow enlightened by a significant moral sensibility, we should note that his cousin (and business partner) of Passage Point, also named Lewis Morris,[16] was murdered in 1696 in revenge for killing one of the Black people he had enslaved.[17] The baptism records of the enslaved during this period in Monmouth County similarly show that Anglican “masters” regularly raped the women they enslaved.[18]
[1] 750 Tinton Ave., Tinton Falls, NJ 07724.
[2] Some of the following material is drawn from Jolyon G. R. Pruszinski, Anglican Slavery in New Jersey (Eugene, OR: Cascade, 2025).
[3] John Robert Strassburger, “The Origins and Establishment of the Morris Family in the Society and Politics of New York and New Jersey, 1630-1746,” (PhD diss., Princeton University, 1976), 67. See also Hodges, Slavery and Freedom in the Rural North: African Americans in Monmouth County, New Jersey, 1665-1865 (Madison: Madison House, 1997), 9.
[4] Dean Freiday, “Tinton Manor: The Iron Works,” Proceedings of the New Jersey Historical Society 74 (1952): 250-61. There were “60 or 70” enslaved Blacks there according to George Scot, The model of the government of the province of East-New-Jersey (Edinburgh: John Reid, 1685), 128-129. See also Hodges, Slavery and Freedom in the Rural North, 9.
[5] Rick Geffken, Stories of Slavery in New Jersey (Charleston, SC: The History Press, 2021), 47.
[6] Geffken, Stories of Slavery in New Jersey, 48.
[7] Geffken, Stories of Slavery in New Jersey, 48.
[8] Geffken, Stories of Slavery in New Jersey, 48.
[9] Geffken, Stories of Slavery in New Jersey, 48.
[10] Geffken, Stories of Slavery in New Jersey, 48.
[11] Nelson Burr, The Anglican Church in New Jersey (Philadelphia: The Church Historical Society, 1954), 8, 216.
[12] William McGinnis, A History of St. Peter’s Church in Perth Amboy, New Jersey, 1686-1956 (Woodbridge, NJ: Woodbridge, 1956), 21.
[13] George Keith, A Journal of Travels from New-Hampshire to Caratuck on the Continent of North-America (London: Joseph Downing, 1706), 34, 46; David Humphreys, An Historical Account of the Incorporated Society for the Propagation of the Gospel in Foreign Parts, to the Year 1728(London: J. Downing, 1730), 57.
[14] Burr, The Anglican Church in New Jersey, 157, 10.
[15] The mine at Tinton Falls accounted for approximately half of the enslaved Black population of Monmouth County at the time (Hodges, Slavery and Freedom in the Rural North, 12).
[16] Passage Point was a location within Shrewsbury.
[17] Daniel J. Weeks, Not for Filthy Lucre’s Sake: Richard Salatar and the Antiproprietary Movement in East New Jersey, 1665-1707 (Bethlehem, PA: Lehigh University Press, 2001), 113.
[18] The parish register of Christ Church Shrewsbury shows evidence of baptisms of 4 “bastards” and 12 “mulatto” “servants,” suggesting impregnation by Anglican heads of household. Parish register of Christ Church, Shrewsbury, N.J. See also Robert M. Kelley, “Slavery Evidenced in the Parish Register,” Christ Church Shrewsbury (January 2019): https://christchurchshrewsbury.org/?page_id=3459.
