A Historical Timeline

Pre-contact and European conquest

New Jersey’s indigenous inhabitants are known as Lenape or Lenni Lenape. The first recorded contact with Europeans took place in 1524. European colonization grew a century later when the Dutch and Swedes established settlements. English conquest had a devastating impact on the Lenape, who were already reduced by European diseases because larger numbers of English settlers from New England, New York and across the Atlantic dispossessed the Lenape of their lands.

Early 1600s-1800

The Dutch introduced slavery to the region and it expanded after the English took control of the colony in 1664. By the 18th century, 75% of New Jersey’s enslaved people lived in the six counties of Bergen, Essex, Somerset, Middlesex, Monmouth and Hunterdon.

1697

A group of Scots-Irish Presbyterian families from Newtown, New York founded Maidenhead, which was renamed Lawrence Township in 1816.

Circa 1770-1798 

What is now the Van Cleve House was built. According to Charles Tichy, former historic restoration architect for the State Division of Parks and Forestry, the house was built in the last quarter of the 18th century. Benjamin Van Cleve acquired the property by 1773. According to John Van Cleve's 1772 will, Benjamin’s brothers Aaron and Joseph inherited their father's property and were to pay him £400. At the time of his death, John’s estate did not report enslaved people among his property. In 1799, Aaron (275 acres) and Benjamin (254 acres) were the 6th and 7th largest landholders in Maidenhead. Wheat and other grains were grown for markets in Philadelphia and New York as well as Europe, but most shipments went to the Caribbean to feed enslaved individuals toiling on sugar plantations.

1778, 1779, 1786, 1799

Benjamin Van Cleve was taxed for owning one enslaved man. 

December 31, 1778 

Runaway advertisement printed in the New Jersey Gazette to recapture an enslaved woman named Dinah owned by Benjamin Van Cleve.

1790 Federal Census 

11,423 enslaved people in New Jersey; 1,301 in Hunterdon County 

Note: Mercer County was created in 1838, prior to that time Maidenhead/Lawrence was part of Hunterdon County.

1800 Federal Census 

12,422 enslaved people in New Jersey; 1,220 in Hunterdon County 

February 1804 

New Jersey passed "An Act for the Gradual Abolition of Slavery." It provided that females born of enslaved parents after July 4, 1804, would be free upon reaching 21 years of age, and males upon reaching 25. These children were “bound out” or were abandoned by their mothers’ enslaver to the local Overseers of the Poor. In effect, the 1804 Act created slaves for life and term slaves. However, their daily lives were indistinguishable. Like the laws in Pennsylvania, Rhode Island, Connecticut and New York, it was designed to compensate slaveholders for their lost property through forced labor.  

1810 Federal Census 

10,860 enslaved people in New Jersey; 1,119 in Hunterdon County; 

112 enslaved people and 24 Free Blacks lived in Maidenhead Township. This is the most precise data available for the total population of enslaved people in Maidenhead. Though the census schedules have not survived, this information was printed in the Trenton-Federalist newspaper on December 31, 1810.

August 31, 1817 

Benjamin Van Cleve died. A bound girl named Abigail Coulter, 16 years old, and a nameless Black woman and boy lived in the Van Cleve household, according to court records. After Van Cleve’s death, his two daughters contested his will, which gave the property to his son Joseph. Though the courts ruled in Joseph's favor, the price of litigation ultimately cost him the property. 

1820 Federal Census 

7,557 enslaved people in New Jersey; 616 in Hunterdon County.

1830 Federal Census 

2,254 enslaved people in New Jersey; 172 in Hunterdon County; 

13 in Lawrence Township 

1840 Federal Census 

674 enslaved people in New Jersey; 22 in Mercer County (est. 1838); 

2 in Lawrence Township

April 18, 1846 

New Jersey Assembly passed “An Act to Abolish Slavery”. Under this legislation, the status of a slave was converted to that of an apprentice bound to serve his or her present owner or his or her executors. Despite this law, individuals continued to be listed as “slaves” on the 1850 and 1860 federal censuses.

1850 Federal Census 

236 enslaved people in New Jersey; 6 in Mercer County; 

3 in Lawrence Township

1860 Federal Census

18 enslaved people lived in New Jersey; 1 in Lawrence Township 

Sylvia Hunt, aged 95 (born ca. 1765) resided in the household of A. Price Lanning.

January 1, 1863

President Abraham Lincoln issued the Emancipation Proclamation. The proclamation declared "that all persons held as slaves" within the rebellious states "are, and henceforward shall be free."  It had no effect on the status of enslaved people elsewhere in the country.

1861-1865 

The American Civil War is fought to end slavery.

December 6, 1865 

The 13th Amendment abolished the institution of slavery in the United States, freeing more than 4 million people. The New Jersey Assembly rejected the amendment on March 16, 1865, later ratifying it on January 23, 1866.