A journey into the shadow history of a community
Cream Ridge resident researches slavery in Upper Freehold
BY JENNIFER KOHLHEPP
Staff Writer

JENNIFER KOHLHEPP Cream Ridge resident Sue Kozel looks over a re-creation of a hand-drawn map she discovered at Rutgers University in New Brunswick that delineates the provinces of eastern Pennsylvania and western New Jersey in the year 1777.

Any secrets about slavery in Allentown and Upper Freehold are not safe with resident Sue Kozel.

Kozel, who has read about 150 books about slavery in the United States over the past three years, recently got involved in creating a Historic Farmland Byway through Upper Freehold. Although a narrative for the scenic tour through the community has already been written, she believes it is a disservice for it not to include the history of the slaves who helped establish the area.

"Slavery in the area - we just don't talk about it," Kozel said. "Why? Because we were involved in the freeing of slaves? Because we had slaves? Or, because we don't know anything about it?"

Having done extensive research while trying to answer these questions, Kozel determined that "the discussion of slavery in the Colonial, Revolutionary era, post-Revolutionary period, early Republic and until the mid-1800s is a disturbing reality for Monmouth County, western Monmouth County, and Upper Freehold and Allentown."

According to Kozel, Monmouth County has kept extraordinary records and has published two books about slavery: "The Manumission Book of Monmouth County, N.J., 1791-1844" and "The Black Birth Book, 1804-1848." Author Graham Russell Hodges, a history professor at Colgate University in Hamilton, N.Y., also published a book in 1997 titled "Slavery and Freedom in the Rural North: African Americans in Monmouth County, New Jersey, 1665-1865" in cooperation with the Friends of the Monmouth County Park System and with support from the New Jersey Historical Commission.

"My review of the original slave birth records and the manumission records in the Monmouth County Archives, books published by the Monmouth County Clerk's Office and other resources demonstrates that our county residents must acknowledge this historical and equally horrifying reality if we are to be honest and factual about our history," Kozel said.

According to information Kozel compiled with help from the University of Virginia, Charlottesville, New Jersey had a total population of 184,139 in 1790. Of that population, 11,423 individuals were registered slaves. At that time, Bergen County had the most slaves at 2,301, followed by Somerset County with 1,810 slaves and Monmouth County with 1,596. At that same time, there were 2,762 slaves freed in the state, 353 of whom had been freed in Monmouth County.

According to the U.S. Census Bureau, there were still registered slaves in New Jersey up until the 1860s, Kozel said.

Kozel believes people in the area should know the history of the black experience "so we can all finally have a talk about this and put together the facts instead of being frightened by them.

"History helps us understand who we are today," Kozel continued, adding that the history of slavery in the area could be one of the reasons why there aren't many black families in Allentown or Upper Freehold today.

Upper Freehold had many slave owners, according to Kozel.

"It is a secret, if you will," she said. "Some of the most prominent families in the township had slaves."

Kozel continued, "This is not a story of good or bad people. It's about history. It's about sharing this information with students who have no idea that there was slavery in this area."

Hodges' book states that the Holmeses and Hendricksons were the largest slaveholding families in Monmouth County. In further researching Hodges' statement, Kozel discovered various manumission records at the county archives with these and other local family names on them.

Manumission records show that Deborah Holmes, of Upper Freehold, freed a slave named Rachel, 23, in June 1810 and a slave named Dinah on March 18, 1813. Jacob Hendrickson freed a slave named Charles in 1826. Samuel Imlay, after whom Imlaystown is named, freed a slave named Benjamin on April 10, 1819.

"A lot of people made money off these slaves," she said, noting that slaves in the area were of African-American and Native American descent.

Many African-American slaves fled the area to work with the British in the Revolutionary War to help fight the American Continental Army and colonists, according to Kozel.

"These black slaves wanted to be free men and women - ironically, the very thing that the colonists were fighting for in their independence against the British king," Kozel said.

While some slaves fled and others were freed, Kozel discovered records that showed some were not freed until their owners passed away. According to records, Joseph Holmes' estate freed the slaves Lucy Michel and William Jacobs after Holmes died. Another record shows that Thomas Sexton's estate later freed his slave, Clarissa Jacobs, following Sexton's death.

Kozel said Jacobs was a common surname used for slaves, which led her to believe that a large family from Africa may have been broken up and divided among families in the area. However, she said people thought of slaves as property and that some slave owners named slaves after themselves. Others owners used anagrams to name their servants.

Kozel said she would like to dedicate her work regarding slavery in the area to Polodor Emlon.

"The name sounds exotic, but it is an anagram for 'poor old lemon,' which to me says that this person is just a thing to these people," she said, noting that Joseph Kirby freed Polodor Emlon in 1825.

While upon review for freedom, Kozel said slaves fell subject to medical examinations.

"The justices that ruled had to oversee the date of the exam and make sure that the slave had a sound mind," Kozel said. "They were basically seeing if you were sane enough to be released and freed."

Kozel said slaves who perished prior to receiving their freedom were "often buried in backyards in unmarked graves."

"That is why it is important to know their story and to tell it," she said.

While some farming families used slave labor to upkeep their plantations in the area, other business people such as Richard Waln, who owned the Waln Mill, were prominent abolitionists, according to Kozel.

"Upper Freehold was a very interesting place," Kozel said. "We had slavery and freedom in face of each other."

To Kozel, Upper Freehold's duality may have come as a result of what was known as the Lawrence Line, which surveyor John Lawrence, who resided in Upper Freehold, created to separate eastern New Jersey from western New Jersey prior to the formulation of the English colony. Allentown and Upper Freehold were sometimes cited on the west of the line. On other maps they were situated to the east of the line, while on others the line still went right through the middle of the two towns, according to Kozel.

Kozel believes that the fluid boundaries resulted in the area having a dual personality.

Of the 373 manumissions listed in the county archives in the 1840s, Upper Freehold had 75, which Kozel considers a significant number for a town with a large slaveholding population in the 1840s.

The manumission records and attached receipts were important to blacks of the time because they served as their freedom papers, according to Kozel. All of the records were handwritten, sometimes in triplicate. Equally as important as the manumission records was the Black Birth Book 1804-1831, which lists all children born of slaves in the county after 1804. It wasn't until 1804 that New Jersey actually passed an emancipation act for the gradual ending of slavery.

The act stated that any slave born before July 4, 1804, could remain enslaved for life but any slave's child born after that date would be free. Registering the children became a requirement after 1804, and slave owners faced a fine if they did not.

"I believe that most did not [register the slaves' children] because the records are kind of light," Kozel said.

In her research, Kozel found records that Peter Wikoff, a farmer in Upper Freehold, had a "Negro male child" born on March 11, 1805. Jacob Hendrickson, who is listed as an Upper Freehold farmer, had "a female child born of his slave" on March 9, 1804, whose name was Susan. Innkeeper Elias Conover, of Upper Freehold, had "a male child born of his slave" on Nov. 16, 1804.

The extensive manumission and birth records the county kept had a significant impact on Kozel.

"It's a little disturbing because people tend to think that no one in New Jersey was doing this," Kozel said.

Kozel said some local history books don't even address the history of slavery in the area.

"Slavery is part of Monmouth County's legacy, with hundreds of European immigrants and American-born colonists and their descendants exploiting slave labor for the purpose of personal profit," she said. "It is part of the story that is often absent in a very visible way from local scholarship, family histories and educational programming."

Kozel not only hopes to have the African-American history incorporated into the scenic byway narrative, but also aims to have symbols created from slave artifacts incorporated into the logos and displays of historical exhibits and publications by historical organizations throughout Monmouth County and the state of New Jersey.

"As I was working with Lee Ellen at the Monmouth County Historical Association, I learned from her about a clamshell and a miniature corncob that was hidden in Marlpit Hall, a Middletown historic home owned by the MCHA," Kozel said.

Marlpit Hall, like other historic homes owned by the MCHA in Freehold, had slaves working there to serve the owners, according to Kozel.

"Discovered during an excavation and historic inventory review, this shell and corn cob signify for me how possible slave artifacts can help us understand how slaves might have kept their private religious and cultural views hidden from their white, European or American-born owners," she said.

Kozel, who teaches at Ocean County College in Toms River and Mercer County Community College, with campuses in West Windsor and Trenton, said she believes sharing this research with students will give them a better understanding of race relations today.

Kozel has lived in the Cream Ridge section of Upper Freehold for the past 10 years. She wants to bring her research to light, she said, because "when one person's door is shut, every door is shut."

Noting that she knew hard times growing up in Dunellen with a family that had to rely on welfare, Kozel said, "I still knew I had an advantage because I'm white, and that's outright wrong.

"But it's still a fact of life," she said, "and it shouldn't be that way - it's 2007."