A Manumission of Abigal, 1808

A Manumission of Abigal,1808
Courtesy, Special Collections/University Archives, Rutgers University Libraries.

This document is the manumission certificate of the slave woman, Abigal. After the New Jersey legislature passed the Act for the Gradual Abolition of Slavery in 1804, some slave owners voluntarily freed older slaves who were not covered by the legislation those born before July 4, 1804. The document is transcribed below:

Manumission of Abigal} State of New Jersey, Middlesex County. These are to certify to whome it may concern, that I Ephraim Pyatt, of the township of Piscataway, State and County aforesaid, Do manumit and set free my Negrow Woman, Abigal, who is under the age of forty years and above the age of twenty one years & who appears to be of sound mind and not under any bodily incapacity of obtaining her support, and I have this day obtained a certificate for said Abigal, signed by Edward Griffin & Ephraim Runyan, two of the Overseers of the Poor for the township of Piscataway, in sd [said] County and Samuel & John Randolph, two of the Justices of the Peace for the County & State aforesaid, for her freedom. Given under my hand & seal this eighth day of August in the year of our Lord eighteen hundred and eight, 1808—-

Ephraim Pyatt L.S.

Witness present.

Edward Griffith,

Ephraim Runyon,

John F. Randolph.