Kate or Catharine, Child of Nancy

A ledger page belonging to Dr. Ebenezer Stockton (a cousin of the Duke), records his visits to Morven in 1804. On September 13 and 14, the Doctor enters a “visit and delivery of Blackwoman.” In April, he returned to vaccinate the Stockton children and “two negroes.” Historically, these visits have been used to suggest that medical care of enslaved people indicated a kind or generous master—the reality is that the birth of a new enslaved baby meant an augmentation in property and wealth and, as such, children and their mothers were cared for. Because this child was born seven months after New Jersey passed the The Act for the Gradual Abolition of Slavery, Richard, the Duke, was required to register the birth of the child. Nearly six months later, Stockton registered the birth of baby Kate with the Somerset County Clerk.

This birth registration is for a baby girl named “Kate or Catharine'' who was born at Morven on September 14, 1804. It reads, “I Richard Stockton of the county of Somerset and State of New Jersey counceller [sic] at Law do hereby certify that Kate or Catharine a female Black child of Nancy a female Slave belonging to me was Born on the fourteenth day of September the year of our lord Eighteen Hundred and four.” The Act for the Gradual Abolition of Slavery of 1804 stated that “...every child born of a slave within this state, after the fourth day of July next, shall be free; but shall remain the servant of his or her owner...if a female until the age of twenty one years.” As such, Kate or Catharine would have been free on September 14, 1825.

This document records the manumission of a woman named Cate by the Duke’s, son, Robert Field Stockton in 1829. Cate may be the baby “Kate or Catherine” born to Nancy in 1804. Note she would have been 25 at the time of her manumission, four years past the provision in gradual emancipation.