From the Keynote Address by Patricia True Payne at the Friday Truehart Witness Stone Installation Ceremony
My ancestor, Friday Truehart, arrived in the Sourland region at the age of 13 as the slave of the Rev. Oliver Hart, who purchased him in Charleston, South Caroline, on April 9, 1771, which is 251 years ago. According to Hart’s diary, Friday was 3 when he and his mother, Dinah, estimated to be about 20 years old, were purchased. Oliver Hart left Charleston because of his patriotic activities and fled Charleston in 1780 which was the same year the British took over the city. He came north to the Sourland Mountain region to become pastor of the Old School Baptist Church in Hopewell, New Jersey.
Friday Truehart and William Stives, a Black veteran of the American Revolution, were longtime parishioners of the Old School Baptist Church…. They were 2 of 28 enslaved and freed Blacks who worshiped here. There is no evidence of their burial place, since the cemetery was segregated and Blacks were buried somewhere along the edges of the white cemetery, The local Hopewell newspaper reported his death in 1843.
For the enslaved in New Jersey, a law entitled The Gradual Abolition of Slavery Act, passed by the legislature in 1804, stipulated that “every child born to a slave within the state of New Jersey after July 4, 1804, shall be free. However, there was a very important caveat that amounted to indentured servitude. Women would gain their freedom at the age of 21 and men would not gain their freedom until the age of 25. There was another important stipulation: this statute requiring the recording of the name, age, and sex of each child who was referred to as “slaves for a term.” This documentation enabled researchers to identify and trace newly-freed Black people.
Oliver Hart did free Friday Truehart in his will, but required he remain in servitude to his wife, Anne, for another seven years. Friday Truehart became a free man in 1802, at the age of 35.