EXHIBIT: LUCY’s Chest – The Legacy of South Jersey’s Last Slave

Posted on: July 11, 2022, by :
Starts
18
Jul2022
Ends
12
Sep2022

Lucy's Chest, which was passed down through a South Jersey family for decades, is now part of our collection.

At AAHMSNJ Atlantic City (Noyes Arts Garage of Stockton University)

2200 Fairmount Avenue, Atlantic City, NJ

The African American Heritage Museum of Southern New Jersey has received a major, historically significant donation from a descendent of the family with connections to those who enslaved Lucy Harris/Jackson.  Keeta Kay Cole of Lititz, PA has gifted Lucy’s woodworking tool chest and more to the museum’s growing collection.  Lucy was the last person formally designated by the US Census as a slave in South Jersey, and her chest has been passed down through Cole’s family since Lucy’s death in 1875.  

According to Robert Lowe Barnett, who studied and has written about Lucy’s history and the chest extensively, the chest is believed to be Lucy Harris/Jackson’s who was the “property” of Abigail Holdcraft who lived at Polar and Shore Roads.  Lucy was sold for $25 in Egg Harbor Township to William Holdcraft in 1838 when she was about 60 years old.  "Although Amendment 13 to the U.S. Constitution formally abolished slavery in 1866, Abigail Holdcraft wrote in her 1871 will that upon her death, Lucy would be “set at liberty. Holdcraft died in 1876.”

Keeta Kay believes her father, Lewis Risley Wolfe, who was born in and lived in Pleasantville and also lived in Atlantic City for a time,, received the chest upon the death of his aunt Nettie B. Collins in 1963 since Nettie and her husband Byron Leroy Martin had no children. The chest was then passed to Keeta Kay in 1974 when her father Lewis died.

“This is one of the most historically significant contributions our museum as received,” said Ralph Hunter, AAHMSNJ Founder and President. “We are extremely grateful to Keeta Kay and Robert Barnett for choosing our museum to preserve this extraordinary piece of South Jersey’s Black history.”

The museum will display the chest, its contents and the chimes from July 18th through Sunday, September 11th at the Atlantic City location in the Noyes Arts Garage. 

Museum hours are Wednesday through Sunday from 11 AM to 5 PM.