In 1811, J.B. Pierson of Chatham, New Jersey signed a deed of manumission freeing his thirty-five year old slave Sylvia who was "of good health and capable of earning her living by labor", an important distinction required by state law before an individual could gain their freedom. Sylvia would have been required by the law to appear before the Overseer of the Poor while Pierson swore before two witnesses that she was self-sufficient and would not become a burden of the county.
An 1846 law providing for the gradual elimination of slavery in New Jersey reclassified the enslaved as "apprentices for life", thus still binding one to their owner, unless he or she was able to purchase their freedom or was manumitted. The law also stated that children born to "apprentices" were free and may continue to live with their parents; however, some adults were "sold for a term" to Southern states for their labor, a practice denounced by the state’s Quaker abolitionists.
Although slavery was abolished when New Jersey entered into the Civil War, news of the Emancipation Proclamation did not reach the outermost edges of the Confederacy until over two year after President Lincoln signed it. Juneteenth marks the day in 1865 when the enslaved living in Texas finally learned that they were free from approaching Union troops and Maj. Gen. Gordon Granger who stated:
“The people of Texas are informed that, in accordance with a proclamation from the Executive of the United States, all slaves are free. This involves an absolute equality of personal rights and rights of property between former masters and slaves, and the connection heretofore existing between them becomes that between employer and hired labor. The freedmen are advised to remain quietly at their present homes and work for wages. They are informed that they will not be allowed to collect at military posts and that they will not be supported in idleness either there or elsewhere.” —General Orders, Number 3; Headquarters District of Texas, Galveston, June 19, 1865