A South Brunswick Slave Plantation

“Death is better than slavery," Harriet Ann Jacobs.

The colonial plantation known as Longbridge Farm originally contained 15,600 acres purchased by Peter Sonmans for the East Jersey Proprietors in 1693.

This farm was run more in the traditions of the southern plantations. using a large slave population to cover his substantial acreage. The farm included Kingston and most of what would become South Brunswick Township, also including parts of other surrounding communities.

In the year 1733, a wealthy Philadelphia merchant named Thomas Lawrence turned it into one of the elite colonial farming operations in central New Jersey, purchasing 800 acres of farmland.

Lawrence had many financial interests including holdings in Barbados West Indies and Lisbon, the capital of Portugal. Lawrence had a letter book which listed his ship, the Sarah L. Lawrence, traveling between Jamaica, South Carolina and Holland.

He traded in products such as tobacco, molasses, flour and Indian corn. According to the oldest known map of the area, the Dalley map, the property rested between Heathcote Brook and what appears to be Ridge Road on today’s map. 

This was one of Thomas Lawrence’s principal properties and it served as his summer home. Plantations of this size and scope were rare in New Jersey and it is unknown how profitable it was.