It Happened in Hillsborough: Silvia Dubois

In 1788, in Hillsborough Township of perhaps 400 homesteads, there were 73 enslaved people. They
toiled at farms, mills, taverns, and households - 57 in all. The other 343 Hillsboroughians and their
families held no slaves. One of them was born that very year. Her name was Silvia Dubois.

Silvia Dubois

She was born in the tavern owned by Richard Compton just north of Rock Mills in Hillsborough. Silvia's
mother, Dorcas, was a slave belonging to Compton, whose name she took and used throughout her life.
Silvia's father was Cuffee Bard, a fifer during the Revolution who participated in the battles at Trenton
and Princeton.

Silvia remembered that her mother was "ambitious to be free." To that end, she borrowed a
considerable sum of money from prominent Hillsborough farmer Dominicus Dubois - indenturing herself
and her children to him while using the cash to buy her freedom from Compton. A similar transaction
with another enslaver separated the young Silvia from her mother.

Silvia’s journey from Hillsborough to the wild frontier of Great Bend, Pennsylvania, and back, and the
hardscrabble life she led afterwards on the Sourland Mountain is recounted in her autobiography, The
Slav Who Whipt Her Mistress and Gand Her Freedom. It is a remarkable tale of survival and freedom.

Because of that book, compiled from interviews conducted by doctor and educator Cornelius Larison,
The story of Silvia Dubois has become increasingly well-known with each passing decade.
However, while we know the story of Silvia Dubois in her own words, we know almost nothing about the
other 72 enslaved people in Hillsborough in 1788. That she was an extraordinary person whose life
deserved to be chronicled cannot be denied. But there was nothing ordinary about the other enslaved
men, women, and children of 18th-century Hillsborough. And we think of them this month.

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Gregory Gillette has been writing about local history for 20 years, starting with his Courier News column
“Gillette on Hillsborough” and continuing today with a Facebook page of the same name. He was named
as Hillsborough’s first Local Historian in 2025.