Peter Oliver (formerly Oliver)
Born: 10 May 1766
Died: 28 September 1810
Worked: 1784–1809
Residences: Bethania, NC; Salem, NC; Bethabara, NC

The first documentation for Oliver was in 1784 when he was living in Bethania and sent to Salem to work on a project through January 1785.[210] He was owned by a “Mr. Blackborn” who had lived near Bethania for some time. Oliver worked on projects with the mason Johann Gottlob Krause, who was said to have been the point of hire. He helped Krause rebuild the Salem Tavern (Fig. 21), likely aiding in the burning or laying of bricks.[211]

The tavern was completed in December 1784 but Oliver was still in Krause’s employ however two months later, possibly working on the construction of the Gottlieb Schober House, begun in January 1785.[212] Oliver’s owner, Blackborn, arrived in Salem on 10 February 1784 to retrieve Oliver but Krause demanded that he be kept until the end of the workday.[213] Oliver went “most unwillingly” back to Blackborn the next day after once again requesting that the Salem Congregation purchase him.[214] Just a day after Blackborn took him away, Oliver returned to Salem on his own accord but the Moravians refused to receive him.[215]

Oliver’s requests to be purchased away from Blackborn did not fall on deaf ears. Salem records show that throughout 1785 the congregation attempted to buy Oliver but were turned away by Blackborn at every pass.[216] Oliver was allowed to attend church services with his master in Bethania, and on 12 November 1786 he was baptized and took the Christian name, Peter.

Blackborn finally relented on 20 February 1786 and Peter Oliver was sold to the Salem Congregation for £100.[217] He worked in Salem, burning bricks and performing other tasks, for almost two years before being sold to the potter Rudolph Christ, likely preparing clay for Christ to work. The next mention of Peter Oliver is that of him falling ill while being owned by Johann Gottlob Krause: “Nearly everybody at Gottlieb Krause’s is sick with high fever. The Negroes Peter Oliver and Rose also have it.”[218]

Krause and Peter Oliver seemed to have worked together often on Krause’s building sites over the next decade, including the Salem Boys’ School (Fig. 8). In 1795, Krause sold Peter Oliver to the tanner Johann Jacob Ernst, citing personal differences between the two. It was the stated intention of the Salem Congregation to then hire Peter out across the Wachovia Tract.[219]

Five years after being purchased by Ernst, Peter Oliver was freed.[220] He wished to marry and find employment, although the prospects in the region for him were slim. The chief administrator of the Moravians in Wachovia Frederick William Marshall took it upon himself to find Peter Oliver a wife. A year later, in 1801, Peter Oliver traveled to Nazareth, Pennsylvania on personal business. He returned to North Carolina in September of the same year having spent time working and with the Moravian congregations of Nazareth and Lititz.[221]

Marshall sent Peter Oliver back to Pennsylvania in January 1802 to find a wife. He was granted the right upon his return to rent a farm in the Wachovia Tract.[222] By February 1803 he had returned to North Carolina and married Christina Bass, a free, non-Moravian mulatto, and was given a tract of land near Salem to build a home.

Peter attained a prominent position within the African American community of Wachovia. For instance, in 1804 he participated in a special service held for African Americans at Bethania’s Moravian church.[223] He and Christine had two children, one of whom was baptized in Salem on 30 July 1809.[224]

Peter Oliver passed away on 28 September 1810 (Figure 37). His funeral in Salem is noted as having been attended by members of the church, visitors, and a large number of African Americans who were given the front benches of the church.
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ENSLAVED LABOR - MORAVIAN CHURCH, SALEM, NORTH CAROLINA

The Moravians of the Wachovia Tract had a complex relationship with slavery. In the eighteenth century, white Moravians did not see a conflict between owning and hiring enslaved Africans and African Americans while at the same time worshipping beside them as spiritual equals.

By the early nineteenth century, the chattel slavery and racial segregation found across the American South was also entrenched in Salem.

Enslaved workers were originally brought to Salem to help the Moravians in their initial efforts to construct the vital buildings in the town. The Moravians justified this decision because they were crucially short on labor during this time.

By 1800 the Moravians in North Carolina owned approximately seventy enslaved workers, about a tenth of the total workforce in Wachovia.

While many of those individuals worked on farms in Bethania and Friedberg, it was not uncommon for an enslaved African or African American man to be in Salem working on one of the many buildings being constructed. Most of these men were laborers, but some possessed skills in the building trades. By 1860, African Americans, both enslaved and free, comprised 22 percent the total population in the Salem District.

Source: The Enslaved Men Who Built Salem: A Biographical Look /Journal of Early Southern Decorative Arts