Whereas We Thomas & Elizabeth Bowman have time back manumitted and set free all the Negroes we were possessed of from an apprehension of Duty and Whereas our Mother Sarah Draper did in her Life-time sell and dispose off a Negro Woman named Dinah, and I the said Elizabeth Bowman before our Marriage did also sell a Negro Man named Isaac Miller, But finding uneasiness to remain in our Minds for & on account of the said Negroes, we have since purchased them in Order to discharge them from Slavery; Now therefore Know all Men by this present Instrument of Writing that We Thomas & Elizabeth Bowman of Mispillion Hundred in Kent County on Delaware do hereby manumitt & set absolutely free the aforenamed Negro Woman named Dinah aged about fifty years (Who has been at her Liberty near two years) likewise the aforenamed Negro Man named Isaac Miller aged about fifty years: so that henceforth they the said Negroes Dinah, & Isaac Miller shall be deemed adjudged & taken as & for free People and at Liberty to act for themselves without the Lett Hindrance or Molestation of us or either of us or any other Person, or Persons claiming or to claim by from or under us forever. In Testimony whereof, We do hereunto set our Hands and affix our Seals this Sixteenth Day Of the twelth Month, in the year of our Lord, one thousand seven Hundred seventy & nine 1779. Thomas Bowman {seal} Elizabeth Bowman {seal}

Witness present, Jonathan Emerson Warner Mifflin

Record Examined Warner Mifflin

U.S., Quaker Meeting Records, 1681-1935, Delaware, Kent, Duck Creek Monthly Meeting, Manumissions 1774-1792, Image 33

https://www.ancestry.com/imageviewer/collections/2189/images/31906_275426-00510?pId=2351070

Transcribed 22 Sep 2026 by Nancy Maliwesky