05/13/2026
A large part of our passion here at First State Heritage Park is discovering stories that have remained in the shadows of history. One such story led us to discover a member of the community in Dover helping out another.
In 1792, a free black man named Cuffee Ellis lived in the town of Dover with his wife Diannah. We don’t know much about either Cuffee or his wife before they appear in the records in the 1790s, but we do know that at least three of their five children were enslaved by Judge James Sykes and his wife, Agnes (Bell).
After the death of their enslaver, Cuffee purchased two of his children from Agnes; Nancy Ellis, who was 18, and George Sykes Ellis, who was 8. One thing to note about these records is we discovered that Cuffee Ellis was illiterate, as he signed with “his mark,” an indicator that an individual could not write. While not uncommon in the time period for someone to be unable to read and write, it remains impressive that Cuffee was able to persevere in a world built to stop his success.
Another thing to note about manumission, it was typically expensive. Enslavers were not willing to give up their enslaved for free, and so Cuffee had to pay for his children to manumit them. He paid twenty pounds for his daughter, Nancy. For George, it would be twelve pounds and ten shillings. Just a few months after the manumission of his children, Cuffee purchased a plot of land from John Bell III and his wife Nancy directly on King’s Street, which we now know as South State Street today. By the end of 1793, Cuffee had manumitted two of his children, owned land on the busiest street in Dover, had built a home on the land, and even owned one cow. But there was one thing that still remained to be done–the manumission of his third enslaved child, Venus Ellis.
However, it wouldn’t be Cuffee who manumitted Venus, it would be another man by the name of John Gibbs. In June of 1794, Agnes sold sixteen year old Venus Ellis to John Gibbs, a free black man who also lived in Dover. Just one year after his purchase of Venus, he would transfer the papers to Cuffee Ellis, who would ultimately free his daughter Venus. While we don’t know the specifics of this transfer, it is more than likely a transfer that was planned between John and Cuffee prior.
The Ellis family would go on to live in Dover until both Cuffee and Diannah passed. In 1817, an Orphan’s Court record states that the land in Dover could not be split between Cuffee and Diannah’s five children, Nancy, Venus, Stephen, Nathaniel, and George Sykes. Instead, George Sykes, the eldest son, sells off the land and splits the earnings between his siblings. After that, the siblings are untraceable.
It is stories like the Ellis family that make us stop to think about life in Dover during the 18th century. So many of these stories have been lost to time, but we strive to uncover them so they are not forgotten. We hope that we may uncover more about Cuffee and his family in the future, and that his story perseveres much like he did.
