The Untold Life of Peter Lee Born of Slave Parents, the Property of Colonel John Stevens

After finding the sole public reference to slavery on a bronze plaque in her adopted hometown of Hoboken, New Jersey, author Holly Metz began a search for the life story of the enslaved man mentioned there. Peter Lee, who lived to the age of 98, worked all his life as a butler for the Stevens family, who were widely known for their vast fortune, engineering innovations, and development of the city of Hoboken.Who was Peter Lee? Poring over thousands of pages of deeds, letters, farm books, newspaper articles, and ledgers, Metz uncovered Lee's life and ancestry, and also discovered previously unexamined records that document a Stevens patriarch's deep investment in the slave trade.