Bill of sale for Flora, a woman enslaved in Connecticut

Margaret DeWitt Dwight, American, 1765 - 1824 · December 13, 1796

A framed bill of sale for Flora, an enslaved woman, dated "this 13th Day of December, 1796." The document is handwritten in brown ink on cream laid paper. The document transfers the ownership of "a certain Negro Wench named Flora" from Margaret Dwight in Milford, Connecticut to Asa Benjamin in Stratford, Connecticut for the amount of twenty five pounds sterling. The document is signed "Margaret Dwight" with her seal at bottom right. It is witnessed at bottom left by Dwight's brother, Abraham Van Horn DeWitt: [Present / Abm. V.H. DeWitt]. Written at the center of the very bottom of the document is [19 years old]. There are two vertical creases and two horizontal creases extending across the page. At bottom right is a spot of extraneous ink and along the left side center text written on the back of the sheet is visible where it has seeped through the paper to the front. The paper has a watermark at lower right, upside down, reading: [BAND 1795].