Timbuctoo area coverage from the New Jersey Mirror

Over its 130 years of publication beginning in 1818, the Burlington Mirror, later known as New Jersey Mirror, recorded the history of Burlington County in detail.  Death reports and obituaries of Black people appeared together with reports of White people routinely, frequently with very flattering comments. The earliest identified African American obituary is from 1824, but they appear more frequently beginning in the 1850s.   Coverage of issues of interest to African Americans was frequently conflicting. Historian Eric Gardner points out that mainstream Northern newspapers simultaneously documented, supported, and demeaned people. We see this phemomemon in coverage about Timbuctoo.  For example, an 1860 story about a failed attempt to capture a a man near Timbuctoo who had escaped enslavement in Maryland a decade earlier used words like "invaders" and "kidnappers" to refer to the would be captors, clearly indicating disagreement with the Fugitive Slave Act, which promoted efforts to capture and return enslaved people who had escaped to the North.  

However, the same article ridiclues  a Timbuctoo leader's hair.  In another story, Black people are referred to as "darkies," even as the article purports an objective review of facts.  Overall, depiction of ABlack people in the New Jersey Mirror during the Nineteenth Century provides an interesting window into antebellum and postbellum life for local Black populations, and contradicts the frequent assumption that Black people can not find useful and positive information for our genealogical research in Nineteenth Century "mainstream"  newspapers.  However, useful information is often peppered with insults and pejorative characterizations.

The New Jersey Mirror is partially indexed, so we can sometimes find mid-nineteenth century news coverage about Timbuctoo through a search engine on the Burlington County Library's website. In 2024, the Tabernacle Historical Society arranged for digitization of the full run of the New Jersey Mirror from 1818 to 1947.  Using this resource, we hope to have most New Jersey Mirror coverage on Timbuctoo related topics available here with digitzed images by the end of 2026. Several articles are featured below.  

Deaths reported here include community leaders as well as rank and file citizens.  They are mostly male.  Usually brief statements are given, but occasionally  substantive biographies are provided.  Additional reports will be added as they are copied and transcribed. 

The Battle of Pine Swamp was a confrontation between a notorious "slave catcher," named George Alberti, who worked on behalf of a Maryland enslaver, and several Timbuctoo residents. The residents came to the aid of a neighbor named Perry Simmons. Alberti arrived with a posse and sought to capture Simmons and return him to enslavement in Maryland.  Simmons' neighbors successfully overpowered Alberti and his posse, and ran them away. 

These are usually brief announcements.  In a few cases, details of the ceremonies are featured. Additional reports will be added as they are copied and transcribed.