Maria was an enslaved worker during the Wight period of Tuckahoe. She is thought to have been born around 1797.
Upon Hezekiah Wight’s death in 1837, Maria, along with a handful of other enslaved workers, was freed in accordance with Wight’s will. He specified that Maria’s children (Betsy Henley and Major Smith) were to be freed once they had reached 30 years of age.
On June 14, 1838, Maria was registered on the list of “free negroes” and was described as “a woman of color of brown complexion, about forty one years of age, about five feet two and a half inches high.” It was noted that she had a “scar on the end of her right thumb, and a defect in her left eye”.
