Chosen from the thousands of wills on file in the Archives, Charity Ferris’ 1807 Will provides documentation about political boundaries, evidence of slavery and the egalitarian sentiment of one Westchester woman during our nation’s founding period. Charity Ferris was the widow of a Throggs Neck landowner. Now part of the Bronx, Throggs Neck was part of Westchester until 1898. Describing herself as "sick and weak in body, but of sound disposing mind and memory," Charity made special provision in her will that her slaves be freed after her death, giving a personal acknowledgement to the spirit behind the manumission laws adopted in New York State as early as 1799; the last slave in Westchester was freed in 1827.