Partner Tom Duckenfield attended the 225th Anniversary “Commemoration of Robert Carter III’s 1791 Deed of Emancipation & The Lives of Those Set Free,” sponsored by Historic Christ Church & Museum, Mary Ball Washington Museum & Library, Northern Neck of Virginia Historical Society, and First Baptist Church of Heathsville.

At the Commemoration ceremony on 20th of August, 2016, Tom, as a descendant of two manumitted families, delivered keynote remarks on the topic of “Intersecting Worlds:  The Unique and Peculiar Zodiac Orbiting Robert Carter III’s Historic 1791 Manumission.” Manumission, from manumit, is the act of a slave owner freeing his or her slaves. Different approaches developed, each specific to the time and place of a society’s slave system.