The Museum is pleased to host a launch party and book signing by Holly Metz for her latest book, “The Untold Life of Peter Lee,” on Sunday, Sept. 22, at 4 pm.

After finding the sole public reference to slavery on a bronze plaque in her adopted hometown of Hoboken, N.J., Holly began a search for the life story of the enslaved man mentioned there. Peter Lee, who lived to the age of 98, worked all his life as a butler for the Stevens family, who were widely known for their vast fortune, engineering innovations, and development of the city of Hoboken.

Who was Peter Lee? Poring over thousands of pages of deeds, letters, farm books, newspaper articles, and ledgers, Holly uncovered Lee’s ancestry, his mother’s fate, his father’s service in the War of 1812, and Peter’s residence near the home of a pioneering female journalist who hosted abolitionist Frederick Douglass during his many visits to Hoboken.  Previously unexamined ledgers kept by Stevens elder John II were also found, revealing his deep investment in the slave trade. 

Beginning in the 18th century and ending at the dawn of the 20th, The Untold Life of Peter Lee narrates the story of a resilient man and his extended family, reporting on lives lived under Northern slavery and beyond.

Holly is a widely published writer and long-time resident of Hoboken. She is a founding member of the Hoboken Historical Museum, and the originator and editor of our oral history chapbook series, “Vanishing Hoboken,” created in conjunction with the Friends of the Hoboken Public Library. She has been a long-time contributor to the Museum’s exhibitions and other programs, including the original Secret Garden Tour.

Holly has written about law, culture, and social issues for a broad range of newspapers, journals, and magazines, including Labor History, Metropolis, The Progressive, and The New York Times. Her first book, Killing the Poormaster: A Saga of Poverty, Corruption, and Murder in the Great Depression (Lawrence Hill Books) was awarded the McCormick Prize, the New Jersey Studies Academic Alliance Award, and Book of the Year by the New Jersey Council for the Humanities. She lives in Hoboken, New Jersey. Learn more at www.hollymetz.net