Peter Oliver was a skilled Moravian craftsman in Salem. Born enslaved in Virginia on May 10, 1766, he came to Wachovia as a young man hired out to work in the Moravian town of Bethania sometime around 1784. From all indications, Peter Oliver was very shrewd and was masterfully navigated his emancipation. Although the man who owned Peter Oliver did not want to sell him, his own persistence led the Moravians to persist, with the result that the Single Brothers of Salem did buy Oliver, as he was then known, on February 20, 1786, for 100 pounds Virginia currency. In 1788 Peter Oliver was bought by the Moravian master potter Rudolph Christ. He became skilled in pottery making. He earned money by utilizing his skills which included selling pipe stems. By 1800 he obtained his freedom. In 1802 he married Christina Bass, a free mulatto, and by September she was also baptized into the Salem congregation. From this union came six children. The Oliver family lived on a farm north of Salem. Following several years of ill health, Peter Oliver died in September 1810 and was buried in God’s Acre.