USA > Massachusetts > Franklin County > Deerfield > History of Deerfield, Massachusetts: the times when the people by whom it was settled, unsettled and resettled, vol 2 > Part 22
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Jin's baby had been baptized Aug. 13, 1739, by the name of Cato. Cato was the one Deerfield slave of whom I have a personal recollection, although he died when I was six years old. I recall seeing him when "dunging out," use his hands instead of a shovel. It was probably the oddity of it that made this lasting impression, or it may have been his feeble, tottering footsteps. I remember seeing him often sitting on a bench in an outhouse, where he would spend hours singing in a gruff voice the famous ballad of Captain Kidd, drum- ming an accompaniment with both hands on the board at either side; his finger nails were long and thick and each one
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gave a blow which sounded like the stroke of a tack hammer.
Solomon, son of Parson Ashley, was a fine dancer, and Cato a fervent admirer of his skill, tried to imitate his steps. His practice was usually on the barn floor, and sometimes he was seen with a switch whipping his legs, "to make um go like Massa Solomon's."
Cato was very fond of horses, and was a furious rider when he could indulge his passion unobserved. If caught, he would protest that the horse ran away with him. "Couldn't stop uin nohow, Massa."
Another favorite seat of Cato's was in the kitchen chimney corner, where he could get the full benefit of the blazing fire, which he would enjoy like a salamander. Col. T. W. Ashley, his latest "Massa," was one of the earliest to substitute a cooking stove for the fireplace. Cato was disgusted with this change and was always cold after it. The big, black pile of iron yielded no warmth or comfort to him. He would hug the stove and sweat and shiver, and shiver and sweat, till he could stand it no longer ; then he would go into the room of Madam Ashley, widow of the doctor, to warm himself at her blazing fire. Seeing was believing with him. He also, like Jin, gathered trinkets to provide for his translation, his most valued possessions being brass or copper buttons. The term "Cato's money," as applied to them, is still part of the " North End" vocabulary. Cato served at least one campaign in the Last French war. He died Nov. 19, 1825, when between eighty-six and ninety years of age.
Lucy Terry who, as we have seen, was baptized June 15, 1735. " on account of her mistress," is said to have been, like Jinny, stolen from Africa when a child. She was brought to Deerfield from Rhode Island by Mr. Ebenezer Wells when five years old. We read of her in the church record :-
Aug. 13, 1744 Lucy Servt to Ebenezer Wells was admitted to the fellowship of the church.
Abijah Prince and Lucy Terry servant to Ens. Ebener Wells were married May ye 17, 1756, by Elijah Williams Justo Pace.
Prince was born about 1706, and was probably carried from Wallingford, Ct., to Northfield, by Rev. Benjamin Doolittle when he went there as minister in 1717. Mr. Doolittle died in 1749. He probably gave Abijah his freedom and some
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LUCE BIJAH, A ROMANCE.
real estate rights, for in 1751 the ex-slave drew shares in three divisions of the undivided land in Northfield. He held this land for thirty years, selling out in 1782. I do not find that he lived in Northfield after 1752.
Abijah, a free man, marrying Lucy, a slave, was a combi- nation by which Ensign Wells may have hoped to profit, the fruit of such marriages following the condition of the mother; in this instance, however, the children are found free, nor do we meet Lucy again as a slave. Perhaps after she became bone of his bone and flesh of his flesh, Abijah was allowed to buy out the ensign's rights in the concern. Abijah and Lucy had six children. The first was baptized in infancy by Parson Ashley as " Cesar son of Abijah Negro and Lusey his wife." The others were Durexa, Drucella, Festus, Tatnai and Abijah. Their house stood near where Philo Munn lived, and the brook there was hence called " Bijah's brook." Lucy went by the name of "Luce Bijah." She was a great story teller, and her house was a place of resort for the young people of the "Old Street." Perhaps an " Author's Reading" was occasionally part of the entertainment, for Luce Bijah comes down to us as a poet. The account of the " Bars Fight," which she gives in verse, is the fullest contemporary account of that bloody tragedy which has been preserved. It appears that upon two occasions her muse took up the same theme. Of the first effort, if the story is not finished in the two fol- lowing lines preserved in the teeming brain of Miss Harriet Hitchcock, the rest is lost :-
"''Twas nigh unto Sam Dickinson's mill. The Indians there five men did kill."
In the second attempt the same ground facts are given, with graphic details and added circumstance. [See ante, p. 545.]
Deacon Samuel Field was one of the grantees of Guilford, Vt., and he promised Bijah a hundred acre lot there. The ‘ deacon died in 1762, but his son David conveyed the land by deed to Bijah, who removed there in 1764. With all his land- ed estate Bijah became ambitious for more, and he was one of the original petitioners and grantees of the town of Sun- derland, Vt., and is named in the charter. He drew an equal share with the others in all the six divisions. Cesar, his old- est son, settled on one of his lots, where he died in 1836 at
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the age of eighty. Cesar served in the War of Independence, and was not unlikely one of Ethan Allen's Green Mountain Boys. He received in old age a government pension of the generous sum of $2.66 per month.
Festus, the second son, was inclined to festivity. His father swapped a piece of land for an old horse, saddle and bridle, and a fiddle, with which goods he endowed this son. Festus married a white woman, and settled on another of his father's lots in Sunderland, from which he removed to New York in 1815, and later to Danbury, Vt., where he died in 1819.
Drucella became disabled about 1838, and was supported by the town of Sunderland, where she died Nov. 21, 1854, aged ninety-four years.
Tatnai probably spent a long life in the service of the Hunt family at Northfield. Abijah and Lucy established themselves on the Batten Kill not far from the house of Col. Ethan Allen, who had located on the opposite side of the creek. Their nearest neighbor was Col. Eli Bronson, who set up a claim to part of Abijah's farm. Several lawsuits fol- lowed, and finally the case reached the Supreme Court of the United States, where, we may suppose, Col. Bronson met a Waterloo defeat, and Luce Bijah gained a national reputa- tion. The Court was presided over by Hon. Samuel Chase of Maryland. Bronson employed two leading lawyers of Vermont, Stephen R. Bradley, and Royall Tyler, the wit and poet, and afterwards chief justice of the state. Isaac Tick- nor, later governor of Vermont, managed the case for Abijah and Lucy. He drew the pleadings, and our Lucy argued the case at length before the court. Justice Chase said that Lucy made a better argument than he had heard from any lawyer at the Vermont bar.
Once more this remarkable woman appears as an advocate; as before, it was on a question of a line-a line more difficult to settle than a boundary on the face of the earth, the color line. Lucy was anxious that one of her sons should obtain a liberal education, and made application to the authorities for his admission to Williams College. He was rejected on ac- count of his race. The indignant mother pressed her claim before the board of trustees in an earnest and eloquent speech of three hours, quoting an abundance of law and Gos- pel, chapter and verse, in support of it, but all in vain. The
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THE BLESSINGS OF SLAVERY.
name of no son of Lucy Prince graces the catalogue of Wil- liams College.
Abijah and Lucy came back to the hundred acre farm at Guilford. Here Abijah spent his last years and died Jan. 19, 1794, at the age of eighty-eight; here he was buried and his grave is well cared for by the present owner of the farm. About 1803 Lucy went back to Sunderland, and in her ex- treme old age was in the habit of taking horse-back trips to and from Bennington, eighteen miles away, and so long as she lived made annual pilgrimages over the Green Mountains to visit the grave of her husband. She died in Sunderland in 1821, at the age of ninety-one.
In the checkered lives of Abijah Prince and Lucy Terry is found a realistic romance going beyond the wildest flights of fiction.
Parson Ashley on Slavery. Jan. 23, 1749, Parson Ashley preached an evening lecture to the negroes of Deerfield from this text :----
God hath no regard of persons in the affair of our salvation; who- soever will is invited to come and take of the waters of life freely. . [He tells them] There are none of the human race too low and despicable for God to bestow salvation upon. . Yea, it is the mean and base things of this world which God is pleased to elect to eter- nal life, while the rich are sent empty away, and ye great and hon- orable are left to perish in their sins.
He explains that those in high places are too often satisfied with the good things of this world, and think themselves above the duties of Christianity, while-
On the other hand there are some who are ready to think God will not have mercy on them because they are such poor miserable creatures. It may be they are poor & despised, & will God think on them the world will take no notice of ? Or it may be they are igno- rant & cant know & understand like other men * or it may be they think yy are servants & yy han't time or advantages, & they are such poor creatures that it is not likely they shall ever obtain mercy. But let us take notice of the riches of grace to the children of men. The poor may be rich in faith & hiers of Glory. The ig- norant may understand and know God in Christ, whilst the wise perish in their own understanding. Servants who are at the dispose & command of others, who it may be are despised in the world, may be the Lord's freemen & hiers of Glory.
After much more counsel equally pertinent and encourag- ing to his dusky congregation, showing them how much bet-
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BELLS -- CHARITIES-NEGRO SLAVERY-CHEAPSIDE.
ter were their chances in the future life than those of their masters, he goes on to give them the heads of his sermon still in reserve :-
1st, I will show that Christianity allows the relation of master and servant.
2ª I will show that such as are by divine providence placed in the State of Servants, are not excluded from Salvation, but may become the Lord's freemen.
3 I will show what a privilege & advantage it is to be a freeman in the Lord.
4th I will give some Directions to such as are Servants to become the Lords freemen.
5th Will show what motives there are for such to be the Lords freemen.
Under the first head he uses the stock arguments from the Bible-tells all about the believing servants and unbelieving master, about Paul, Philemon, Onesimus, etc., concluding :-
What a temptation of the Devil it is therefore to lead servants into sin, and provoke God; to insinuate into them they ought not to abide in ye place of servant-and so either forsake their master, or are. uneasy, unfaithful, slothful servants, to the damage of masters & the dishonor of religion, the reproach of Christianity.
And so for the glory of God and the profit of their master they must toil on in slavery in a contented and thankful frame of mind. John Brown would have fared hardly at the hands of this preacher. He concludes his second head :-
Men may serve their master and yet be free from the law of sin and death, and be free to serve X.
3ªly, as Christ's freemen they become the children of God and are adopted into his family and so have great privileges in his Kingdom, even as freemen have great privileges in cities or in the Common- wealths.
They are delivered from the covenant of works, they are not under the law but under grace. [They have | the holy angels to guard them and minister to them in the world, [and] when they come to die, enter into everlasting rest and glory. They go to be with the Lord.
4thly [he gives directions how to accomplish this desirable end, con- cluding] You must be contented with your state & conditionin the world, and not murmur and complain of what God orders for you. You must be faithful in the places God puts you & not be eye ser- vants-in vain to think to be Xts freemen & be slothful servants.
5thly, If you are Xts freemen, you may contentedly be servants in the world. If you are not Xts freemen, you will be slaves of the Devil.
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OLD TIME INVESTMENTS.
This last argument must have been a settler to those who had hard masters here. It may be that this judicious sermon of Mr. Ashley's had the effect to enhance the value of slave property and induce his brother-in-law to make investments in the market as follows :--
For and in consideration of the sum of two hundred and twenty- five pounds Old Tenor to me Epraim Williams Jr., well & truly paid, by Israel Williams Esq., of Hatfield, I do hereby assign, sell & con- vey to him a certain negro boy named Prince, aged about 9 years a servant for life, to hold to him, his hiers, agt ye claims of any person whatsoever, as witness my hand this 25th day of September Anno Domi 1750
EPH WILLIAMS JR.
Know all men by these Presents, that I, Hezekiah Whitmore in Middleboro in the county of Hartford, for & in consideration, the sum of forty pounds Lawful money, to me in hand paid by Israel Williams of Hatfield in the county of Hampshire; do hereby sell, set over, & convey to him a certain negro Girl, named Blossom, aged about sixteen years. To serve him, his hiers & assigns for and Dur- ing ye full term of her natural life hereby covenanting & engaging for myself & my hiers exts & admm's to warrant to him his hiers & as- signs to be sound & well & against the Lawful claims of any person whatsoever, as witness my hand & seal this 20th day of May 1753.
Signed sealed & delivered in presence of OL. [IVER | PARTRIDGE EPH. WILLIAMS JR.
HEZEKIAH WETMORE
This was a respectable transaction and had respectable witnesses. Partridge was grandson to Parson William Wil- liams and nephew to Parson Ashley. Williams was the not- ed Colonel of that name, a principal in the following bargain:
I John Charles Jr. of Brimfield in the Co. of Hampshire in con- sideration of the sum of fifty-three pounds six shillings & eight pence to me in hand paid by Maj. Ephraim Williams of Hatfield in the county aforesaid, the rec't whereof I do hereby acknowledge & myself fully satisfied and paid Do hereby sell, assign, set over, and convey to the sd Ephraim Williams his hiers & assigns my Negro Boy Named J Romanoo aged about sixteen years to be the sole Property of sª Ephraim his hiers and assigns to his and their use, Benifit and Behoof, as his & their Slave, during the natural life of the sd Jromanoo, aud I do hereby covenant, Promise and agree, that before the ensealing hereof, I am the Rightful and Lawful owner of the sd slave, and have good and Lawful Right to sell and Dispose of him in manner as aforesaid, and that I will by these presents, for myself & my hiers Execrs & Adm's shall always be held to warrant and secure the sª Negro from this Day, During his Natural Life as aforesaid as the sole property of the sd Ephraim, his hiers & assigns, to his and their use & Behoof, against the claim and chalange of any
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other person, and all Rightful Pretentions of his own, to Freedom, by any Law or right whatsoever. Witness my hand & seal this thirteenth day of February Anno Domini 1755
Signed Sealed & delivered in presence of JOSEPH DWIGHT
ABNER | TONSILIS] JOHN CHARLES JR.
In this document there is no disguise. A spade is called a spade, and the doctrine that all acted upon here stands writ in black and white, that the Negro can make no just claim to owning his own body " by any Law or Right whatever."
What became of Romanoo we know not, but probably his value went to swell the funds for founding that college which refused admission to the son of Abijah and Lucy Prince. At the time Maj. Williams bought this man, who was warranted to have no legal or moral right to his own flesh, blood or brain, he himself was preparing to offer his own body and brain for the services of his country. Seven months later he fell at the head of his regiment in the Bloody Morning Scout, leaving his estate to found Williams College.
No information can be added to that given in the follow- ing, extracted from the Docket Book of Judge Williams, save that Hartford got off with such credit that he had a running account with John Russell, at his store, in 1762. In this case it appears that the master is held responsible for the act of the slave, whatever that act may have been :-
Hampshire S.S. At a Court held in Deerfield Nov. 20, 1761 Be- fore me Thomas Williams Esq. Elijah Williams Esq. Plaintiff & Hartford a Negro man slave to Thomas Dickinson of Deerfield aforesaid Yeoman, Defend'.
Upon considering ye proof made out against sª Negro recognize his sd master for his appearance at Court Att. Thomas Williams.
In the church record we read :-
Dec. 15, 1782 baptised Patience, Negro Servant to Mrs. Silliman by Mr. Parsons of Amherst.
Aug. 27, 1786 Baptised by Mr. Parsons, Lemuel, servant to Mrs. Silliman.
Married Oct. 23, 1794 Chloe Silliman and Noble Spencer.
This Chloe was for a long time a faithful and trusted serv- ant to Mrs. Silliman, who was twelfth child of Parson John Williams. By will, at her death in 1783, Mrs. Silliman gave Chloe her freedom ; and to set her up in housekeeping gave her "a Bible, a cow. a feather bed, a brass kettle, a pot, 2
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THE PECULIAR INSTITUTION.
tramels, chests, hand irons, chairs, and pewter things." To Jockton, a mulatto of Col. Hinsdale,-her first husband, then twenty years dead,-she gave the avails of one hundred acres of land in New Hampshire.
" Boston " and "Town," of whom I hear nothing else, had store accounts in 1761. Slavery in the Connecticut Valley was indeed a peculiar institution. It was in the mildest form in which one man can own the body of another. The slaves became in a measure members of the family holding them. They worked with the father and boys in field and forest, and in the kitchen and spinning room with the mother and daughters. Labor was respected. It was a disgrace to be idle. But while uniting in labor, there was no social equality ; while the whole family made the kitchen the centre of home life, the slave had his own table and his own corner. Sepa- rate seats were provided for negroes in the meetinghouse. I hear of no dissatisfaction with this arrangement. It seems to have been accepted on both sides as a natural one. Even Lucy Prince, when visiting Deerfield in her old age, being invited to take a seat at table with the family, refused, say- ing, "No, Missy, no, I know my place."
As slavery came into this colony and was accepted under English common law without legislation, so it was abolished by force of public opinion without any statute law. In the Constitution of Massachusetts, adopted in 1780, there is not one word referring directly to retaining or abolishing negro slavery. Article First of the Bill of Rights, however. declares : " All men are born free and equal, and have certain natural, essential and inalienable rights, among which may be reck- oned the right of enjoying and defending their lives and lib- erties."
This is the same in substance that appears in the Declara- tion of Independence, where Rufus Choate called it a "glit- tering and sounding generality"-as it was. In this case, however, it proved on judicial trial to be an actual, sound practicality. It appears that in September, 1781, one Quaco, bought as a slave, and held as such by Nathaniel Jennison, of Barre, began a suit before the court at Worcester, which end- ed in a verdict that Quaco was a freeman, owning his own body. This decision sounded the death knell of human slav- ery in the good old Commonwealth of Massachusetts.
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Cheapside Landing. The careless traveler of to-day will not see a single vestige of the wharves and warehouses which once lined the banks of the old Pocumtuek river at "Cheap- side Landing," and the most careful searcher will find only faint traces of their ruins. The history of canal building, boating on the Connecticut and Deerfield rivers, and that of the trade and bridge building at Cheapside, must be written in the same chapter, being interchangeably connected. Cheap- side became a sort of seaport for the towns at the north and west. Heavy goods from Boston and the West Indies, flour from Albany and cotton from the South were delivered here with but one transhipment. Freight was shipped from here to Boston and Middletown for a foreign market. Teams from Colrain, Charlemont, Whitingham, etc., brought down their shingles, broom handles, shaving boxes, combs, etc., their lime and farm produce, and loaded for home with salt, rum, molasses and other household supplies. A market was found here for their cattle, hogs and "smooth horses " for the West Indies.
Canals and Boating. In the revival of business which fol- lowed the close of the Revolutionary war, there arose in this community a demand for better methods of transportation from the seaboard for the heavy necessaries of life, salt, mo- lasses, rum, iron, steel, etc. In the river traffic there was a large item of expense in transhipping and carting by the falls at South Hadley. To meet this trouble the "Connecti- cut River Transportation Company" was organized in 1791. The leading spirits in this enterprise were John Williams of Deerfield and William Moore of Greenfield. They had able seconding in Jona. Hoyt and David Saxton. and efficient agents in Elisha Mack, Jonas and John Locke, all of Deer- field. John Williams was physically weak, but with an iron will. To him Cheapside owed more in its days of prosperity than to any other. He interested the capitalists of the valley and of Boston in the canal projects. He became, with Ste- phen Higginson of Boston, the agent of several firms in Hol- land, then the financial centre of Europe, who largely invest- ed in the enterprise. William Coleman, lawyer and far- sighted man of affairs, early felt the new pulsation in the great artery of the Connecticut valley, and after taking coun- sel with Mr. Williams made his bow to the public in "The
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CANAL BUILDING.
Impartial Intelligencer," the first newspaper in Northern Hampshire, eight days before the act cited below was passed.
1792. February 22, an act was passed in the Legislature chartering "the Proprietors of the Locks and Canals on Con- necticut river." To satisfy the Dutch capitalists an additional act was passed Feb. 25, 1793, making the stock in the com- pany personal instead of real property, aliens not being al- lowed to hold real estate here at that date. May 29, John Williams took the field to look out routes for canals at South Hadley and Montague Falls. Christopher Colley of New York was chief surveyor ; he had as assistants Benjamin Pres- cott of Northampton, Jonas Locke, Elisha Mack and Epaphras Hoyt of Deerfield. The month of June was spent at South Hadley. July 3, they began a survey at Montague. Several routes were looked over. Engineer Colley reported, July 22, 1792, "that amazing perpendicular rocks and high ground keeps so close to the river that it appears necessary to make a more particular investigation of the ground before any feasible design can be proposed." This undoubtedly refers to a route on the west side of the Connecticut through Behind Noon. Another route was examined from the mouth of Mil- lers river across the plain to Lake Pleasant and thence to "Bardwells Hole" on the Connecticut. Mr. Roberdeau, a Frenchman, "who," wrote Gov. Strong, "knows more about canals than any man in the country," came on from Philadel- phia to look over the ground. Another expert, Mr. Du Fareau, was also here. Mr. John Hill of New York, who was at the same time surveying for a canal from Boston to the Deerfield river at Cheapside, was also invited. Dec. 26, Jona. Dwight, Springfield, Benjamin Prescott, Northampton, and John Wil- liams, a committee to build the canal at South Hadley, adver- tised for 75,000 feet of lumber and seventy-five laborers.
1793. The canal was built under the superintendence of Benjamin Prescott. Capt. Mack makes a contract to build the dam at Montague.
1794. The dam was built. The canal waited the result of operations at South Hadley. Canal building in America was an experiment at this time. Feb. 27, the canal corporation was divided, and the " Proprietors of the Upper Locks and Canal" took charge of the Montague works. The stock holders were largely the same in both corporations. There were 504 shares
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BELLS-CHARITIES-NEGRO SLAVERY-CHEAPSIDE.
in each. John Williams and William Moore owned more than half of the stock in the Upper company.
February 10, 1806, the Proprietors of the Upper Locks and Canal want to contract for a " dam 400 feet long, 100 rods be- low the mouth of Millers river, dircetly below the eddy in the bend of the Connecticut river," also " Loeks sufficient to pass boats and rafts when the river is passible in other places." This dam, which was for slack water navigation by the French King, is mentioned in the Boston and Deerfield river canal report in 1826.
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