Collected names of enslaved blacks of Deerfield. (All the Deerfield names I know, including one or two for whom my information is probably post-slavery. (Post-slavery and really dubious ones noted by **.) Dates are those of some - not all - of my sources for these names.) Robert H. Romer, September, 2004

Adam (Thomas Wells, 1735)

Cato (Jonathan Ashley, 1739-1825)

Cesar (Ebeneezer Wells, 1735

Cesar (Ebeneezer Hinsdale, 1753)

Cesar (Mary Hoyt Wells, 1741 -

Cesar (Samuel Childs, 1750s)

Cesar (Nathaniel Dickinson, 1771, 1776, then Samuel Dickinson (?)) (see below)

Cesar (Timothy Childs, 1750+)

Cesar (Jonathan Hoyt, 1741)

Chloe (Abigail .. Silliman, 1794, 1783))

Coffee (& wife + child) (John Sheldon, 1732) ** no names for wife and child

Coffee (John Sheldon, 1732)

Dwight Wells (??, 1824) **

Esther (??, 1829)         **

Fortune (Samuel Dickinson, 1787? 1737?) (See below)

Frank (John Williams, 1703-4)

George (John Sheldon, 1732)

Hager (Samuel Dickinson, 1778)

Hartford (Thomas Dickinson, 1758, 1762)

Heber (?? , 1749-75)   **

Humphrey (Timothy Childs, 1752)

Ishmael (Thomas Dickinson, 1746-56)

Jenny (Jonathan Ashley, ca 1739-1808)

Jockton (Abigail... Silliman, 1787)

Kedar (John Williams, 1729)

Lemuel (Abigail .. Silliman, 1786)

Lucy Terry (Ebeneezer Wells, 1735 ....., married Abijah Prince in 1756)

Lundun (John Sheldon, 1710)

Mesheck (John Williams, Ebeneezer Hinsdale, 1729, 1747)

Noble Spencer (Abigail .. Silliman, 1794) **

Onesimus (??, Major Williams??, 1766) **

Parthena (John Williams, 1703-4)

Patience (Abigail .. Silliman, 1782)

Peter (Thomas Wells, 1731, 1735, 1750)

Peter Ladieu (???, 1756-7) **

Phebe (S. Dickinson, see below)

Phillis (Timothy Childs, 1741)

Pompey Negro (??, 1736, with Rebecca)

Pompey (Jonathan Wells, 1735)

Pompey (Thomas Wells, 1750)

Pompey (Ebeneezer Sheldon, 1741)

Primus, Negro (??, 1704) (“fought in the meadow”, Feb. 29, 1704 - probably from Hatfield) **

Prince (Joseph Barnard, 1749)

Rebecca (??, 1736, with Pompey)

Robbin (John Sheldon, 1732)

Robert Tigo (John Williams, 1695) (Kevin Sweeney thinks the name may be Roberto Santiago.)

Robert (??, 1793) **

Sarah (??, 1794) **

Sue (John Sheldon, 1732)

Titus (Samuel Barnard, 1746)

Titus (Ashley, 1750s)

Titus (Daniel Arms, 1762, 1752?, 1764)

Titus (John Wells, 1737)

Titus (unknown, 1771)

William (??, 1746-56) **

Also:

“Negro wench & two children” (Samuel Dickinson, 1771) I now think that the “wench” was probably Fortune, and the two children Cesar and Phoebe.

“our poor Negro girl” (Dr. Thomas Williams) I have no idea what her name was. There is a Williams letter in which she is described as, apparently, about to die.

Jenny and Cato are sometimes referred to with an apparent “surname”: Cole. I know of no contemporary evidence for this. Sheldon uses “Cole”, but gives no source. The printed “Vital Records” of Deerfield use “Cole”, but those were put together in the 1920s; their source for “Cole” may well have been Sheldon. The only documents from their lifetimes that mention them, of which I am aware, are Jonathan’s will (“my negro woman servant Jenny”), the 1808 and 1825 town death records (which list “Jenny, a negro woman” and “Cato, a man of colour”), and a 1788 item showing that Elihu Ashley paid for “mending Jins shoes”. (The last of those three is the only contemporary document I know of that uses “Jin”.) After Reverend Ashley died in 1780, Jenny and Cato (as well as Dorothy Ashley, Jonathan’s widow) continued to live in the Ashley house, now owned by Jonathan’s son Elihu. 

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File: SlaveNamesSortRevised-7-04

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Edit date: September 28, 2004 (10:45am)

File: SlaveNames as taken from “Owners” file; these are same thing but sorted.