In autumn the Old Burying Ground in Stoneham changes its colors. Yellow and orange leaves fall about the gravestones of the founders of our town. The Goulds, Greens, Holtens and Hays. The Spragues, Stevens, Richardsons and Wrights.
But beyond the cluster of 18th and 19th century stones, there are open areas where no markers disrupt the gentle slope of the earth. Here lie those with no status in early Stoneham. Here are buried the town’s paupers, natives and slaves.
On a recent Saturday, thanks to the Stoneham Historical Commission, Stoneham folk gathered in the Old Burying Ground to remember all those buried in unmarked graves. How many were there? It’s impossible to know, even with radar ground studies. But a scouring of town and church records suggests there were over five hundred.
Who were they, these men and women who, along with our better-off European ancestors, built Stoneham? Who, in the case of slaves, toiled without pay or hope of freedom. Who, in some cases, married, had children and attended church, but were prescribed to the lowest rungs of society?
The first white settlers in Stoneham, then called Charlestown End, arrived in the mid-17th century, about two decades after English colonists led by John Winthrop founded the Massachusetts Bay Colony. Not long after, came the slaves.
The earliest record I could find of slaves in the Stoneham area is in Elbridge Goss’ History of Melrose. It appears in a 1653 order from the General Court, stipulating that a slave owned by Job Lane, named Ebedmeleck, must be punished for “stealing victuals and breaking open a window on the Lord’s day.” He shall “be whipt with five stripes.”
In the century before the American Revolution, at least nine families in Stoneham owned slaves, including the Greens, who settled in the eastern and southeastern area of our town. The Green farm, extending from the Melrose line to Pond Street, would be the home of five generations of the Greens. Forty-two Greens would be buried in the Old Burying Ground.
An inventory of Captain Jonathan Green’s possessions in 1761 includes, along with 3 horses, 6 oxen, 9 cows, and 20 sheep, “2 servants for life.”
Jonathan Green’s name also shows up in the indenture contract binding a 7-year-old girl to the Green family for eleven years. My column of September 11 tells her story.
The Rev. Ken McGarry offers dedication prayer for all those buried in unmarked graves in the Old Burying Ground in Stoneham.
Indenture in New England was one way of dealing with poor, illegitimate or otherwise destitute children. If they were fortunate, they learned a trade, or, in the case of young women, found a husband after completing their term. Adults were also indentured, often as house servants. In an inventory of the late town minister, James Osgood, is found, along with his other possessions, one Negro woman and one white servant.
Towns also had poor houses, as did Stoneham, although it was customary for officials to “warn out” paupers coming into town, so they would not become a drain on resources.
The earliest mention of an almshouse in Stoneham is a note by Silas Dean that in 1760 town leaders explored working with Reading and Woburn to establish a “work house,” a place for the poor.
The next reference I found is in William B. Stevens’ History of Stoneham, where he records the 1823 purchase of a farm in northeast Stoneham as a place for the poor. As in communities throughout New England, poor farms were funded by towns and cities at public expense. But they were also working homes for the able bodied who could either farm, cook, do laundry, or work at a trade. Here you might find a widow, a disabled or indigent worker, or an orphan.
As Stoneham’s population increased, a larger facility was needed. In 1852 the town purchased 17 acres on Elm Street and began construction of a new Almshouse. Additional acres were later purchased, and the house was enlarged and a shop added where the shoemakers in the home could work. In 1890 the Stoneham Almshouse had 30 residents. Today, it is our Senior Center.
The Old Burying Ground was also the burial place of Native Americans. We know of two because it made the papers. In February of 1813, ruffians murdered a Penobscot couple that had set up camp by Spot Pond. Their names were Nicholas and Sally Crevay. I tell their story in my book, If the Shoe Fits: Stories of Stoneham, Then & Now.
The next time you visit the Old Burying Ground, pause a moment at the beautifully designed memorial placed there by the Historical Commission. It honors the hundreds buried there in unmarked graves, people who lived among us and helped build our town. As we celebrate our Tricentennial, it’s the right thing to do.
She was seven, too young to lose one parent and be taken from the other. Her name was Abigail. We know about her became Silas Dean, longtime town clerk and church deacon, wrote about her indenture in A Brief History of the Town of Stoneham, published in 1870.
Abigail’s father was Daniel Connery. He lived, according to Dean, in a house “for a long time called Connery’s Den,” the lair of, among other things, Dean comments wryly, “lion rum.”
Daniel died in or before 1776, although his death is not listed in town records. For the family, losing the breadwinner put them in grave peril. There was no safety net then, and the almshouse on Elm Street wouldn’t open until the next century.
Abigail’s mother is not named by Dean, nor is she named in the indenture agreement. She was most likely Elisabeth Phillips of Lynn, married in 1763 to Daniel Connery, as recorded in both towns.
I can only imagine what it must have been like for her, as on May 6, 1776, she prepared to deliver her seven-year-old for indentured service. Was she there as the five selectmen and two justices of the peace signed the legal papers? Did she accompany her daughter to her new family?
So it was that on this spring day Agibail was placed and bound “to Jonathan Green . . . and his wife . . . to learn to spin, knit and sew” and “after the manner of an apprentice to serve for the term of 10 years, 11 months, and 27 days” until she turns 18 (modernized spelling and capitalization.)
Although the document doesn’t specify which Jonathan Green is named—Captain Jonathan Green or his son of the same name—it’s reasonable to assume it is the elder, one of Stoneham’s most prominent and prosperous citizens. A fourth generation of Greens that arrived from England in the 17th century, Captain Jonathan Green was for many years town clerk and treasurer. For 20 years he was a selectman. He commanded a company of militia, and he owned slaves. An inventory of his possessions in 1761 includes, along with 3 horses, 6 oxen, 9 cows, and 20 sheep, “2 servants for life.”
Jonathan’s wife was Rebecca Bucknam, whom he married in 1749 after two previous wives had died. In the home would have been one son, Jesse, 13, and perhaps daughters Sarah, 18, and Rebecca, 21.
As we read the indenture document, it’s important to note its transactional terms. Both parties—the family and the indentured person—will get something. Likewise, each has obligations.
First, Abigail is obligated to serve her master and mistress faithfully and their “lawful commands gladly everywhere obey.” She must also keep their secrets. Today, we call that a nondisclosure agreement. Further, she must do no damage to them or their home or waste their goods. And she must not leave the premises without their consent.
Abigail is also to commit no fornication or enter into matrimony. Also, she must refrain from playing cards or dice. Finally, she must not “haunt ale houses taverns or playhouses, but in all things behave herself as a faithful apprentice ought.”
On the other side, Captain Green and his wife “hereby covenant and promise to teach and instruct … in the art of spinning, knitting and sewing.” They must also provide “sufficient meat, drink, washing and lodging both in sickness and health.” They are also required to teach her to read, although nothing is said about writing or mathematics.
These terms extend through the 11-year-term. Then, when Abigail turns 18, they must give her what were known as “freedom suits.” In this case, “two suits of apparel both wool and linen, fitting for all parts of her body”—one suit for work days and the other for “the Lord’s day.”
As in England, indenture was common in the Massachusetts Bay Colony, involving children as well as adults. Records show that between 1735 and 1805, over 1,400 children were bound over as indentured servants. Hundreds were below the age of 10 and three dozen below the age of 5. Poor, abandoned, orphaned or illegitimate, they would grow up in the households of better-off families. They would eat at their table, take on chores, and assist in the business of the home. The most fortunate would learn a trade, or, in the case of girls reaching adulthood, find someone to marry.
What happened to Abigail we don’t know. Her name doesn’t show up in any other town records. Was she treated well? Did she complete her indenture, perhaps become a seamstress? Did she marry and move away? Thinking of her, I think of my daughter and granddaughter at that age. It must have been heartbreaking for Abigail and her mother.
Nor do we know any more of Elisabeth Connery. Her name doesn’t appear again in either Stoneham or Lynn vital statistics. Did she visit her daughter from time to time? Did she move away.
Meanwhile, Abigail would have grown up in the new Republic, as Massachusetts went from a colony to statehood. What would the changes sweeping through society have meant to her? I only wish we knew more.
Notes:
I found only one reference to indentured service involving an adult in Stoneham. In the 1746 probate inventory of the late Rev. James Osgood’s possessions is this line: “a white servant for a term £25.” The unnamed servant must have had time left on his or her indentured service, valued at 25 pounds. With this entry was also “a Negro woman £70.” She had been purchased by the minister in 1744 and was “a servant for life.”
There is also reference made to the indenture of one of Stoneham’s early settlers, Patrick Hay. Silas Dean tells of a young Scottsman who fled his apprenticeship in Edinburgh, boarded a ship to Salem, then was again indentured “for six or seven years” to a Lynnfield farmer to pay for his passage. Completing his term, he came to Stoneham “with his axe and gun” to clear land for a homestead.
Ben Jacques is the author of In Graves Unmarked: Slavery and Abolition in Stoneham, Massachusetts, and If the Shoe Fits: Stories of Stoneham, Then & Now.
Our President is attacking the Smithsonian for its portrayal of slavery. He wants exhibits that show the horrors of slavery taken down. We don’t want our children to get the wrong idea.
It reminds me of comments I heard in the ‘60s. Comments like, most slave owners treated their slaves like family. Or, slaves benefited from slavery because they could learn a trade—a viewpoint recently written into the Florida public schools curriculum.
Which brings me to a document that surfaced this summer in the Stoneham Public Library titled “A History of the Black in Stoneham.” Written in 1969, it was published in the Stoneham Independent.
Disregarding the awkward reference to “the Black,” the reader is left with the impression that slavery was not so bad.
The article covers three periods, Colonial, pre-Civil War, and modern, and provides much good information. But it starts to break down when it compares slavery to indentured servitude, implying little difference. The authors failed to distinguish between the contractual—and finite–obligations of the indentured person and the ownership in perpetuity of slaves and their offspring. In other words, barring exceptional actions by their owners, enslaved men, women and children labored with no rights and no expectation of freedom. They were chattel.
That hopelessness is expressed in the will of one slave owner: “I bequeath unto my son … one negro woman named Fanny and her children now in his possession and one Negro man named Harry and all their increase to him and his heirs forever.”
A few of the article’s statements about enslaved people in Stoneham can only be described as absurd, like this one: “They were all shoemakers and they laid stone walls, but none was exploited!” And another: “Conditions must have been good because free blacks settled here.”
As we celebrate three hundred years of our history, it’s important to understand the role slavery played in Stoneham. It’s important to know that apart from how individuals were treated and the degree of physical trauma or deprivation they endured, they would have suffered deep and lasting psychological wounds.
Some basic facts. From the colonial period, we have records of some three dozen enslaved men, women and children in Stoneham. Named and unnamed, they show up in church and town records, wills and inventories. Like a “Negro woman and her children” mentioned in Daniel Green’s will. Like the 8-year-old “Mulatto Negro” purchased by James Hay in 1744.
Like “a Negro named Cato, the son of Simon, a Negro servant of Deacon Green,” or a maid named Dinah, owned by the school teacher William Toler.
Like a woman named Phebe, purchased that same year for 75 British pounds by the Rev. James Osgood, and listed along with his house furnishings after his death as simply, “a Negro Woman—70 £.”
Like Jack Thare, 40, “a servant of Joseph Bryant, Jr.,” one of six free or enslaved Black men from Stoneham who fought at Bunker Hill. When Jack failed to return from his enlistment, his master posted a fugitive want ad. Here’s what it said:
Ran away from the subscriber on the 24th of February, a Negro fellow, named Jack, of a — stature, has lost his upper teeth; had on when he went away, a blue coat, with large white buttons. Whoever will take up said Negro, and convey him to the subscriber in Stoneham, shall have three dollars reward. Joseph Bryant, Jr.
The 1969 article on Blacks in Stoneham was published the year I graduated from college. Our nation was still reeling from the assassination of Martin Luther King, Jr. We were being challenged to examine not only our actions and prejudices, but a long history of subjugation and dehumanization of Black people.
As we celebrate our Tricentennial, let’s look honestly at our history. The value of doing so is that it will affect who we will become. By insisting that we tell the truth about our past, we commit to embracing the full humanity of all those around us.
You came north after the Civil War, a Black man from Norfolk, Virginia, looking for a place to work and raise a family. You chose us, Stoneham, Massachusetts, a shoe-factory town of about 3,500 people just north of Boston.
In Virginia, were you enslaved? I could find no record. I did find that the year after the Emancipation Proclamation you enlisted in the Union Navy and spent a year aboard the USS Ohio. The Ohio was used to blockade Confederate ships along the Carolinas and in Europe.
The USS Ohio
In 1867, two years after the war, you appeared before the Justice of the Peace in Stoneham with your bride, Sarah Cecelia Hill, from Brooklyn. You were 23 and she was 18. With her you would raise five children, three sons and two daughters.
Cabinet card portraits of African Americans from the David V. Tinder Collection of Michigan Photography. Left: Man with Pipe, circa 1887. Right: Woman in Silk Dress, circa 1888. William L. Clements Library
I don’t know if you were tall or short. I do know you were strong. I found this ad in an old Stoneham Independent: “The services of Charles Cephas stone mason can now be had. He tends to laying pipes, sinking wells, digging cesspools and blasting. ‘He thoroughly understands his business.’”
Remember that summer when people were praying for rain, you made the news when you dug and lined a 35-foot-deep well, a record in Woburn.
Business must have been good, because in 1876 you bought a house on Hancock Street, then moved it over to Albion Avenue on the northwest side of town.
Lining a hand-dug well
For you and the few other African American families, Stoneham was a good place to put down roots. But the soil was rocky, in more ways than one. Getting along in an overwhelmingly white community sometimes meant conflict. Sometimes you were the target. In 1878, as reported in the Independent, five men attacked and beat you and your friend Thomas Shanks.
Another time, when you were walking by the Cogan and Sons shoe factory, from the upstairs window, someone dumped a bucket of white wash on your head. Furious, you stormed into the building demanding to know who the culprit was.
You raised such a fuss that the police were called. But instead of helping to find the offender, the police arrested you and charged you with disturbing the peace.
Another time, faced with arrest after a domestic dispute, you threatened to blow up the police station with dynamite you had in your work bag. Appearing in court the next day you stated you couldn’t remember making such a threat, but if you did, you were sorry. You were fined $10.
1870 U. S. Census showing Charles Cephas, his wife, Sarah, his mother-in-law and two children.
Were there good times? Did you and Sarah get together with other families after church for dinner? Your children would have gone to school in town.
In 1902 the Independent reported the wedding of your son, George, to Carrie Yancey. It was “a very pretty home wedding, performed in the presence of a large company of friends.”
Another time we learn of your son, Ernest, playing hockey on Spot Pond. Earnest would later go to sea, serving in the U.S. Navy during the Spanish American War.
There were painful losses, as the loss of your firstborn son, Charles H. Cephas, age one. Infant deaths were also recorded in 1874 and 1883.
At some point the stresses of life must have crossed over to your marriage. In 1895, after 28 years, your wife petitioned the Middlesex Court for divorce, and it was granted.
Sometime after this, you moved to Chelsea and started working as a stone mason at the Charleston Navy Yard. I couldn’t find any more about you until 1908, when I found this in the Stoneham Independent:
Charles Cephas, colored, passed away Wednesday evening of last week, at the Chelsea Marine hospital, as the result of injuries received by being assaulted as he was coming out of the Charlestown Navy Yard.
The reporter speculated that your killers must have been after your pension money.
Although there was no mention in the Boston papers, I did find a copy of the coroner’s report. It stated the cause of death as “acute fibrinous pneumonia consequent on hemorrhage and laceration of the brain sustained under circumstances unknown, probably those of an accidental fall.” Accidental fall? Really?
After a funeral in Chelsea, they brought you back to Stoneham for burial in the Civil War military section. Was there an honor guard? On Memorial Day I stopped by Lindenwood to pay my respects.
Sometimes I wonder what you would make of our town today. Of our nation. Some things are better. Some not.
Charles Cephas stone in Lindenwood Cemetery in Stoneham
There’s so much that would amaze you. So many stories of African Americans who paved the way in education, music, science, law enforcement, athletics, and business, not only on the national stage, but in our own town, some of them your descendants.
If I tell you about the achievements, however, I also have to mention the set-backs. I have to tell you about George Floyd.
But here’s something to celebrate. Did you know we now celebrate Juneteenth, the date in 1865 when enslaved folk in Texas finally found out they were free?
Mr. Cephas, when I think of you, I think of a man digging wells so families can have water. I think of a stone mason, his hands rough with callouses. I think of a man who had a temper, but who wanted, above all, a safe place to live, work and raise a family. Who deserved more respect than he got.
As we celebrate our town’s 300th birthday, reflecting on our founding in 1725, you may have wondered, who was our first employee?
Well, it seems we were rather selective, because the first person we hired was a graduate of Harvard. But before I tell you who it was, here’s some historical context.
In 1725, as we broke away from Charlestown, we were just a village ten miles north of Boston in a colony called Massachusetts Bay. Massachusetts Bay was founded in 1630 by English Puritans led by John Winthrop, who became its first governor.
The Puritans, who had separated from the Church of England, were a serious lot. They based their customs and laws on English Common Law and the Bible, especially the Old Testament.
They also believed that church and state should function as one, and that’s why, as stated in the founding document, the town was required to find, install and support a minister. That person would become the first paid employee of the Town of Stoneham.
That person was James Osgood and he came from Salem. When the words “Puritan” and “Salem” are mentioned in the same breath, it is not unnatural to think of witchcraft, and the trials and executions of the late 17th century. For the Osgood family, some of whom lived in Andover, the connection was personal. In 1692 James’ paternal grandmother, Mary Clements Osgood was accused of being a witch.
Mary Osgood’s story is too long to tell here. Suffice it to say, she confessed in 1692, under considerable pressure, of making a pact with the Devil and afflicting several other women and was subsequently imprisoned in Salem. But under examination by the Rev. Increase Mather, who had been sent to Salem to reign in the witchcraft hysteria, she recanted her confession and said she had made it all up. You can read about it in the report made by Governor Thomas Hutchinson. Meanwhile, over 50 citizens of Andover had petitioned for her release, and she was freed.
One of Mary’s sons was Peter Osgood, a tanner, who did so well that he sent two sons to Harvard, the younger one being James. One other thing I should mention is that the Osgood family owned slaves. Owning slaves was not common in colonial Massachusetts, but neither was it exceptional. For an enterprising farmer, seaman, merchant or tradesman, owning a slave could make the difference between just getting by and prospering. A 1754 inventory of enslaved persons age 16 and over in Salem listed 83. There were 989 in Boston. Eight in Stoneham.
Growing up in Salem, James Osgood followed his brother to Harvard. From what we know, he did well. At one point, however, he appears to have gotten into trouble. In a biographical sketch of Harvard graduates, we read that “James found himself caught up in the student riot of 1722 at Harvard, managing to break glass to the value of 11 shillings.” My guess is, he smashed a window.
But time can make a difference, as the parents of any college student know. By the time James graduated with a master’s degree, he was described as “one of the soberest and quietest members of his class.”
Looking for Employment
When James Osgood graduated from Harvard in 1727, he must have wondered what the future would hold. The youngest son of a Salem tanner and church deacon, he had earned a master’s degree, placing him into the upper echelon of Puritan society.
A few months before his graduation, there had been a turning point. An entry in his diary from this period stands out. It’s dated Jan. 1, 1727. It seems James had stopped taking Communion in church. Had he, a college don studying Greek and Latin, entertained doubts? Had he grown skeptical?
For whatever reason, as he now wrote, he repented his neglect of the sacrament and promised to “walk according to the Rules of the Gosple & the Discipline of the Church.” From now on, he covenanted, he would “walk as becomes a true Disciple & follower of our Lord Jesus Christ.”
After graduation, Osgood left Cambridge and returned to Salem, where he began looking for employment. One of his first jobs was teaching school in Salisbury, for which, records show, he received 30 pounds. He was also called on to fill the pulpit as a guest preacher in nearby parishes, giving him valuable experience.
In the fall of 1728 the young theologian received an invitation from the newly incorporated town of Stoneham, which was searching for its first minister. To audition for the job, Mr. Osgood would have to preach in front of the whole town, around 65 families, and get the approval of town voters, all 13 of them, men only. Other candidates would also be invited.
Meanwhile, in Stoneham “it was voted in town meeting assembled to set apart a day for prayer to ask God’s direction in the choice of a minister” (William B. Stevens, The History of Stoneham).
James Osgood was only 23 when he came down from Salem, probably on horseback, to audition for the job. What must have gone through his mind as he entered the simple structure of the Meeting House, erected by the townspeople just three years earlier, and stood before the small congregation. We can only imagine his looks and manner, and the sermon to follow. We can assume he made a powerful impression, because he got the job.
Was it a hard choice for him to make? I wonder when I read that it took him until April to formally accept. Nevertheless a few months later, on Sept. 10, 1729, he was ordained and installed in the Meeting House as Stoneham’s first minister.
All things considered, it was not a bad job. The town voted him an annual salary of 110 British pounds (about $22,000 today). It also gave him 172 pounds ($38,000) “for a settlement,” and agreed to supply him with ten cords of wood for heating and cooking.
At first boarding at the home of Peter Hay, a prominent town citizen, the young bachelor set about ministering to the families of the parish. Besides preaching two or more sermons a week, his duties included teaching, baptizing, counseling and consoling. He conducted weddings and funerals. And he began plans for a parsonage. As Stevens records: “Mr. Osgood purchased land and built him a house which was a fine one for those times.”
A photograph of the parsonage, taken in the 19th century, shows a large house in the traditional saltbox style. Nine windows face the street, and a storage shed is attached at the rear. Cord wood is stacked on the side, and children play in the yard.
We don’t know when the house was completed, but it may have been before 1735, when Osgood, now 30, returned from Killingly, Connecticut, with his new bride. Her name was Sarah Fiske and she was 17. In Stoneham, the couple would have two children, Abigail and John.
From William B. Stevens’ History of Stoneham, 1891.
The Reverend’s Account Books
On August 6, 1729, James Osgood started recording his expenses in two books, preserved in the Congregational Library in Boston. These daily accounts give us clues into the 24-year-old Harvard graduate from Salem, ordained in October as Stoneham’s first minister.
The entries, made in his own hand, are various and include lists, like what books he was reading, the founding of Puritan churches in Massachusetts Bay, and commentary on historical and theological matters. They also record payments received, like one of 56 pounds from Daniel Gould, town treasurer, half of his yearly salary.
Another shows Osgood paying 49 pounds, then another 50, to “Mr. Ebenezer Phillips, yeoman,” for the purchase of land. Below that is payment made to Francis Kittridge–12 pounds, 16 shillings and 6 pence—for 1,000 board feet of lumber for construction of his house.
Most of Osgood’s purchases, however, are for daily necessities, such as 16 shillings paid to David Gould for a bushel of corn. There are also payments for rye, sugar, molasses, tea, salt, beef, veal, and fish. Also, cotton, wool, linen and eiderdown, as well as kettles, tallow and other houseware items. And there are regular purchases of rum.
We also see a stream of payments for workmen building the parsonage. Others for plowing, hauling manure, planting and mowing. There are purchases of animals, including a pig. A payment is made to have Osgood’s horse shod.
Then there are payments for services rendered, like weaving and shoemaking. In one entry, the minister pays Simon Barjona, a cordwainer, one pound for a pair of shoes.
After his marriage to Sarah and the arrival of children, we see purchases that reflect his family, such as a handkerchief, silk, a looking glass and a pair of stockings for Sarah. Also a buckle and a new hat for Johnny, and a frock for his daughter, whom he calls Nabbe.
We find regular payments made to Abigail, the household maid. To employ a household maid must have made a huge difference to the family, especially for Sarah, whose duties as the minister’s wife would have gone beyond household management and raising children. She would have been called on to support her husband’s ministry in various ways, counseling the women and children, visiting the poor and the sick.
In October of 1743, however, payments to the maid cease. From November through January, no further payments are found. For whatever reason, Abigail is no longer employed. It appears the Osgood family is without household support.
In February that is about to change in a way that we, looking back three centuries later, find disturbing. On Feb. 21, 1744, Osgood writes: “Paid away for a Negro woman named (Fibbe) to Mr. Thomas Bancroft, 20 pounds.”
Osgood’s payment of 20 pounds was just a down payment. In March he will make a second payment of 12 pounds. Then in April, as he notes in his account book, “paid for my Negro woman in full, 43 pounds”—bringing the total to 75 pounds.
Reading this, I am stunned. Yes, I’ve known that many prominent families in colonial New England owned slaves. But this feels personal. It is my church, the First Congregational Church, founded in 1729, and in my town, which this year celebrates its 300th Birthday.
How could the minister of my church be a slave owner? Next week, I will conclude my story of the Rev. James Osgood. I’ll tell of his sudden demise and what happened to his family and his enslaved servant, Phebe.
Page 26 of James Osgood’s Account Book for the year 1744.
A Slave in the Parsonage
When James Osgood in 1744 brought home a Negro woman he had purchased, few in town would have questioned his actions or his ethics. Slavery had sprung up in the Massachusetts Bay Colony soon after its founding in 1630. English colonists had initially enslaved natives captured in battle, but found them too difficult to manage.
In 1637 the slave ship Desire, built in Marblehead, left for the Caribbean with 17 Pequot natives, including 15 children, to be sold to Caribbean plantations. Eight months later, the ship sailed into Boston with a cargo of cotton, tobacco and slaves from Africa.
In 1641 the Puritan community published The Body of Liberties, which spelled out rights and obligations of its members. Article 91 sanctioned the owning of slaves.
In Stoneham, as throughout New England, having slaves signaled a family’s success and status. Among owners were merchants, tradesmen, land owners and ship captains. There were also ministers, like the eminent Puritan minister, Cotton Mather, in Boston. Or like James Osgood.
The minister’s own family, his father, Peter Osgood, and uncles, owned slaves in Salem and Andover. When James Osgood arrived in Stoneham, he first boarded with Captain Peter Hays, who kept two slaves. At one time or another, at least eight Stoneham families owned slaves.
Osgood believed, as did Cotton Mather, that it was the duty of slave masters not only to treat their slaves kindly, but to Christianize them, thus to save their souls. In Stoneham, writes Stevens, “The colored people, though in a state of slavery, were admitted as brethren and sisters to the church.” Welcome in the Meeting House, they were restricted, however, to sitting in the balcony.
Church records show that Osgood “received” several slaves into full communion. Among them were “Amos, Negro servant of Deacon Green” and “Pomfrey, Negro servant of Mr. Sprague.” The minister also officiated at their weddings. In 1738 he blessed the marriage of Mingo and Moll, “servants” of Peter Hay, Jr.,” and in 1743 of “Obadiah How, Negro servant of Mr. Souther, married to Priscilla.”
The Puritans in Massachusetts had rejected the rigid hierarchy of the Church of England and instituted congregational reforms that gave the common person more say in church and society. Yet they continued to see themselves as part of the Great Chain of Being, which described their place in the natural order. At the bottom of this chain were natives and Africans.
So it was that Phebe, the woman Osgood had purchased for 75 pounds, was expected to serve the family in perpetuity. Regardless of the degree of kindness shown her, she must labor with no pay and no hope of freedom.
What would eventually happen to Phebe, however, the Stoneham minister would never know, because on March 2, 1745, a few months shy of his 40th birthday, the Rev. James Osgood suffered a fatal stroke.
James Osgood had served the people of Stoneham for 16 years, and his sudden demise must have shocked the town. William B. Stevens writes: “His body was carried to the Meeting House and there attended to grave by several ministers and a great Concourse of People.” He was laid to rest in the Old Burying Ground on Pleasant Street.
For the minister’s family, the loss was enormous. John, his son, was only 6, and his sister, Abigail, 9. Details about the family after his death are few. John Osgood grew up in Stoneham and married Lucy Torrey, and they had one daughter. He then married Jane Libby on January 2, 1781. He died in 1792 in Boston at the age of 53.
Abigail, their daughter, at age 15 married Joseph Bryant, Jr, in Stoneham. He would later fight in the Revolutionary War. They had five children. Abigail lived a long life, 89 years, and died in 1826 in Stoneham.
Sarah, town records show, remarried in 1752 to a Captain Ralph Hart of Boston. She, too, lived into the next century. When she died in 1801 at age 83, she was buried beside her first husband in the Old Burying Ground. In his Brief History of the Town of Stoneham, Silas Dean described her as “a very amiable and excellent person.”
As to what happened to Phebe, the Osgood’s household slave, I found two pieces of information. The first is her mention in the inventory of the Osgood’s belongings, made after his death. The inventory list is chilling, because tucked between items like “A looking Glass, 2 oval Tables, a Desk and Tankard board” and “A bed and furniture, a low Chest with Draws & a Table” is the entry: “A Negroe Woman, 70 pounds,” valued at five pounds less than her original purchase price.
The second is from Stoneham vital records for 1747, two years later. It noted the marriage of “Phebe, servant of Mrs. Sarah Osgood, and Quecoo, servant of Peter Hay, 3d, Mar. 12, 1747.” I could find no further information.
As we look back to our founding, we view it from afar. When Reverend Osgood arrived from Salem, Stoneham had just incorporated as a Puritan community in a British Colony. Yet it was in those times that our town was forged. What followed was earth shaking, the Revolutionary War and the creation of a republic inspired by the Declaration of Independence. Soon after, in 1780, came the Massachusetts Constitution. Authored by John Adams, it became the model for the U.S. Constitution. It was also the basis for the Massachusetts Supreme Judicial Court ruling in 1783 that ended slavery in the Commonwealth. In the first federal census of 1790, there were no enslaved persons in Stoneham.
For history to have value for us, we must do our best to tell it with honesty. We must acknowledge its complexity. This shouldn’t deter us, however, from paying tribute to the founders of Stoneham, including our first minister and first employee, the Rev. James Osgood. We also pay tribute to all those, enslaved or free, who helped build our town.
Ben Jacques Stories 