In the History of Conway, Caesar Wood is referred to as "Black Caesar," "'Saxton [sexton] and Grave Diger', who also, as the ancient memories tell us, did every sort of a thing." He succeeded Calab Sharp (Sharp Calab) in the construction and operation of sawmills and gristmills. Sharp constructed Conway's first gristmill in 1767. He was of mixed African American and Indigenous heritage and owned and operated a gristmill and a sawmill. In Sharp's account book is an entry showing that Caesar was paid two shillings, 8 pence for a day's work helping to build one of Calab's mills. This might have been in 1779.
Caesar married Bette Barne of Conway in June of 1776. They lost a child in 1777 at the age of six months, another was stillborn in 1778, a child lived only a few days in 1782, and Caesar, Jr. died in 1790 at the age of nine years. Sally was born on December 30,1785, but nothing else is known about her. Conway vital records note that Betty, "an Indian woman" died on October 12, 1800. The federal census for Conway for that year lists Caesar with three in the "All Other Free Persons" column.
Sources Consulted
History of Conway (Massachusetts), 1767-1917, Rev. Charles Stanley Pease, Ed., 1917, pp. 36, 37, 112
Conway, Massachusetts vital records
account book of Calab Sharp, courtesy of Jones Library Special Collections, Amherst, MA