Abijah Prince, Jr.

Bio

Abijah Prince, Jr. (1769-1793) was the last of six child born to Abijah and Lucy Terry Prince of Deerfield, Massachusetts (Records of the First Congregational Church of Deerfield, Massachusetts.) Both of his parents had once been enslaved. Abijah moved with his moved to land Abijah owned in Guilford, Vermont, in 1775. (Gretchen H. Gerzina, Mr. and Mrs. Prince: How and Extraordinary Eighteenth-Century Family Moved Out of Slavery and into Freedom (NY: HarperCollins, 2008), p. 130.)

In 1779, when Abijah, Jr. was 10 years old, he and his 14-year-old brother Tatnai were attacked by John Stanton, a relative of John Noyes, who lived nearby. It was reported that the boys were beaten with "Staves Sticks &c." (Gerzina, Mr. and Mrs. Prince, 146). In April of 1782, after Abijah, Sr. had filed charges against Stanton, John Noyes and another relative cut down some of Prince's trees and broke down their fences, allowing cows and pigs access to the corn, flax, potatoes, and hayfield. In 1785, Lucy Terry Prince argued her family's case in court before Governor Thomas Chittenden, and won. The council's issued the following resolve:

On the Representation of Lucy Prince, wife of Abijah Prince, and others shewing that, the said Abijah, Lucy and Family, are greatly oppressed & injured by John and Ormas Noyce, in the possession and enjoyment of a certain farm or Piece of Land, on which the said Abijah and Lucy now Lives, the Council having Taken the same into consideration and made due enquiry, are of Opinion that the said Abijah and Lucy are much injured, and that unless the Town take some Methods to protect said Abijah, Lucy & family in the enjoyment of their possession, they must soon unavoidably fall upon the Charity of the Town.

      Therefore Resolved that His Excellency be Requested to write to the Selectmen of the Town of Guilford Recommending to them to Take some effectual Measures to protect the said Abijah, Lucy & family in the Possession of said Lands until the said dispute can be equally & equitably settled. (Records of the Governor and Council of the State of Vermont, Vol. III, ed. & pub. Authority of the State, E. P. Walton, 1875, p. 66.)

Abijah, Jr. moved to Glastonbury, Connecticut, where he married Anne Harris, an African American woman from Coventry, in 1789. The couple had one child who died in infancy. Abijah appeared in the 1790 Federal Census as the head of a household of three free persons in Lebanon, Connecticut. Abijah, Jr. died three years after his marriage of unknown causes at the age of 24.