Captain Moses Porter (1722-1755) of Hadley, Massachusetts, purchased Peg Bowen (1742-n.d.) in 1754, when she was 12 years old. In 1775, Porter was killed in battle in New York in the French and Indian War. His wife Elizabeth inherited Peg who, according to Porter's probate inventory was then worth £33, 6 shillings, and 8 pence.
Moses Porter's daughter, Elizabeth Porter Phelps recorded in her diary on March 28, 1772, "this Day our Peg who has Lived with us near 18 years of her own Choice Left us and two Children and was sold to One Capt. Fay of Bennington with a Negro man from this town all for the sake of being his wife." Elizabeth's husband Charles Phelps bought Peg back again in 1778 for £20. (bill of sale, Porter-Phelps-Huntington Papers, Box 4, Folder 17)
Elizabeth Phelps wrote in her diary on June 9, 1782, "our Peg Left us most a fortnight ago, gone off free."
Sources Consulted
Olivia Haynes, "Unseen, Unfree, Unforgotten: Peg Bowen and the Hidden Labor of the Revolution"
Robert Romer, Slavery in the Connecticut River Valley of Massachusetts, Robert Romer, 2009, pp. 176, 178.