Peg

first name
Peg
last name
gender
female
birth, death year
-- , --
first, last year in records
--, --
confidence level
confirmed identity
freed status (year freed)
enslaved, then free (1782)
enslaver(s)
Fay; Phelps, Charles; Porter, Elizabeth Pitkin;
location(s)
Hadley, MA  
place of origin

Bio

Moses Porter of Hadley, Massachusetts might have purchased Peg in 1754, when she was a girl. On his death in 1755, his wife, Elizabeth inherited Peg who, according to Porter's probate inventory was then worth £33, 6 shillings, and 8 pence. 

From the diary of Moses Porter's daughter, Elizabeth Porter Phelps: "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

Slavery in the Connecticut River Valley of Massachusetts, Robert Romer, 2009, pp. 176, 178