Abijah Prince

Bio

Abijah Prince was born about 1706, probably in Connecticut. It is likely that he was enslaved as a child in the home of the Reverend Benjamin Doolittle of Wallingford, Connecticut. Doolittle moved his family to become the minister of Northfield, Massachusetts, in 1718. He apparently sold Abijah to Aaron Burt of Northfield before he died, probably in 1747. Abijah enlisted that fall in Captain Elijah Williams’s militia company of Deerfield, Massachusetts, during King George’s War (1744-1748.) He was paid £160 for his service. It is possible Abijah used some of this money to purchase his freedom from Aaron Burt in a pre-arranged agreement between the two men.

  After his militia service, Abijah began working for Elijah Williams. In May 1748 he moved with the Williams family to Enfield, Massachusetts, (now part of Connecticut) where Williams opened another store. Aaron Burt of Northfield manumitted 45-year-old Abijah Prince on May 9, 1751. That year, Prince  participated in a lottery for unallocated lots in Northfield; he sold his Northfield land in 1782. For the next few years, Abijah lived in Northampton, Massachusetts, with Amos and Bathsheba Hull, an African American couple, and he worked for a hatter. Sometime in 1754, Abijah obtained real estate in Guilford, Vermont, probably in payment for clearing land for Elijah Williams and other Guilford property owners. Although considered one of Guilford’s founders, he seems to have lived in Deerfield before relocating to his farm in Guildford. In 1761, Abijah was awarded a grant of land in Sunderland, Vermont, but he never settled there.

  In 1756, Abijah served in the final French and Indian War (1754-1763). On May 17, 1756, he married Lucy Terry, a woman enslaved by Ebenezer Wells of Deerfield. It is possible that Abijah purchased Lucy’s freedom from Ebenezer but there is no surviving manumission document. For the early years of their marriage, they lived in a house on the east side of Ebenezer Wells’ 6-acre home lot, where a small stream still bears the name, “Bijah’s Brook.” The couple had six children between 1756 and 1769. Entries for Abijah in the account books of several Deerfield men, including the Prince’s account at Elijah Williams’s  store document Abijah and Lucy’s activities when they lived in Deerfield.

  Abijah and Lucy became well-known and respected residents of Guilford. Two of their sons served in the American Revolution. Not all of Abijah’s neighbors in Guildford were happy to have an African American family living nearby, however. A string of court cases in the 1780s document repeated deliberate destruction of crops and a farm building and physical assaults against the Prince family. A neighboring farmer, John Noyes, was a ringleader in these attempts to drive the Princes from their home.  Another neighbor attacked 14-year-old Tatnai and 10-year-old Abijah, Jr.  Abijah submitted formal complaints and in 1785, the Vermont Supreme Court ruled in favor of the Princes, following an eloquent argument by Lucy.

  Abijah died in Guilford on January 19, 1794,at the age of 88. The road along which the Prince’s house and land were located was renamed “Abijah Prince Road” and a historical marker about the family was erected.