Tenor was enslaved by the Reverend Roger Newton of Greenfield, Massachusetts. He baptized "Tinner, my negro Girl" on September 20, 1767. She had a daughter named Phillis, who was born in 1774. Newton noted in his diary that in 1778 he baptized "Phillis, a negro Child, born in my House." Tenor lost a daughter named Phillis in 1781, but the author of Willard's History of Greenfield (Willard, D., 1838) recounts a story about a teenaged Phillis who was also a daughter of Tenor's who lived to adulthood. It is unclear which daughter was baptized in 1778. Newton recorded in his diary that Tenor's daughter "Violet, a negro Child of my family" was baptized on April 25, 1783, and died two days later. Tenor also had a daughter named Tinner and the mother was then referred to as "Old Tenor" to differentiate her from her daughter. Newton recorded in a list of marriages in his diary: "Oct. 17, 1784. Mingo Proctor & Tenor." Mingo is listed as the head of a household in the 1790 census for Colrain, Massachusetts with three people listed in the "All other free Persons" column. This might have included either Tinner or Phillis.
In his History of Greenfield, Willard said of Tenor that she "was a very staid, well behaved and kind hearted personage; that dusky covering enclosed a heart alive to the best sympathies of human nature. On the event of her death, Dr. N. preached a sermon, in which among other matters and things, he gave her the character of being 'no pilferer, &c.'" (pg. 141)