Ebenezer Sheldon (1691-1774) was born in Deerfield, Massachusetts, one of eight children born to John and Hannah (Stebbins) Sheldon. When Ebenezer was 13, his mother and a sister were killed when the town was attacked in 1704 by French soldiers and their Indigenous allies. Ebenezer and his other six siblings were captured and later redeemed. He married Thankful Barnard in 1714 and they had 10 children. He was a tavernkeeper, deacon, and was active in town affairs. In the 1740s he built Sheldon's Fort in Fall Town, (now Bernardston) Massachusetts, and relocated there in 1744. Ebenezer Barnard died in 1774, aged 83. (George Sheldon, History of Deerfield (Deerfield, MA: PVMA, Vol. II, 1896), p. 295.)
Deerfield church records reveal that Ebenezer enslaved a man named Pompey, whom he had baptized in 1741. (Manuscript records of the First Congregational Church of Deerfield, 1729 - 1824, PVMA Library.) A surviving account book kept by Dr. Thomas Williams documents that Sheldon hired Abijah Prince, a free African American and Deerfield resident, to work for him in 1758. (Dr. Thomas Williams account book, November 23, 1758, Vol. V, PVMA Library.)
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