Timothy Childs, Jr. (1720-1781) was born in Deerfield, Massachusetts, the son of Captain Timothy and Hannah (Sheldon) Childs. Timothy, Jr., was a surveyor and a farmer. Like his father before him, he served in the military and was chosen to lead a company of militia in the Saratoga campaign in the American Revolution (1775-1783). He married a nearby neighbor, Mary Wells, Jr. in 1744. At the time of their marriage it was said that they were "the richest couple ever married in Deerfield [Massachusetts]." (George Sheldon, History of Deerfield (Deerfield, MA: PVMA, 1896), Vol. II, pg. 894.) After losing their fortune, the couple moved to nearby Turners Falls, Massachusetts.
The couple enslaved a man named Caesar, whom Mary brought with her when she wed Timothy after the death of her parents. Caesar appeared in numerous Deerfield records, including the store accounts of Elijah Williams, from 1735 on. The Childs took Caesar with them when they moved to Turners Falls where he died. Deerfield's town historian Sheldon wrote of his passing, "friends from Deerfield visiting the Childses at the Falls found a negro slave whom they had taken with them from Deerfield sick unto death, and lying in a cold shed, on a rickety bedstead, with scanty covering, and not even a bed of straw under him, with nothing between his body and the bed-cords but an empty bed-tick. So passed away the Christian soldier." (George Sheldon, A HIstory of Deerfield (Greenfield, MA: 1896), p. 894.)
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