Jonathan Wells, Jr. (1684-1735) was the son of Jonathan and Hepzibah (Colton) Wells of Deerfield, Massachusetts. Like his father, Justice Jonathan Wells, Jonathan, Jr. was in the militia during the colonial wars, serving as an ensign. Jonathan, Sr. owned a homelot in the village and he gave the south half to Jonathan who was a trader and a farmer. Tragedy struck when his wife, Rebecca Barnard, died in their first year of marriage in 1718. Five years later, Jonathan married Mary Hoyt and they had 10 children, five of whom survived to adulthood. Jonathan died in 1735, aged 51. He predeceased his father by four years and Mary moved into her father-in-law's home with her younger children.
Jonathan Jr.'s probate inventory listed a "Negro Boy" valued at £100 and "Negro woman Cloathing." The woman's clothing might have been worn by Rebecca, an enslaved woman enslaved in Jonathan Wells, Sr.'s household with her husband, Pompey. When Jonathan Jr.'s widow moved next door into her father-in-law's home, she brought with her a "Negro boy," probably Caesar, who she had baptized in 1741. In 1745, he was "admitted to the Communion" of the church. As early as 1742, Caesar had an account at Elijah Williams' store, where he purchased caps and buckles, among other small items. On at least one occasion he paid for his purchases with two fox pelts. In 1744, the Wells' daughter Mary (1727-1779) wed Timothy Childs, Jr. (1720-1781) of Deerfield and as early as 1746, Caesar is referred to in Williams' account book as "Cesar Timo Childs." (Account Book of Elijah Williams, PVMA Library, Deerfield, Massachusetts.)
Mary and Timothy Childs took Caesar with them when they eventually moved to Turners Falls, Massachusetts. He died there and Deerfield's town historian George 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, History of Deerfield (Greenfield, MA: PVMA, 1896), Vol. II, 894.)
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