Moses Porter (1721-1755) of Hadley, Massachusetts, was one of eight children born to Samuel and Anna (Colton) Porter. Moses married Elizabeth Pitkin of Hartford, Connecticut, in 1743. Like the Porters, the Pitkins were a prominent and well-to-do family and the newlyweds were among the wealthier members of the community. The couple had one child, a daughter named Elizabeth, who was born in 1747. A few years later, the family moved outside the main settlement in Hadley and established an extensive farm known as Forty Acres. The house still stands and was occupied by six generations of descendents until it became the Porter-Phelps-Huntington Museum in 1955.
Moses was an officer in the Hadley militia, serving first as Lieutenant and later as Captain. Captain Porter was in the regiment of Massachusetts militia deployed to the Lake George area of New York, during the French and Indian War (1754-1763). He was 34 years old when he was killed with many others on September 8, 1755 in the Battle of Lake George in an ambush known as the Bloody Morning Scout. His widow inherited Moses's estate on his death. Elizabeth never remarried, remaining at Forty Acres for the rest of her life with her daughter and later, her son-in-law, Charles Phelps (1744-1814) and their children.
Moses Porter enslaved two people, Zebulon Prutt and Peg. He purchased Zebulon Prutt of Hadley from Jerusha Chauncy, and purchased 12-year-old Peg (c1742-1792) in 1754. Peg was likely the "Negro Girl" Dr. Richard Crouch charged Lt. Moses Porter 13 shilling for treating in April, 1755. (Account book of Dr. Richard Crouch, from microfilm at PVMA Library; original held by Forbes Library, Northampton, Massachusetts.) Their enslavement continued long after Moses Porter's death as they were part of the estate he left to his widow. Zebulon escaped from bondage in 1768. Widow Porter placed an advertisement in the Connecticut Courant offering a reward for his recapture and return but sold him to Oliver Warner, who held Zebulon in bondage until he gained his freedom, likely in the 1780s; Zebulon died in 1802. ("Finally Freedom: Peg and Zebulon at Forty Acres")
Peg would have two daughters: Rose (1761-1781) and Phillis (1765-1775). When her enslavers refused their permission for Peg to marry a man named Pomp in 1771, Peg facilitated a sale in which they sold her and Pomp together to Captain Stephen Fay of Bennington, Vermont. Peg's daughters remained in bondage at Forty Acres. Rose subsequently had a daughter, also named Phillis (1775-1783) who inherited her mother's enslaved status. Rose's sister Phillis died of tuberculosis and Rose's daughter likely succumbed to the same disease at only eight years of age. Rose's mother Peg was sold back to the Phelpses in 1778. She was free by 1782 and remained in Hadley until her death in 1792. (Carlisle, Earthbound and Heavenbent, pp. 62-67; "Phillis, Rose, and Phillis: Enslavement and Illness at Forty Acres". )
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