According to James Avery Smith, a Samuel Parsons of Northampton, Massachusetts, was selling enslaved people as late as 1790, when he sold Wealthy Wheeler (c1785-1871) to Oliver Cowls (Cowles) (1765-1850) of Amherst, Massachusetts. Avery cites as evidence a reference to the "sinister transaction" between a Samuel Parsons and Oliver Cowls in the Cowls family papers at the Jones Library, Amherst, Massachusetts.(James Avery Smith, A History of the Black Population of Amherst, Massachusetts, 1728-1870 (Boston: New England Historic Genealogical Society, 1999), pp. 10; 130. There is no record of a Captain Samuel Parsons in the genealogical records relating to Northampton within the time period when Wealthy Wheeler was sold to Oliver Cowles, however. The closest match is a Lieutenant Samuel Parsons (1733-1812.)
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