William Allis (1758-1813) of Hatfield, Massachusetts, was the son of Elisha and Sarah Cutler Allis. He married Sophia Smith in 1784, and they had seven children. Sometime after 1785, perhaps after Sophia's death in 1807, William moved to Lowville, New York, where he died in 1813.
William enslaved a man named Joseph Pito. From the Hampshire Herald, Springfield, Massachusetts, June 28, 1785:
RAN away from the subscriber, A MULATTO FELLOW- in the 20th year of his age, named JOSEPH PITO, is about six feet high carried with him 1 blanket, 1 brown grat coat, 1 brown straight bodied coat, 1 white, and 1 striped linen vest, 3 pair of trowsers, and 3 shirts. Whoever will take up said Run-away, and return him to me the subscriber shall receive the above reward, and all necessity charges paid.
WILLIAM ALLIS
Hatfield, June 19, 1785
Taking into account rulings by the Supreme Judicial Court of Massachusetts in the early 1780s that slavery was unconstitutional under the state's newly-ratified constitution, Pito was likely not returned to his enslaver. By the time of his marriage in 1788, Pito was of nearby Conway, and the 1790 federal census lists him in South Hadley, Massachusetts, with two in the "All Other Free Persons" column.
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