Chauncey, Richard

title
first name
Richard
last name
Chauncey
gender
male
birth, death year
1703, 1790
role
enslaver
race
white
location(s)
Whately, MA  

Bio

Richard Chauncey was born in Hadley, Massachusetts, in 1703. As early as 1731, he appeared on a list of residents living in a precinct of the town incorporated in 1759 as the separate town of Amherst. Chauncey subsequently relocated to to the northern section of nearby Hatfield, Massachusetts, that was incorporated as the town of Whately in 1771. According to James Crafts' town history of Whately, Chauncey was among the founding members of the Whately Congregational Church established in 1771. (Craft, History of the Town of Whately, Mass, p 168.)

Richard Chauncey was the enslaver of George Prut, who joined the Whately Church as a full member in 1771.

Described in Crafts' Whately town history "as a pious old slave of Richard Chauncey", George was born in 1722 to Arthur and Joan Prutt, a married couple enslaved by Chauncey's father, the Reverend Isaac Chauncey (1670-1745) of Hadley, Massachusetts. George's younger brother, Caesar Prutt (1727- ?), was enslaved by Richard's brother Josiah Chauncey of Amherst, Massachusetts. It is possible George may still have been considered part of the Reverend Chauncey's estate on his death in 1745, and was then enslaved by Richard. This remains unclear as Isaac Chauncey's estate was not probated.

There is no known record that Chauncey emancipated George at the time Massachusetts courts were ruling in the early 1780s that slavery was no longer legal under the new Massachusetts Constitution of 1781. According to the town's vital records, Prutt died in Whately in 1794 of a "putrid fever."

Enslaved persons:

top of page

operson_detail.html