David Mitchell (1738-1800) was the third of three children born to Lieutenant James and Mabel (Buck) Mitchell. David married Mary Wolcott of Wethersfield in 1761. He moved to South Hadley, Massachusetts, around 1776, where he served on a town committee of Safety, Correspondence and Inspection during American Revolution (1775-1783). David Mitchell died in South Hadley in 1800, aged 62.
David Mitchell enslaved Caesar Cambridge. It is not known if Mitchell brought Caesar from Wethersfield when he moved to South Hadley. Two years later, on March 6, 1778, Mitchell emancipated Caesar in exchange for Caesar paying Mitchell 86 pounds and any wages Caesar had earned while serving on the Defiance, a privateer ship. (Sylvester Judd, History of Hadley, p. 110.) Caesar had enlisted in the Continental Army for three years or the length of the war the previous day, suggesting that Caesar used the money he earned through military service to purchase his freedom from Mitchell. (Massachusetts State Archives, Muster Rolls of the Revolutionary War, 1767-1833.)
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