Charles Phelps (1743-1814) was born in Hadley, Massachusetts. His parents were Charles Sr. and Dorothy (Dolly) Phelps who had recently moved to Hadley from nearly Northampton. Charles, Sr. was a bricklayer by trade who later took up law. Charles, Jr. was the second of their nine children. In 1770 he married Elizabeth Porter (1747-1817) of Hadley despite opposition from her prominent family who had expected Elizabeth to marry within the well-connected, well-to-do group of influential "Mansion People", or "River God" families of the Connecticut River Valley. The marriage was apparently a love match; on several occasions Elizabeth marked the anniversary of their marriage in her journal with positive words affirming her happiness. The couple had three children, two of whom survived to adulthood. Charles threw himself into managing the large estate known as Forty Acres; Elizabeth supervised the household and oversaw the farm's active and growing dairy operation. They supported the American Revolution and Charles served in a number of town offices as well as representing Hadley in the Massachusetts legislature. (Elizabeth Pendergast Carlisle, Earthbound and Heavenbent: Elizabeth Porter Phelps and Life at Forty Acres (NY: Scribner, 2004) pp. 47-48; 43-45.)
The Phelpses enslaved several people who worked on the estate in addition to day laborers, apprentices, and hired servants. In the year they married, Charles purchased an enslaved man named Cesar. Enslaved people at Forty Acres also included men and women enslaved by Elizabeth's parents. Charles's mother-in-law, Elizabeth (Pitkin) Porter (1719-1755) inherited Zebulon Prutt, an enslaved man, after her husband, Captain Moses Porter (1721-1755) was killed in the French and Indian War in 1756. When Zebulon escaped 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")
The Porters also purchased 12-year-old Peg (c1742-1792) in 1754. Peg would have two daughters: Rosanna (Rose ) (1761-1781) and Phillis (1765-1775). When the Phelpses did not allow Peg to marry a man named Pomp in 1772, 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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