Freeman, Amos

Amos Freeman (b.1760s)

Fitzwilliam, NH

Amos Freeman resided in Cheshire County, New Hampshire, for most of his life as a free Black male in the late 18th to early 19th centuries.  Secondary source materials reference his birth in the 1760s in Winchester, NH, and a marriage to Delilah HIll in Swanzey, NH in the 1780s.   

Amos may have resided in Swanzey with his wife for a few years.  His father, Benjamin Freeman, died in Swanzey in 1807.   After his death, Judge Abel Parker put a notice in the NH Sentinel in Nov. 1807.  Amos Freeman was petitioning to the court for his fair share of his father’s estate.  Parker outlined in the newspaper that Amos Freeman was, indeed, the son of Benjamin Freeman of Swanzey and, by law, was an heir and, therefore, entitled to receive ⅙ of the estate.  

Judge Parker appointed five residents to oversee the estate of Benjamin Freeman.  Children and heirs included: Ebenezer Freeman, Ezra Freeman, Asa Freeman, Thomas Green in right of his wife Esther, and Wilson in right of his wife Rachel. Signed Dec. 1807.  Amos Freeman was paid $1.67 owed to him.  and a portion of the estate was given to him including land that had a value of $33.33.  

By 1810, Amos Freeman had moved to Fitzwilliam, NH, possibly from Brookline, Massachusetts, where he resided with a woman aged 26-44, along with 4 other free persons.  Two years prior, in 1808, an Amos Freeman of Brookline, Massachusetts, acquired 76 1/2 acres of land in Fitzwilliam, NH, and 26 R for $800. This property was part of Lots 2, 3 and 4 in the 8th Range. At the time of his residency in Fitzwilliam he sold the property to Jacob Conant of Sterling, MA, for the same price as his purchase price.

The year 1819 is the first year that  Amos Freeman is identified as a person of color in primary materials.  In that year, he married Ami Humphrey in Fitzwilliam, NH, a female of color.  Two other couples of color married in Fitzwilliam that year as well. The following year, the couple was recorded in the 1820 US Federal Census as residents of Fitzwilliam with a young child.

The early years of their marriage may have proven difficult.  In 1820, Amy (Humphrey) Freeman ran away and her husband published a notice in the newspaper, “CAUTION. My wife AMY, having eloped from my bed and board, I hereby forbid all persons harboring or trusting her on my account, as I shall pay no debts hereafter of her contracting. AMOS FREEMAN. Fitzwilliam, January 31, 1821.”  The notice was published throughout February 1821.  Presumably, Mrs. Freeman returned home. 

Amos and Ami Freeman’s family continued to grow.  Mercy was born in 1822, Theophilus D. in 1823, and Thomas J. in 1834.  All of the children were born in Fitzwilliam, NH, and are listed as Black.  

Even while the couple continued to have children together, they may not have resided within the same household.  Amos Freeman is listed alone in the 1830 census in Fitzwilliam.  If the rest of the family was living in town, they may have been staying individually in one of six households where an unidentified individual of color lived in 1830.

By the 1840s, Amos Freeman was aged, alone and destitute, a burden to the town.  The selectmen in Fitzwilliam bid Freeman out to be cared for in the home of another resident, Caleb Boyce.  A newspaper advertisement reported,, "I do hereby forbid all persons harboring or trusting AMOS FREEMAN, town pauper, on my account, as I shall pay no debts of his contracting after this date. CALEB BOYCE Fitzwilliam, Dec. 8, 1840.

Any information beyond December 1840 on Amos Freeman or Amy (Humphrey) Freeman has yet to be discovered.  Their children had moved out of Fitzwilliam, NH, to Worcester County, MA, by the early 1840s.  All were married in the Brookfield/ Hardwick area.  

SOURCE MATERIALS

Cheshire County Registry of Deeds, Keene, NH: Vol. 57, p. 8; Vol. 57, p.482.

Find-a-Grave

Keene Sentinel, “Notice,” November 14, 1807, p.4- https://keene.advantage-preservation.com/

Keene Sentinel, “Caution,” February 10, 1821, p.4- https://keene.advantage-preservation.com/

Keene Sentinel, “Notice,” December 30, 1840, p.3- https://keene.advantage-preservation.com/

Knudsen, Milli S. Editor, Til Divorce Do Us Part: Marriages and Divorces from Cheshire County, NH, from 1776-1899. Heritage Books, Inc.: Westminster, MD (2007). Historical Society of Cheshire County, Wright 929.37429.K58 2007

Massachusetts Death Records, 1891, 1897, 1909

Massachusetts Marriage Records, Winchendon, 1857, 1888, 1899

New Hampshire, U.S., Birth Records, Winchester, 1764- Ancestry.com

New Hampshire Census, 1776, 1786

New Hampshire, U.S., Marriage Records, Swanzey, 1786, 1819- Ancestry.com

New Hampshire, U.S., Wills & Probate, Swaznzey, 1807- Ancestry.com

North Brookfield, Town of. A Historical Record of the Soldiers and Sailors of North Brookfield. North Brookfield (1886)- Ancestry.com

U.S. City Directories, Massachusetts, Worcester, 1879

U.S. Civil War Registration, Massachusetts, 1863- Ancestry.com

U.S. Civil War Pension Records, Massachusetts, 1887- Ancestry.com

U.S. Colored Troops Military Service Records, 1863- Ancestry.com

U.S. Federal Census Records, 1810, 1820, 1830, 1840- Ancestry.com

Whittemore, B.B. History of the Town of Fitzwilliam, New Hampshire, 1752-1887, p.271- Archives.org

Worcester Daily Spy, May 26, 1871, p.1.- Library of Congress, ChroniclingAmerica.com

Worcester Daily Spy, March 21, 1872, p.1.- Library of Congress, ChroniclingAmerica.com

Worcester Daily Spy, January 27, 1875, p.1.- Library of Congress, ChroniclingAmerica.com

GENEALOGICAL SUMMARY

AMOS FREEMAN was born in NH in the 1760s.  He married DELILIAH HILL in Swanzey in 1786.  Freeman married 2nd AMI HUMPHREY in Fitzwilliam in 1819.  They had: Mercy H. (b.1822), Theophilus D. (b.1823), Thomas J. (b.1834).