Freeborn, Elnathan

Elnathan Freeborn (b.1769)

Winchester, NH

During the early 19th century, Elnathan Freeborn resided in southwest New Hampshire for a short time.  As a man whose racial/cultural background included both African ancestry and Indigenous ancestry, Freeborn’s lineage was closely tied to Worcester County, MA.  

Freeborn was born in Paxton, MA, on March 19, 1769 to Sharp Freeborn and Esther (Lawrence) Freeborn.  His father, Sharp had been enslaved to a white man named Ralph Eames, a large landowner in the county.  In return for his “faithful service”, Sharp Freeborn was granted his freedom on 6 April 1756 and received 30 acres of land from Earle “on the southern declivity of Asnebumskit.” 

Following his manumission, Sharp took the last name Freeborn and married Esther Lawrence in Grafton, MA in 1763.  She was the daughter of Peter Lawrence and Sarah Printer, members of the Hassanamisco-Nipmuc community.  Esther was also the descendant of a Native guide who had worked for Ralph Eames. Her family had been granted large tracts of land in Grafton by Eames long before Esther was born.  During her lifetime, she and her sisters were considered large landowners in the region as well.  

Historical documents in Massachusetts indicate that Sharp and Esther Freeborn sold off her rights to her land, denouncing their ties to their Indigenous family.  Over the years, their sale of property has been used more than once to validate Massachusetts’ claims to the land.  

Elnathan Freeborn grew up in the Paxton, MA, area and married a woman named Abigail in the early 1790s.  The 1790 census lists Sharp Freeborn as head of household residing in Paxton, Worcester, MA with three other ‘free persons’. This may have been Esther Freeborn, Elnathan Freeborn and his wife Abigail Freeborn?

The Freeborns had a daughter named Calista Freeborn in 1794.  Not long after her birth, mother Abigail passed away.  Around the same time, Elnathan also lost his aunt Patience Lawrence (Hassanamisco) and uncle Caesar Gimby (African) of Grafton, MA. When the couple passed away, they had four young children– Hannah, Lucy, Ceasar, and Moses Gimby– who were left in the care of their elder cousin Elnathan Freeborn.  

Having lost his wife and while caring for his daughter and four young cousins, Elnathan Freeborn soon remarried a woman named Elizabeth Hill in 1796.  Unfortunately, his daughter Calista died not long afterwards, at the age of four in 1798. 

It is unclear where Elnathan and Elizabeth (Hill) Freeborn lived in the early 19th century.  When his mother Esther (Lawrence) Freeborn died in 1806, her descendants were not legally entitled to shares of the Hassanamisco-owned land.

The 1820 census confirms that Elnathan Freeborn had relocated to Winchester, NH, with his family.  However, the census provides some confusing information.  According to the document, the household includes a male child under 14, one male and one female aged 14-25, a female aged 26-44, and a female over the age of 45 years.  As head of household, Elnathan Freeborn should appear in this census as a man in his 50s.  The entries are also located in the census columns associated with enslaved individuals but, in doing this research, citizen archivists have discovered that the census taker often included free families of color in these series of columns in the 1820 census, at least in southwest New Hampshire.

Years later, in 1859, a descendant of the Gimby family named John Hector made claims to land in Winchester, New Hampshire, as the next closest relative to Elnathan Freeman.  These records are held at Harvard University.  

GENEALOGICAL SUMMARY

ELNATHAN FREEBORN was born in 1769 Paxton, Massachusetts to SHARP FREEBORN and ESTHER LAWRENCE. He married 1st ABIGAIL (died c.1795) in MA in the early 1790s. They had CALISTA FREEBORN (1794-1798). Elnathan Freeborn (b.1769) married 2nd ELIZABETH HILL in MA in 1796.

SOURCE MATERIALS

Harvard University, “Antislavery Petitions Massachusetts Dataverse”, "Passed Resolves; Resolves 1859, c.88, SC1/series 228, Petition of John Hecktor"

Mandell, Daniel R. Behind the Frontier: Indians in Eighteenth-Century Eastern Massachusetts. (2000) University of Nebraska Press.

Massachusetts Vital Records, Births, Paxton, 1769, 1796- Ancestry.com

Massachusetts Vital Records, Deaths, Paxton, 1798- Ancestry.com

Massachusetts Vital Records, Marriages, Grafton, 1763- Ancestry.com

Massachusetts Vital Records, Marriages, Paxton, 1796- Ancestry.com

Native Northeast Portal, Communities, Nipmuc

Pliny Earle, The Earle Family: Ralph Earle and His Descendants (Worcester, MA: Press of Charles Hamilton, 1888), pgs. 19, 33.

U.S. Federal Census, 1790, 1820- Ancestry.com

Worcester, MA, County registry of deeds, book 38, page 285; book 57, page 132; book 60, page 366.