Cartledge, Jacob

Jacob Cartledge (1834-1919)

Chesterfield, NH

Much of what’s known about Jacob Cartledge’s youth stems from articles written about him as an elderly man living in Brattleboro, VT.  He was born into slavery in Georgia around 1834, his parents having been enslaved in Virginia prior to Jacob’s birth.  In a Brattleboro Reformer newspaper article in 1919, Cartledge recounts the difficult life he led as an enslaved child.  

As the newspaper interview with Cartledge recounts, he escaped from his enslaver sometime in the 1840s-1850s by hiding in a coal mine for three weeks.  Cartledge made his way to Pennsylvania as part of the Underground Railroad.  Once settled, he worked as a farm hand until the Civil War broke out.  

On March 23, 1864, Jacob Cartledge enlisted in the Union Army for a 3-year term.  He served as a private in Company D, 43rd US Colored Infantry and was honorably discharged in Brownsville, Texas on Oct 20, 1865.  Following the war, he returned to Pennsylvania where he was a farm hand for many years.

In the early 1880s, Jacob Carthledge migrated north to New England, where he worked chopping trees in the forests of Vermont.  It may be during is initial residency in Brattleboro, where he first met John H. Sugland, another person of color living in a ‘shanty’ in Dummerston, Vermont.  Sugland had moved to the area from Keene, NH and had worked chopping wood as well.  

In 1887, John Sugland murdered a 25-year old caucasian girl, Helen A. Burt, with whom he had been having an affair.  According to newspaper accounts, Jacob Cartledge ran into Sugland the day following the incident and had learned of the murder.  Sugland disclosed that he wanted to sink the body up river and asked Cartledge to stand guard and wait to see if the body accidentally floated by. 

Afraid, Cartledge did not wait by the river and, instead, returned home.  Helen Burt’s body was discovered by someone else soon afterward. When first asked about what he knew in court, Cartledge lied on the stand and stated that he knew nothing.  The prosecutors believed he must know more and had him jailed for further questioning. Once in the safety of a jail cell, Cartledge disclosed what he knew of the murder to the authorities.  Soon after, Sugland committed suicide in another jail cell.  Cartledge was released to resume life in Brattleboro.

In 1895, Jacob Cartledge hurt himself after a log rolled onto his hand and was forced to quit his wood chopping job.  He found work assisting coal teams for E. B. Barrows and L. B. Yauvey.  According to his obituary, many residents of Brattleboro remember Cartledge during his time with the coal wagons– his “courteous low bows and his salutation ‘Good morning my good man.’” 

During the 1890s, Cartledge lived as a lodger in a home of a family of color at 30 or 33 Birge Street.  85-year old widower Francis Green, a retired barber, lived there with his son, 49-year old Francis Jr.  Green. The Greens were originally from Massachusetts and, in 1895,  Francis Jr. worked as a porter.  One afternoon, Cartledge came home to find Frank Green Sr. had passed away from heart failure.  

Around 1905, Jacob Cartledge moved to West Chesterfield, New Hampshire. In his 70s, Cartledge worked as a farm laborer for John Connell where he also resided for about seven years before moving back to Brattleboro around 1912.    

It is noted in his obituary that Jacob Cartledge was earning a $38 pension in the 1910s and had a couple of hundred dollars in his bank account. Between the cost of his medical care and having been swindled by some local residents, Cartledge soon became a pauper.  On December 6, 1912, The Vermont Phoenix newspaper wrote an article on Cartlidge– “Town’s Ex-Slave in Need of Funds.”  The article recounted his life story and Cartledge’s need for assistance as an elderly man.  He was moved into the Brattleboro Retreat to receive care until his death in 1919.  

On November 19, 1919, Jacob Cartlidge died at the age of 85 at the Brattleboro Retreat.  He had been living there for five years and died of chronic interstitial nephritis, an affliction that had been with him for two or three years.  His obituary was published in the Brattleboro Daily Reformer with an outline of his life story.  Cartledge was buried in the West Brattleboro Cemetery.

SOURCE MATERIALS

1890 Veterans Schedules of the U.S. Federal Census- Ancestry.com

Brattleboro Historical Society, “Remembering Jacob Cartledge…. a Civil War Soldier” Brattleboro Reformer newspaper. February 12, 2021.

Burlington Weekly Free Press newspaper, July 1, 1887, p.10. “Cartledge Released.” Library of Congress, Chronicling America Website. https://chroniclingamerica.loc.gov/

National Archives and Records Administration. U.S., Civil War Pension Index: General Index to Pension Files, 1861-1934

Vermont Phoenix newspaper, June 24, 1887, p.1. “A Week of Excitment and a Dramatic Succession of Criminal Events” Library of Congress, Chronicling America Website. https://chroniclingamerica.loc.gov/

Vermont Phoenix newspaper, June 14, 1895, p.5. “Personal” Library of Congress, Chronicling America Website. https://chroniclingamerica.loc.gov/

Vermont Phoenix newspaper, November 2, 1900, p.2. “Sudden Death of Frank W. Green Senior” Library of Congress, Chronicling America Website. https://chroniclingamerica.loc.gov/

Vermont Phoenix newspaper, December 6, 1912. “Town’s Ex-Slave in Need of Funds.” Library of Congress, Chronicling America Website. https://chroniclingamerica.loc.gov/

Vermont Phoenix newspaper, November 13, 1919, p.1. “Jacob Cartledge, Once Slave, Dead” Library of Congress, Chronicling America Website. https://chroniclingamerica.loc.gov/

U.S. City Directories, Brattleboro, VT, 1905- Ancestry.com

U.S. Federal Census, 1900, 1910- Ancestry.com

Vermont, U.S. Death Records, Brattleboro, VT, 1919- Ancestry.com

GENEALOGICAL SUMMARY

JACOB CARTLEDGE was born into slavery in Georgia around 1834. He died in Brattleboro, VT, on November 19, 1919.