Savage, Jube

Jube Savage (about 1736-1792) - Temple

In October 1792, the Temple town fathers met to address a frightening development in the town. Smallpox had broken out in a community that had grown up around the site of the old abandoned Temple Glassworks. At their meeting, they voted “…that a man be procured to inspect ye Houses of the Small Pox, both at Mr. Todd’s and Jube Savage’s. Ye selectmen, by ye advice of ye overseer, procure all those necessaries which are necessary for ye use of those negroes that are under ye operation of ye Small Pox, & a Doctor (if need be) at ye expense of y e Town, (if not paid by ye negroes) & that Dr. Durkee be applied to for s d Doctor."

Town historian Henry Ames Blood wrote in his History of Temple (published in 1860), three or four black families had settled on the glassworks site but “having distinguished themselves by having the small-pox, to the great terror of all the country, most of them soon died there, and now rest in unmarked graves.”

The 1790 Census for Temple recorded Jube Savage as the head of his household living with two other people of color. The census recorded only one other free Black family in Temple that year.

Jube Savage and his family in the 1790 U.S. Federal Census for Temple, NH

Who was Jube Savage? How did he end up in Temple? Additional extant documents reveal his journey from enslavement through revolution to husband and landowner.

Jube Savage’s intention to marry a woman named Judith was recorded on June 1, 1771, in the Weston, Massachusetts vital records. It reads, "Marriage is Intended Between Jubee a negro servent of Mr Samuel Ph. Savage of Weston and Judith a Negro Servent of Capt Adams of Lincoln were Entrred June 1: 1771." The 1771 Massachusetts inventory of taxable property recorded Samuel Phillips Savage as a landowner in both Weston and Lincoln with one “Servant for Life”.

Jube Savage served in Captain John Hartwell’s militia company called to fortify the Dorchester hills in March of 1776 and then in Captain John Minot’s company in December 1776. He served in Minot’s company through February 1777. His Revolutionary war record provides an important clue. Minot’s muster roll listed Jube Savage as a private, age 40. Jube Savage was born about 1736 making him around 56 years old when he died in Temple in 1792.

Between these two enlistments, Jube Savage gained his freedom. Samuel Savage recorded in his diary, “April 27, 1776- Jube, by my consent, left me.”

Savage re-enlisted in the summer of 1778 with Francis Brown’s Company in Colonel McIntosh’s Regiment for the Rhode Island Expedition from July to September.

In 1779, Jube Savage purchased a plot of land and built a house in Lincoln. The land, near the border between Lincoln and Concord, Massachusetts, was close to Walden Pond where a community of free African Americans lived in the years following the Revolution. Savage’s land was formerly part of the large slave-owning Chambers Russell Estate now known as the Codman Estate, operated by Historic New England.

The Lincoln town treasurer made payments throughout the 1780s to Jube Savage for the “boarding and keeping of Lucy Oliver.” In the 18th and 19th centuries, towns frequently paid people to care for the town’s poor. But towns also did not want to assume the burden of supporting the poor and resorted to the practice of warning out. Warning out meant a town gave notice that a person was not a settled resident, and therefore the town had no obligation to support the person if they were unable to support themselves.

A 1789 change in Massachusetts law redefined settled residency and led to numerous warnings out. The new definition of a settled resident impacted both transients and landowners like Jube Savage. A landowner could be warned out if their income did not exceed three pounds annually or they had not paid taxes for five consecutive years.

The timing of this change coincided with Jube Savage’s arrival in Temple. Perhaps he and his family had been warned out by the town of Lincoln and he made the fateful decision to move to Temple. But why Temple, a small farming town in a sparsely settled part of New Hampshire? A clue may lie with Savage’s border, Lucy Oliver. At the time of the Revolution, a free Black man named Aaron Oliver lived in Temple and enlisted for service from the town. While documentation has not yet been located, perhaps Aaron Oliver was a relative of Lucy Oliver and when faced with warning out, she suggested Temple. Hopefully, more research will reveal the answer.

GENEALOGICL SUMMARY

JUBE SAVAGE b. about 1736 d. 1792 in Temple, NH. Married JUDITH, 1771 in Weston, MA.

SOURCE MATERIALS

Blood, Henry Ames. History of Temple, N.H. Boston: G.C. Rand & Avery, 1860.

Fuoss, Jarrad. “Jube Savage, 1776.” National Park Service. https://www.nps.gov/articles/000/massachusetts-jube-savage-1776.htm

Lemire, Elise. Black Walden: Slavery and its Aftermath in Concord, Massachusetts. Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 2009. pp. 123-124.

Massachusetts Military Records, 1775-1776, Familysearch.org image 979. Mass. Muster and Pay Rolls Volume 26 page 429.

Massachusetts Military Records, 1775-1776, Familysearch.org image 981. Rhode Island Service Volume 1 page 90.

Massachusetts Military Records, 1775-1776, Familysearch.org image 975. Various Services Volume 17 page 193.

Massachusetts Soldiers and Sailors of the Revolutionary War. Boston: Secretary of the Commonwealth, 1905. p.840.

Samuel P. Savage Diaries, 1770-1795. Ms. N-885.7, Collection of the Massachusetts Historical Society.

Wallace, Teresa. “Everday Life in Eighteenth Century Lincoln, Massachusetts.” National Park Service, 1997. P.6.  http://npshistory.com/publications/mima/everyday_life_in_18th_century_lincoln_ma.pdf