Baker Moore (1755-1839)
Baker Moore (1755-1839)
Peterborough
Sold into enslavement as an infant, Baker Moore purchased his freedom as a 22-year-old. He lived the majority of his long life as a free person of color in Peterborough, NH. Baker Moore’s history is remarkably well-documented in archival and published sources that illustrate his personality and his life in the community.
In 1755, Londonderry weaver Mary Moore (b.1733) took a load of her linen to Boston to sell to “a merchant of Boston” named Jones. After their business was completed, Jones offered Mary an infant boy, born to an enslaved woman in his household. According to a story passed down through the Moore family, Mary took the boy back to Londonderry, raised him in her household, and sent him to school.
She called him Sam Jones, after the merchant who sold the child to her. At school, the other children gave him the nickname Baker, a name he kept for the rest of his life.
When Baker was 10 years old, Mary sold him to her brother, Deacon Samuel Moore (1727-1793), for $250. Samuel Moore acquired farm land in Peterborough in 1751 and settled in town with his wife, Margaret, and their children around 1763. The provincial census for 1767 shows one enslaved male in Samuel Moore’s household, almost certainly this enslaved man was Baker Moore. Samuel and his wife were exacting masters. If Baker neglected his work or disobeyed, Samuel beat him with a rod. Baker Moore said Margaret Moore would cry, “Pay him well for it Samuel.”
Baker shared his experience of meeting the devil in Peterborough with early Peterborough historian John Hopkins Morison. Baker Moore was driving cattle one day when he was approached by a stranger. The man told Baker his fortune, including things no one could have known. The stranger handed Baker a book and asked him to read it. “Baker took the book; but it hung like lead upon his spirits. He carried it constantly with him, for he was afraid to leave it behind,” reported Morison in his 1839 Peterborough centennial address. Later, Baker encountered the man again and returned the book. The man became angry, his eyes glowed like fire, and his shoes transformed into cloven hooves. Baker cast his eyes down in fear of what the man might do. After a moment he looked up and the man was gone.
Baker was not alone in his belief in the supernatural. Baker Moore’s story was one among several tales that Morison shared to illustrate beliefs held by most people in the 18th century.
In 1777, at the age of 22, Baker purchased his freedom from Samuel Moore for $200. According to the Moore family story, Baker never paid the debt. No primary source evidence has been found to verify Baker’s arrangement with Moore. Around the time Baker is said to have purchased his freedom, the Moore family acquired an enslaved woman or child named Rose. [hyperlink to Rose’s entry]
At the time of the first federal census in 1790, one person of color was living in Samuel Moore’s household and another person of color was enumerated in the household of his son, Samuel Moore, Jr. Samuel Moore’s 1791 will made a provision for the maintenance of Rose, the enslaved woman he bought some time in the 1770s. Rose was probably the person of color living in Deacon Moore’s household and Baker was lodging with Samuel Moore, Jr. in 1790. Later, in 1820 and 1830, Baker Moore was listed in the census as living by himself in his own household.
After Baker gained his freedom, he made his living as a fiddler. An 1889 article in the Peterborough Transcript begins, “The old inhabitants of Peterboro’ who were residents there sixty or seventy years ago, will remember with pleasure the name of Old Baker. He was a welcome guest in every household, and especially among the children, as he always carried a little green flannel bag containing his fiddle; and always met the children with a pleasant smile, and the children were always sure of a fine frolic when Old Baker was in the neighborhood.”
Dancing was an important part of social life during this time. Fiddlers had an essential role in the community’s social life by providing music for formal dances, house dances, and in the taverns and taprooms. Baker often played at the various taverns and boarding houses in town, according to Selinda Hill Holt (1809-1891) who wrote a series of reminiscences about town life in the 1820s and 1830s. When visiting the boarding houses, he would say to the young mill girls, “Come girls, have a dance. What tune will you have?”
Selinda Holt’s reminiscence gives us a picture of Baker, in more ways than one. She said that his dark face was framed by curly white hair and he was rarely seen without his green flannel bag and fiddle. She also tells us an itinerant artist painted Baker’s portrait in the early 1830s. The picture was “paid for by subscription” (in other words, people chipped in to raise the artist’s fee) and the portrait hung for many years in French’s Tavern. After hanging for many years in the taproom, the portrait was taken down and disappeared. The tavern stood on Peterborough’s Main Street for 133 years and was razed in the 1960s.
When Baker’s health failed him and he could no longer support himself, he lived at the town’s poor farm until his death on February 20, 1839. The church record reads, “Baker Moore, 84, decay – Negro- a slave when young of Deac. S. Moore.”
On March 1, 1839, Eliza Morison Felt (1815-1867) wrote in a letter to her brother, "...old Baker died last week. He had been in a wretched suffering condition all winter. I was glad when he was dead and released from suffering. I believe he had more friends than many white people and better improved the talents given him, and now has gone where there will be no distinction made in regard to color.”
Baker Moore is buried in an unmarked grave in the East Hill Cemetery in Peterborough.
The Reverend Abiel Abbott noted Baker Moore’s death in his church record for 1839. After 62 years as a free man, Baker Moore was still identified by his formerly enslaved status.
SOURCE MATERIALS
Abbot, Abiel. Records of the Congregational Church Society in Peterboro begun by Rev. Abiel Abbot in 1827. MSS 42 First Unitarian Church, Peterborough Collection, Series 2 Volume I. Monadnock Center for History and Culture Archives.
Felt, Eliza Holmes Morison. Letter to Nathaniel Morison, March 1, 1839. MSS 100 Morison Family Collection, Monadnock Center for History and Culture Archives.
Holt, Selinda Hill. “Black Baker” in Reminiscences of Peterborough, MSS 24 Hill Family Collection, Monadnock Center for History and Culture Archives.
Moore, George W., et al. Genealogy of the Moore Family of Londonderry, New Hampshire and Peterborough, New Hampshire, 1648-1924. (Peterborough, NH: Transcript Printing Co., 1925).
Morison, John Hopkins. An address delivered at the Centennial Celebration in Peterborough, N.H. October 24, 1839. (Boston, Printed by Isaac R. Butts, 1839).
“Old Baker.” The Peterborough Transcript, 28 February 1889, 2. The author of this article is identified only as “M.” The article was likely written by John Hopkins Morison (1808-1896), the author of the 1839 centennial address.
Provincial Census of New Hampshire, 1767. The Provincial Papers: Documents and Records Relating to the Province of New Hampshire, Volume VII. (State of NH, 1873) 168-170.
U.S. Federal Census, Peterborough, NH 1790, 1820, 1830.
GENEALOGICAL SUMMARY
BAKER MOORE was born in 1755 in Boston, MA and died 20 February 1839 in Peterborough, NH. His parent’s names are unknown.