Freeman, Peter and Kate
Peter and Catherine (Bozroth) Freeman
Sullivan, NH
Peter Freeman and his wife Catherine “Kate” Bozroth Freeman were living in southwest New Hampshire as free Black residents during the late 18th century. Peter Freeman purchased the “Col. White farm” in Sullivan, NH, in 1794. He married Kate Bozroth in Packersfield, NH (which later became the town of Nelson) on November 14, 1798. Two months prior, their daughter Electa Freeman was born in Sullivan, NH on September 4, 1798.
The Freeman family soon grew to include three more children. On March 26, 1801, daughter Lydia Freeman was born in Sullivan, NH. On July 4, 1803, son, Merrill Daniels Freeman, was born in Sullivan, NH. And on December 17, 1804, daughter Clarissa Freeman was born in Sullivan.
Around the time of their daughter Clarrissa’s birth, the Freemans sold their property back to Col. Solomon White. Census records for the years 1800 and 1810 do not document the Freeman’s presence in southwest New Hampshire by name. Local resident Enoch Bailey, however, had four free persons of color residing within his household in the year 1800. This may be the Freeman family.
How long the Freeman family stayed in New Hampshire or where they moved after selling their farm is largely unknown. Daughter Electa Freeman married John Thompson in Fitzwilliam, NH, in 1819. By the 1830s, daughter Lydia Freeman married Peter Allen in Cummington, MA, on June 30, 1838.
By 1850, however, at 73 years old, Peter Freeman had relocated to Cummington, MA with his wife Kate and their 44-year old son Daniel M. Freeman. Peter and Daniel both worked as farmers. At age 80, Catherine Bozroth Freeman died in Cummington, MA on February 25, 1851. On 20 Feb 1860, Peter Freeman died in Cummington, MA at 100 years old.
~Written by Keene State College student, Amanda Rotigliano, and Historical Society of Cheshire County Director of Education Jennifer Carroll, 2024.
GENEALOGICAL SUMMARY
PETER FREEMAN (d. 1860) married CATHERINE BOZROTH (d. 1851) in 1798. They had: Electa (b 1798), Lydia (1803-1887), Merrill Daniels (b. 1803), Clarissa (b. 1804).
ELECTA FREEMAN was born 1798 to Peter Freeman and Catherin Bozroth Freeman. She married 1st JOHN THOMSON in Fitzwilliam, NH, in 1819. They had: Henry (b. N.H.). Electa Freeman married 2nd LEVI BIRD in 1858.
HENRY THOMSON married HARRIET. They had: Charles, John.
LYDIA FREEMAN married 1st PHILLIP ALLEN (d. 1852). Lydia Freeman Allen married 2nd JAMES HOYT in 1853. She died in 1887.
SOURCE MATERIALS
Massachusetts Census, Cummington- 1855- Ancestry.com
Massachusetts Town Vital Records, Deaths, Cummington- 1851, 1852, 1858, 1860, 1887- Ancestry.com
Massachusetts Town Vital Records, Deaths, Worcester- 1865- Ancestry.com
Massachusetts Town Vital Records, Marriage, Cummington- 1838, 1853- Ancestry.com
New Hampshire Vital Records, Births, Sullivan- 1798, 1801, 1803, 1804- Ancestry.com
New Hampshire Vital Records, Marriages, Nelson- 1798, 1819- Ancestry.com
Seward, Josiah Lafayette. A History of the town of Sullivan, New Hampshire, 1777-1917 (1921), page 831.
U.S. Federal Census, 1850- Ancestry.com