Today we know the Loring Greenough House as a historic property located in the heart of Jamaica Plain’s Monument Square. It was constructed in 1760 by Commodore Joshua Loring and was owned by the Greenough family from 1784 until 1924. The Jamaica Plain Tuesday Club, a local women’s organization, purchased the house in 1924 and has stewarded it since then. The house is known as one of the oldest houses in Jamaica Plain and is notable for its role as a military hospital and commissary that distributed food and arms to soldiers during the American Revolution. The house is also intimately linked to the history of enslaved and indentured people since both the Loyalist Loring and the pro-Revolution Greenough families enslaved and indentured people.

Indigenous Beginnings: Massachusett People in Jamaica Plain

The land on which the Loring Greenough House sits was originally part of the homelands of the Massachusett tribe. For thousands of years, Indigenous people lived in reciprocity with the land in the area. They lived in a sustaining, thriving place of villages and larger kinship and trade networks, all speaking regional dialects of the Algonquin language. They organized themselves into larger subgroups led by chosen leaders and shared communal use of the land within established territorial boundaries. They acted as caretakers for the land, which was the basis of their life and cultural identity, rather than viewing the land as a resource to be exploited for individual profit.

In Jamaica Plain, the Massachusett people were a primary presence. In 2022, Boston Archaeology conducted a dig at the Loring Greenough House and found evidence of an indigenous site and trading center with a trading network that reached to western Massachusetts and beyond.[1] The archaeological dig found stone flakes of two distinct types used in toolmaking: a unique rhyolite mined and used by the Massachusett and quartzite which is found in central Massachusetts and was used by the Nipmucs. This led Boston Archaeology to believe that the Loring Greenough site was formerly an Indigenous trading center and that today’s Centre and South Streets developed from well-maintained native trails.

Between 1616-1618, a devastating plague transmitted by European explorers or traders spread along the East Coast of New England, killing 70% - 90% of the Indigenous people in many areas, including the Massachusett. However, given that Jamaica Pond was a source of fresh water and food, it is likely that Indigenous people were still living nearby when the Puritans arrived in 1630. There is evidence that an Indigenous community existed in neighboring Brookline at that time.

English Impose Slavery on Massachusetts

New England was mapped for conquest by the English by John Smith in 1614. In 1629 King Charles I “claimed” the Indigenous lands around the Massachusetts Bay for English colonization, privatization and profit. Starting with their arrival in 1630 in what is now known as Boston, the Puritans seized areas currently or previously inhabited by the Massachusett people. “Massachusett” in Algonquin means “near the Great Hill(s),” possibly referring to the Blue Hills south of Boston Harbor.[2]

The first known slave trading in Boston was during the Pequot War of 1636-8 in Connecticut. In this war, one of the colonists’ explicit goals was to procure Indigenous captives.[3] Captured Pequots were enslaved and forced to labor in English households, iron works, fisheries, and on farms raising crops and livestock.

In the war’s aftermath, the African slave trade was launched when two captive Pequot women and 15 boys were forced onto the vessel Desire in Boston to be sold into slavery in the Caribbean. The Desire then returned in 1638 with the first recorded arrival of enslaved Africans who were brought from the Caribbean to be sold in Boston.[4] During the Indigenous war of resistance in 1675-1676 known as King Philip’s War, about 2,000 Indigenous men, women and children were enslaved, whether or not they were combatants, and whether or not they surrendered. Many were sold in Bermuda and the Caribbean. Massachusetts was the first of the 13 colonies to legally sanction slavery in 1641.[4]

The First English on the Loring Greenough Site

After the Pequot War of 1636-8, the colonial legislature rewarded Captain Joseph Weld for his participation, granting him 278 acres of Indigenous land between South and Centre Streets in much of the present-day Arnold Arboretum. [5] It is known that Weld’s brother Reverend Thomas Weld enslaved an Indigenous woman named Nan.[6] It is possible but is not clear yet to researchers if this land included the current Loring Greenough site or whether Joseph Weld was an enslaver. [7][8]

The first English to build a house on the current Loring Greenough site were the Polley family who constructed a house in the 1650s. Later, the Walley family purchased the home in 1735 [9] before it was sold to Joshua Cheever in 1745.[10] Cheever was a selectman who lived in the North End and enslaved at least two Black men, Jack and Spenser. It is not clear if Cheever, his family, or the people he enslaved lived on the property.[11]

However, given what was happening at the time, it is possible that the Jamaica Plain house served as Cheever’s country home and that Jack and Spenser spent time there. While Jamaica Plain of the 1700s was rural, consisting primarily of individual farms, in the mid- to late-1700s, many wealthy Bostonians bought country estates in the area surrounding Jamaica Pond to retreat from their Boston town houses. The owners of the large country estates surrounding the Pond often enslaved several people who accompanied the wealthy when they traveled from their city residences in downtown Boston. For example, Sir Francis Bernard, the Royal Governor of Massachusetts in the 1760s, owned a 60-acre estate that faced south on Pond Street.[12] We know of at least two people who were enslaved by Bernard.[13] Upon his return to England, Bernard rented his estate to Sir William Pepperrell who was known to have enslaved twenty people at any one time in his multiple homes.[14] The 1771 tax records list Pepperrell as the “Servant Owner” of three “Servants for Life” [enslaved people] in Jamaica Plain.[15]

The Lorings and the People They Enslaved: London, Othello and Phillis

In 1752, Commodore Joshua Loring purchased the Polley-Walley-Cheever house.[16] The existing house was moved across the street to become the parsonage for the local church, the Third Parish of Roxbury, today the First Church of Jamaica Plain.[17] Loring then built the Georgian mansion still on the property today.[18] The Lorings were supporters of British rule in the colonies.

At least three people were enslaved by the Loring family: London, Othello and Phillis. We know of London, Othello and Phillis because they were listed in Commodore Loring’s 1774 will.[19] When Commodore Loring accepted General Thomas Gage’s appointment to the Governor’s Council by writ of mandamus, popular regard for the Lorings turned to rage since Council members for years had been elected by representatives of the people. A mob attacked Loring’s Jamaica Plain home in August 1774, forcing the Lorings to move to their Boston townhouse where they stayed until March 17, 1776, Evacuation Day, the day the British retreated from Boston. They fled revolutionary Boston for Halifax and later to England.[20]

Commander Loring wrote his will at a point at which he believed that the Revolution would not succeed and that he would remain in Massachusetts. His will explained what he would leave and what his wife would inherit under different scenarios. The will states, “… if she marries again, I then give her the further sum of three hundred pounds and my Negroes London Othello and Phillis…”.[19]

Events did not unfold as Commander Loring predicted, and his family ended up returning to London, England where Loring died in 1781. The next mention of the enslaved London appears in widow Mary Loring’s 1783 “Memorial” inventory of her losses filed with Britain. British parliament had passed legislation approving reparations for some Loyalist losses.

Along with real estate, furniture, livestock and farm implements and other property lost due to the American Revolution, Mary Loring listed “A Negro Man named London” and valued him at 50 pounds.[20] The Lorings considered London a true “loss” from the war. He may have self-emancipated or something happened to him which meant that he was no longer enslaved by the Lorings.

The list of losses submitted by Mary Loring to British Parliament in 1783

What about Phillis and Othello, the other enslaved people mentioned in Joshua Loring’s will? In the case of Phillis, Loring may have sold her for compensation or he may have “gifted” her to a family member. In the case of Othello, there is evidence that upon his departure from Boston, Loring gave or sold Othello to his son Joshua Loring, Jr. and his wife Elizabeth Lloyd Loring.[21]

After Evacuation Day from Boston in April 1776, Elizabeth, who was rumored to be the mistress of General William Howe, commander of the British forces in North America,[22] accompanied her husband Joshua Loring, Jr. to New York. It seems that Joshua was in Manhattan and Elizabeth stayed at her family home in Long Island. There, in August, Elizabeth received a letter from Loring Jr. saying, “I would not go out of town, should it prove true I shall be obliged to go to Long Island in the morning to take up all the Rebel Officers [engage in battle with the Revolutionary Army], in that case will send you word. My trunk of papers & your plate [silver] you will bring to town with you. Should I send out for you to come to town, let Othello come back with Cornelius on one of the Generals [horses].”[23]

The Greenoughs Arrive and Purchase Dick Morey Welsh

Soon after the Lorings left in 1774, the house was confiscated by the Continental Army. It served as a commissary for troops, a hospital for wounded soldiers including those from the Battle of Bunker Hill, and a bakery for Roxbury troops. After the war, since it was Tory property, the house was auctioned by the new government to Isaac Sears whose son-in-law Paschal Smith sold it to a wealthy widow named Anne Doane in April 1784.[24] Doane bought it in preparation for her second marriage to David Stoddard Greenough. Greenough and his father Thomas [25] (a revolutionary who was also an enslaver) were familiar with the house because they had attended meetings there of the Committees of Correspondence after the confiscation.

Massachusetts Historical Society, Bill of sale from John Mory to David Stoddard Greenough for Dick (an enslaved person), July 30, 1785

The next year, on July 30, 1785, David Stoddard Greenough purchased a five-year-old boy named Dick from enslaver John Morey for five pounds. Neighbor John Morey had put his farm up for sale earlier in 1783 in order to move from Jamaica Plain to Middleborough to live on a farm that his wife had inherited. Other neighbors Eleazer Weld, Lemuel May and Lemuel Child purchased his farm in Jamaica Plain.[26][27]

The “Bill of Sale” clearly treated young Dick as Morey’s property, transferring him to Greenough “in the Capacity of a Servant until he shall attain to the Age of Twenty one Years.” Though born enslaved in 1780, Dick was referred to as indentured, not enslaved, and thus would be free when he attained adulthood. In the intervening 16 years he had no alternative but to provide unpaid labor to Greenough.[28][29]

Who Were Dick Morey’s Parents?

When John Morey inherited his father’s Jamaica Plain property in 1771, the estate inventory listed four enslaved people:[30]

“… a Nego [sic] Boy Named Cato [31] about 12 Years Old … [valued at £] 32.0.0
… a Negro Garl About 11 years Old … 26.13.4
… Ditto Named Bino About 7 Years Old … 16.0.0
… Ditto Named Zippra an Inferm garl … 6.0.0”

The 1785 bill of sale states that Dick was the son of an enslaved African woman named Binah. It is quite possible that Binah was the same seven-year-old girl “Negro garl” listed as “Bino” in the estate of John Morey’s father in 1771. If so, she would have been 16 when she gave birth to Dick.

Dick’s father is not known. Dick’s mother was African and Dick was referred to as “Molatto,” a term White enslavers often used to describe people they perceived to be of mixed race. It is possible that John Morey was Dick’s father. It is also possible his father might have been a man of White, Indigenous or mixed race. In any case, Dick had no power as to how he was identified.

In the 1785 Bill of Sale, Dick was not listed with a last name and was labeled as “Molatto.” However, in the 1786 indenture, Greenough called him Dick Morey and described him as “Negro.” Twelve years later, a newspaper ad referred to him as Dick Welsh and listed him as “Molatto.” Given that Dick had run away, an accurate description was needed to recapture him so it is highly likely Dick was of mixed parentage.

To date, Hidden Jamaica Plain has found no male Welsh living in the area at the time who might have been Dick’s father. No evidence has been uncovered so far that indicates the last name that Dick’s mother Binah used for herself.

Indentured at Age Six

Massachusetts Historical Society, Indenture between David Stoddard Greenough and Dick Morey, witnessed by selectmen of Roxbury, September 6, 1786

On September 6, 1786, a year after Greenough purchased Dick, he changed the legal basis to a formal indenture using a standard printed form that would be more legally enforceable in light of changes in Massachusetts case law stemming from the 1783 Quock Walker court case which opened the way to emancipation for enslaved people.[32] Greenough crossed out the part of the form that stated that Dick “doth voluntarily and of his own free Will and Accord, and with the Consent of his parents, bind himself to Greenough.” No mention was made of Dick’s mother Binah.[33][34]

Indenturing, a labor system common in the 1700s, was used to take advantage of unpaid labor in exchange for room, board, food and clothing. This system exploited the poor, especially Africans and Indigenous people, orphans; and the children of unwed mothers. The system was encouraged by local towns to avoid responsibility of paying to support the orphaned children and the poor.

Dick Morey’s involuntary indenture until age 21 was to work as a farm apprentice. In return for Dick’s labor, Greenough promised in the indenture document to supply “good and sufficient meat, Drink, Washing, Lodging & Clothing.”

Dick Resists

Dick presumably worked for Greenough in Jamaica Plain for the next twelve years. However, the evidence suggests that Dick ran away three years before the end of the indenture.

Ad, Columbian Centinel (Boston, Massachusetts) XXIX, no. 35, July 4, 1798

“ONE DOLLAR REWARD. Ran away from the Subscriber on the morning of the 21st inst. An indented Molatto Servant by the name of Dick Welsh, about 18 years old, uncommonly large of his age; carried off with him a new broad cloth Coat; a chocolate colour’d short Coat; one fustian [twilled cloth] short coat; a drab colour’d cloth great coat almost new; one spotted velvet and several other Waistcoats; 3 pair Trowsers; 2 pair rankin Overhalls; 3 new tow [coarse linen or jute fiber] Shirts; 1 linen do. 2 round Hatts, &c. &c. Whoever will apprehend said ran away and return him to the Subscriber at Jamaica Plains (Roxbury,) shall be entitled to the above reward.”

– David S. Greenough, Roxbury, June 25, 1798 [35]

Dick Morey, born in 1780, would have been 18 years old in 1798 when the ad was placed. Federal census records for the Greenough family during this period list one person in the category “All Other Persons Except Indians Not Taxed.” It is highly unlikely that the Greenoughs would have sequentially indentured two different people both of the same age and both named “Dick” and described as “Molatto.”

Hidden Jamaica Plain researchers and others believe that Dick Welsh was the adult name that Dick Morey selected.[36] There is no evidence that Dick’s mother Binah called herself Morey. It is also possible that Dick might have discovered the name of his father and taken his last name, rather than continuing to use the last name of his former enslaver, or that Greenough changed it for other reasons.

Dick would have had three years left on his indenture. Greenough’s $1 reward was more than some indenturers offered for their missing apprentices, but that might have reflected Greenough’s wish to be seen as a wealthy landed gentleman.[37] The ad’s focus on Dick’s clothing is typical of runaway ads of the time. Clothes were difficult to discard or replace in a pre-industrial world so the exactness of their description was aimed at recapturing Dick.[38] It might also indicate that Greenough was more agitated about having lost all of the clothing Dick took with him, than the labor, and certainly not the welfare, of Dick the person.

Did Dick succeed in his 1798 escape? Possibly not. Federal census records for 1790 and 1800 show one person (Dick?) in the Greenough household listed in the category “All Other Persons Except Indians Not Taxed.” Dick’s indenture presumably ended in 1801 when he reached 21 years of age. Then, he most likely left the Greenough household to pursue his own life.[39]

Was Dick punished for running away? Among the punishments meted out for indentures who ran away was the extension of the time to be held in servitude.[40] There is no evidence currently available indicating that Dick's indenture was prolonged.

By the 1810 census, Dick would have been 30 years old. The 1810 census listed all members of the Greenough household as “White” so Dick had probably moved on. Hidden Jamaica Plain continues to search for later chapters in the life of Dick Morey/Welsh.

Greenough’s Antigua Plantation

David Stoddard Greenough was able to purchase Dick and maintain the Greenough family lifestyle because in 1774 he inherited part of the Yeamans sugar plantation in Antigua through his mother’s relationship to the Yeamans.[41] Because slavery in Antigua did not end until 1834, Greenough continued to profit from it long after slavery ended in Massachusetts (court cases in 1781 and 1783 laid the basis for emancipation).

In 1817, David Stoddard Greenough was listed as one of the owners who registered 104 people on the estate of the late Shute Shrimpton Yeamans.[42] We continue to search for listings of these 104 enslaved people by name.

Greenough’s Antigua account books are held in microfilm at the Massachusetts Historical Society. In 2024, Hidden Jamaica Plain received a grant from the City of Boston’s Reparations Task Force to engage a researcher to review the Greenough plantation journals and ledgers [43] for mention of enslaved people who worked on the Antigua plantation.

The researcher discovered payments in 1812 to Thomas Gillan for “a year of medical care of 105 slaves - 84.5 £” and “of a White servant - 52.5£.” In 1815, Greenough’s account book notes that Thomas Gillan was paid 162.18£ for a year of medical care for “102 slaves” and “2 White Servants.” David Stoddard Greenough’s plantation apparently also rented enslaved people from other enslavers to work in the sugar mill. The account book includes a payment to “Hyslop S. Greenough for the hire of 5 able Negro men from the 1st January 1791 to the 31st of Dec. 1796 is 6 years at 16 _ ann Each Viz. William a fireman, Ned a mill feeder, Peter an assistant in the Mill house, Bernick a Carter, Billy a field Negro - 180£.”

An 1812 entry in David Stoddard Greenough’s plantation account books shows payments to Thomas Gillan for “a year of medical care of 105 slaves - 84.5 £” and “of a White servant -52.5£

In 1819 the plantation failed and the property was sold. The Greenoughs finally disposed of the plantation, not because Britain and the United States banned the transatlantic slave trade in 1808, but simply because the plantation was no longer profitable.[44]

When slavery ended in 1834 in Antigua, enslavers received reparations from British Parliament for the loss of their human “property.”[45] The new owners of the Yeamans estate were awarded 1500 pounds, about $400,000 in 2024 dollars for emancipating 99 people.[46] However, the newly emancipated had nowhere to go and few legal rights, so most continued working in the same jobs with few or no earnings.

Changing Times

Anna Greenough was the daughter of David Stoddard Greenough II and Maria Foster Doane Greenough. In 1838, she married Southerner Henry King Burgwyn who hoped to have a career as an engineer in the North. However, he inherited a plantation and enslaved people after the sudden death of an uncle. When Anna traveled with Burgwyn to Roanoke, North Carolina, to meet his family, she was appalled to encounter slavery first hand. She wrote to her mother, “I grow more opposed to slavery every day and I think I would rather be reduced to poverty than to have anything to do with it.” [47]

Perhaps due to Anna’s influence or because he had been educated in the North, Henry and his brothers intended to manumit the enslaved people on the Roanoke property when a plan could be worked out, which was unusual for that time. Either for humanitarianism or efficiency, they brought in Irish workers from Boston and New York for specialized work. On January 3, 1848, Henry made these arrangements with Anna’s cousin Mr. Doane. But operating the plantation with paid labor proved a costly failure.

Researchers will continue to research the inhabitants of the Loring Greenough House and will add to this article as more information is uncovered.

This article was written by volunteer researchers associated with the Hidden Jamaica Plain project and is based on materials available at the time of publication. Information may change as research continues and more materials are uncovered.

Note on the Authors: Hidden Jamaica Plain

Note on Terminology

END NOTES

[1] https://www.boston.gov/departments/archaeology/loring-greenough-house

[2] Massachusetts Historical Commission (1982), “Historic and Archaeological Resources of the Boston Area,” p. 43 of the PDF version (2007) https://www.sec.state.ma.us/divisions/mhc/preservation/survey/regional-reports/Bostonarea.pdf

[3] The Pequot War was largely a capture-and-kill mission by the English. Furthermore, two captive Pequot women and fifteen boys were forced onto the vessel Desire in Boston to be sold into slavery in the Caribbean. The Desire then returned to Boston in 1638 with enslaved Africans for sale. The Pequot War was a major catalyst in launching the African slave trade in Massachusetts. An estimated 166 transatlantic enslaving voyages over the next 150 years began in Boston.

https://www.britannica.com/topic/Pequot-War

https://www.bostonharborislands.org/blog/ship-desire/

[4] Massachusetts Constitution and the Abolition of Slavery https://www.mass.gov/guides/massachusetts-constitution-and-the-abolition-of-slavery#:~:text=It%20is%20generally%20agreed%20that,participated%20in%20the%20slave%20trade.

[5] “A History of the Arnold Arboretum” by Richard Schulhoff, published by the Jamaica Plain Historical Society

https://www.jphs.org/locales/2005/10/30/a-history-of-the-arnold-arboretum.html#gsc.tab=0

[6] https://www.universalhub.com/2023/founders-oldest-church-roxbury-were-slaveowners

https://www.uuum.org/_files/ugd/7b9fdf_e1af87b0d02544f4a9a4f07aa21f2806.pdf

[7] Jamaica Plain Historical Society website, “Weld Family” https://www.jphs.org/people/2005/4/14/weld-family.html?rq=weld

[8] Annals and Reminiscences of Jamaica Plain by Harriet Manning Whitcomb

[9] Polley to Walley, Suffolk Deeds, L. 152, April 16, 1735

[10] John Walley II and other heirs to Joshua Cheever, Suffolk Deeds, LXXXI, 53, October 18, 1745.

[11] https://www.boston.gov/departments/archaeology/loring-greenough-house

[12] The Town of Roxbury by Francis S. Drake, published 1878, Jamaica Plain Historical Society website

https://www.jphs.org/jp-history/2005/4/10/the-town-of-roxbury-by-francis-s-drake-published-1878.html

[13] The Beginnings of the American Revolution by Ellen Chase

[14] Wikipedia listing for William Pepperrell https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/William_Pepperrell

[15] 1771 Massachusetts Tax Survey Database https://legacy.sites.fas.harvard.edu/~hsb41/masstax/masstax.cgi

[16] Heirs of Joshua Cheever to Joshua Loring, Suffolk Deeds, LXXXI, 26

[17] The Town of Roxbury by Francis S. Drake, published 1878, Chapter 10

https://www.jphs.org/jp-history/2005/4/10/the-town-of-roxbury-by-francis-s-drake-published-1878.html#gsc.tab=0

https://archive.org/details/townofroxburyits00drak/page/18/mode/2up

[18] https://www.boston.gov/departments/archaeology/loring-greenough-house

[19] Joshua Loring Will, Probate 11-1084-7, Public Record Office, The National Archives of Britain

[20] Eva Phillips Boyd, “Commodore Joshua Loring, Jamaica Plain by Way of London,” Old Time New England magazine, April-June 1959 as reprinted by the Jamaica Plain Historical Society

[21] Elizabeth Lloyd Loring married Commodore Loring’s son Joshua Jr. and they lived in Dorchester. Elizabeth was the granddaughter of Henry Lloyd of Long Island. Henry enslaved Jupiter Hammon (1711-1800). Hammon is best known as the first published 18th century Black writer and the founder of African American literature. He published his first poem in 1761. Hammon was born on the Lloyd estate and was enslaved by four generations of the Lloyd family as a bookkeeper and negotiator for the family business. It is likely that Elizabeth knew Jupiter Hammon.

[22] The primary source of this supposition is a poem “The Battle of the Kegs” written by Francis Hopkinson dramatizing an attempted attack upon the British Fleet in the harbor of Philadelphia on January 6, 1778 during the American Revolutionary War.

Sir William he, snug as a flea,
Lay all this time a snoring;
Nor dreamt of harm, as he lay warm
In bed with Mrs. Loring .

[23] Revolutionary Ladies by Philip Young, Alfred A. Knopf, 1977

[24] Smith to Anne Doane, Suffolk Deeds, Vol. 142, p. 236

[25] Thomas Greenough was a “mathematical instrument maker” with large real estate holdings in Boston. He was a revolutionary patriot who was also an enslaver. A December 14, 1774 receipt, signed by Thomas Greenough, states that he had “REC’D of Capt. Thomas Godfrey the Sum of ____ (left blank) in full for my Negro man Cuffes Shair in the Whaling Voige.” It was common practice for enslavers to "hire out" their enslaved laborers to other individuals or businesses for a set period of time, essentially acting as a temporary source of labor, with the enslaver receiving payment for the enslaved person’s work.

Early American Scientific Instruments and Their Makers by Silvio A. Bedini, Museum of History and Technology, Smithsonian Institution, Washington, 1964

[26] Seeking John Morey in Roxbury, Boston 1775 blog by J.L. Bell, November 11, 2022 https://boston1775.blogspot.com/search?q=john+morey

[27] Family Search, 1783 Deed https://familysearch.org/ark:/61903/3:1:3QSQ-G9Z3-SZCY?cc=2106411&wc=MCB5-G3J%3A361613401%2C362209302

[28] Massachusetts Historical Society, Bill of sale from John Mory to David Stoddard Greenough for Dick (an enslaved person), 30 July 1785 https://www.masshist.org/database/669

[29] Dick Morey “in the Capacity of a Servant,” Boston 1775 blog by J.L. Bell, November 11, 2022 https://boston1775.blogspot.com/2022/11/dick-morey-in-capacity-of-servant.html

[30] Suffolk County, MA: Probate File Papers. Case #14993 John Morey. FamilySearch.org https://www.familysearch.org/ark:/61903/3:1:3Q9M-CS27-3S73-X?i=1225&cat=2822393

[31] A free man named Cato Morey was one of the founding members of the African Society of Boston in 1796. Hidden Jamaica Plain believes that he is the same Cato who was enslaved as a child by John Morey in Jamaica Plain and listed on John Morey’s probate inventory.

https://www.masshist.org/database/viewer.php?item_id=573&pid=42

[32] Long Road to Justice: The African American Experience in the Massachusetts Courts

http://www.longroadtojustice.org/topics/slavery/quock-walker.php

[33] Massachusetts Historical Society, Indenture between David Stoddard Greenough and Dick Morey, witnessed by selectmen of Roxbury, 6 September 1786 https://www.masshist.org/database/701

[34] Dick Morey “in the Capacity of a Servant,” Boston 1775 blog by J.L. Bell, November 11, 2022 https://boston1775.blogspot.com/2022/11/dick-morey-in-capacity-of-servant.html

[35] Ad, Columbian Centinel (Boston, Massachusetts) XXIX, no. 35, July 4 1798

[36] “About 18 years old, uncommonly large of his age” Boston 1775 blog by J.L. Bell, November 30, 2022. With thanks to Wayne Tucker of the Eleven Names Project who first made the connection between Dick Morey and Dick Welsh.

[37] Rewards Offered in 1798, Boston 1775 blog by J.L. Bell, December 1, 2022 https://boston1775.blogspot.com/search?q=rewards+offered+in+1798

[38] Levelers and Fugitives: Runaway Advertisements and the Contrasting Political Economies of Mid-Eighteenth-Century Massachusetts and Pennsylvania, Barry Levy, Pennsylvania History: A Journal of Mid Atlantic Studies, Vol. 78, No. 1 (Winter 2011), Penn State University Press

[39] 1790 Federal Census, 1800 Federal Census, 1810 Federal Census

[40] Indentured Servitude in British America, Wikipedia https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Indentured_servitude_in_British_America

America at 1750: A Social Portrait, by Richard Hofstadter, London: Cape 1972

[41] The 1769 will of Shute Shrimpton Yeamans left his plantation called “Chelsea” to his son Shute. Other property in Britain, North America and Antigua was left to his sons Shute and John, then minors. Eventually the property passed on to Shute’s step-aunts, one of whom was Sarah Greenough, the mother of David Stoddard Greenough. The Loring Greenough House owns a 1740 painting of Shute Shrimpton Yeamans and his father John Yeamans, the original owner of the Antigua sugar plantation. It depicts a them with a ship in the background in Antigua. John Yeamans was the grandson of another John Yeamans (1611- 1674) with holdings in Barbados. He was instrumental in creating the Carolinas as a slave economy colony of Barbados after 1670 and he served as Governor of the Carolina colony from 1672 until his death in 1674. He was called a “pirate ashore” during his lifetime, believed to have poisoned his business partner in order to marry the partner’s wife.

[42] Shute Shrimpton Yeamans, 1721-1769, Profile & Legacies Summary, Centre for the Study of the Legacies of British Slavery, University College, London

[43] David Stoddard Greenough Family Papers, 1631-1859, Massachusetts Historical Society https://www.masshist.org/collection-guides/view/fa0160

[44] Boston Landmarks Commission Study Report for the Loring Greenough House

[45]Centre for the Study of the Legacies of British Slavery https://www.ucl.ac.uk/lbs/search/

[46] Antigua Sugar Mills, a Griot Institute Project, Yeamans page

[47] Boy Colonel of the Confederacy, Life and Times of Henry King Burgwyn by Archie Davis

Slavery at the Loring Greenough House