The legacy of Elizabeth Freeman (ab. 1744–1829) is undeniable in its deep inscription in the annals of history. Enslaved to Colonel John Ashley (1709–1802)—the wealthiest and, at times, the most influential man in the rural Berkshire town of Sheffield, Massachusetts—Elizabeth Freeman, known at the time as Bett, sued Colonel Ashley in 1781 for her freedom on the revolutionary grounds of constitutionality and won. She continued to live a remarkable life in Stockbridge, Massachusetts after gaining her freedom. Her story has been recounted to an extent that it has taken on a life of its own, shrouded in the abolitionist rhetoric and old family folktales disseminated by the Sedgwick children for whom she cared. In constructing the pedagogical myth of Elizabeth Freeman, her co-plaintiff, Brom, and a fellow enslaved man who sued for his freedom prior to their suit, Zach Mullen, have been pushed to the margins. However, her exceptionalism need not be built upon her singularity; rather, understanding a clearer picture of the men, women, and children in bondage alongside Elizabeth Freeman enables a fuller conceptualization of her story.

Recent scholarship has engaged with the lack of public memory about slavery in the North. The limited societal awareness about colonial New England slavery is particularly exacerbated for rural areas, where typically less research has been conducted. However, the mythic story of Elizabeth Freeman escaped this collective forgetting because of the redefinition of her lived experiences in ways that served the narrative needs of successive generations. Nineteenth-century historians framed enslavement as between a kind master and their talented and loyal “servant.” Northern abolitionist literature often used specific anecdotal stories of formerly enslaved individuals to further reframe the severity of New England slavery. Following her freedom suit, Elizabeth Freeman’s lawyer Theodore Sedgwick employed her in his household, and his children wrote about Freeman after her death. Their writings about Elizabeth Freeman fall into these similar narrative patterns. The Sedgwicks’ pivotal role in the transmission of Freeman’s identity in the historical record cannot be overstated, but in their recounting, they transmuted her life and experiences in bondage. The collective remembering of Elizabeth Freeman by the name of “Mum Bett”—a name given to her by the Sedgwick children—attests to their authority in crafting her story in their own terms. As a consequence of this pervasiveness of her story, Elizabeth Freeman has always been acknowledged as a part of the history of the Colonel Ashely House, but, in many ways, its interpretation of her life contributed to the Sedgwick’s mythologizing of her and the subsequent continual amnesia and anonymity about the realities of enslavement in the Ashley household.  

This research sheds light on the identities of the previously unidentified enslaved individuals in the Colonel Ashley House and corrects the historical record on those that were already known to history by untangling facts from fiction. An in-depth analysis of the thirty surviving Ashley family account books housed at The Trustees of Reservations and the Sheffield Historical Society was conducted in tandem with an expansive search for the names of enslaved and freed Black people in the southern Berkshires and nearby Canaan and Salisbury in Connecticut. By pairing the archival discoveries found in the Ashley family account books with bills of sale, census data, court records, land deeds, local vital records, newspaper advertisements, probates, other account books, and tax records, the lives of nine individuals enslaved by the Ashley family were pieced together. These findings will inform a re-interpretation of the Colonel John Ashley House in Sheffield that is stewarded by The Trustees of Reservations. 

Only the earliest surviving Ashley family account books from 1771 to 1786 discussed people in bondage in the Ashley House. We know that in 1771, Colonel Ashley owned five enslaved people over the age of fourteen, and his son General John Ashley Jr. (1736–1799) enslaved three others over the age of fourteen. The contours of when the other enslaved individuals were liberated in the time after Bett and Brom’s case in 1781 remains opaque. Brom and Elizabeth Freeman—likely with Betsey Freeman in tow—won their freedom from Colonel Ashley and stopped working for him entirely. Zach Mullen appears to have settled his 1781 freedom suit with Colonel Ashley out of court and won his freedom; his brother Adam Mullen also appears to have gained his freedom in 1781. It cannot be determined if Colonel Ashley and General Ashley immediately freed Caesar, Harry, and the other unidentified enslaved people in their households. Moreover, recent scholarship has questioned the characterization of slavery suddenly ending in 1783 with complete liberation. 

The records of the Ashley family from 1782 through 1785 became less thorough in this pivotal moment of transition. Colonel Ashley never recorded the labor of his enslaved men again after 1781. The scant records that do exist from this period detail the coercive indenture of John Sheldon—a man still enslaved to the Sheldon family—to Colonel Ashley in the Spring of 1781. Concurrently in 1781, Jupiter Rogers and his sons, Will and Issac, began to work for paid wages from the Ashley family. Along with the various white laborers that consistently worked for the Ashleys before and after 1781, these Black men helped with the continued maintenance of the vast Ashley estate during this intervening period. Some of the formerly enslaved individuals of the Ashley family may have continued to work for the family directly after gaining their freedom. Adam Mullen mowed and carted for Colonel Ashley by at least 1782; the same may have been the case for Harry and Caesar.

Following these first few transitional years, other individuals formerly held in bondage by the Ashleys also returned to work for the household. Even after his bonded servitude ended, John Sheldon remained, living and working for the Ashley family for the rest of his life. Harry and Caesar both regularly worked for spurts of waged contracts for the Ashleys. Eventually, Zach Mullen and Colonel Ashley came to a tenant farming arrangement in 1789; he and his family would rent one of Colonel Ashley’s many homes with a garden lot in exchange for him working for wages. For the remainder of Colonel Ashley’s life, these men’s labor was supplemented with the work of indebted white laborers and free Black workers, including Ebenezer, Jacket (Jack), Lumblelow (Lem), Lyd, Lyfe, Benejah Abro, Ebony Freeman, Guy Johnson, Jacob Bows, Jeptha Holland, Jupiter Rogers, Isaac Rogers, Will Rogers, Peter Davis, and Richard (Dick) Sheldon (This list only reflects Black individuals who worked for Colonel Ashley, not his son General. John Ashley or his grandchildren.) Why would Zach Mullen return to work for a man who had imprisoned, abused, and enslaved him according to his 1781 freedom suit? Why would any of the men and women previously enslaved to the Ashleys continue to work for their former enslavers?  

Following the end of the Revolutionary War, the 1780s and 1790s marked an unstable economic period in Massachusetts history, marred by socio-economic tensions and flurries of common court cases over debt that culminated in the 1786 Shays’ Rebellion. Given this fraught climate, some freed Black people struggled to establish themselves financially following their years of unpaid servitude. Colonel Ashley was an exception rather than the rule with his will’s provision for his estate to support the formerly enslaved Harry, Zach Mullen, and John Sheldon; many other enslavers gave their former “servants” nothing after their 1783 freedom, and no other white person’s will in Sheffield provided for people they formerly enslaved. The land ownership of the Mullen brothers, for example, ebbed and flowed according to “down cycles” in the farming economy and amounting outstanding debts. Tenant farming for Colonel Ashley enabled Zach Mullen to escape the cycles of debt and lawsuits that plagued his brother Adam Mullen. Other Black individuals served as short-term, seasonal laborers to repay their debts to the Ashley stores or earn supplemental wages to support their own often multi-generational farms. The Ashleys continued to denote their Black laborers in their account books as “Negro” and often without their family names. A single account book contains entries for “Zach Mullen,” “Zach Mullen Negro,” and “Zach Negro.” The end of slavery in Massachusetts did not mean equality; the Black community in Sheffield still worked for people who did not bother or refused to learn their names, left their births and deaths unrecorded in local records, and buried them in unmarked graves.

While working for the family, white and Black laborers boarded at the Ashley House, rented houses and land from the Ashleys, or commuted from their own nearby household. Of the thirty-two “all other free persons” recorded in Sheffield in the 1790 Federal Census, only five of these Black families, totaling sixteen people, had their own household. From 1790 to 1800, the Black population grew exponentially in Sheffield because of its proximity to New York and Connecticut, where slavery was still legal. The 1800 Federal Census recorded 103 “all other free persons, except Indians” in Sheffield with a total of nineteen Black households. In the margins of these white elite-dominated account books, Black community ties and kinship networks are revealed through three-way exchanges for goods and services to friends, neighbors, co-workers, and family. When the Ashleys accounted for the “days lost” from labor of their waged Black workers, they recorded that many individuals returned home to Claverack, NY, Salisbury, CT, or Sheffield for holidays like the Fourth of July, Christmas, and New Years. In other instances, they went home to help with the harvests and hunting. Both women and men attended Black election day festivities in Boston and Hartford, often purchasing a new suit of clothes, borrowing cash, and losing two days of work for the occasion. Black men took time off work to participate in Black Training Days in Canaan and possibly Great Barrington that paralleled the white military and social holiday of the same name. Through their holidays, continued familial networks, and the establishment of independent households, the interconnected Black community of southern Berkshire County and northern Litchfield County engaged in forms of interpersonal and spatial resistance, even while many still labored under the watchful eye of their former enslavers. 

The thirty surviving Ashley family account books and various loose notes interspersed within their pages illustrate how Colonel Ashley and his descendants predicated their rural, regional empire on the work of enslaved men and women that enabled his stores, farms, mills, and households to be profitable entities. Their work allowed for Colonel Ashley to wear many hats, as a gentlemen farmer, innholder, judge, lawyer, mill owner, selectman, and shopkeeper. No bills of sale for any person enslaved to the Ashley family survive, —except for a woman named Mary purchased by General Ashley Jr. in 1789 and freed under the terms of an indenture. Enslaved people were often sold off as property to settle debts, but the Ashley family’s high level of economic stability prevented them from ever being forced to sell. No surviving account book mentions the enslaved labor of any women in either Colonel Ashley or General Ashley’s households. Our knowledge of Elizabeth Freeman and her daughter Betsey’s enslavement to the Ashleys derives from her freedom suit and the subsequent stories told by the Sedgwick family. Colonel Ashley probably owned at least one other enslaved woman in his lifetime, as did General Ashley. Their unknown identities demonstrate how archival bias obscures our knowledge of these women’s names, pasts, and futures outside of bondage. These individual biographies seek to foreground the experiences of all the individuals held in bondage by the Ashley family. In doing so, this research reevaluates how we tell the story of Elizabeth Freeman, the Colonel John Ashley House, and the wider Black community in the early republic Berkshires.

Brom [Bram] (? – ?)

Brom was enslaved in the home of Colonel Ashley by 1771. One possibility for Brom’s origin could be that he was sold by Captain Ruluff Dutcher (1738–1803) of nearby Canaan, Connecticut—the son-in-law of Colonel Ashley—after Captain Dutcher inherited an enslaved man called “Broom” or “Abram” from his father in 1758. No transactions survive to confirm this theory. According to the earliest Ashley account book, Colonel Ashley entrusted Brom with trips beyond his watchful eye, including frequent trips to cart ore from his open pit in Salisbury, Connecticut back to his Ironworks in Sheffield, courier tasks with goods from the Ashley store to Salisbury, and wagon trips to Claverack to fulfill wheat orders. He may have been the “Colonel Ashly’s negro” that drove his sleigh in the bristling cold in January of 1773 from Sheffield to Westfield for General Ashley’s mother-in-law, Mrs. Mary Ballantine. Beyond operating with the most autonomy of all the enslaved people in the household, Brom also may have had some training to work in Colonel Ashley’s bloomery forge. Brom sued Colonel Ashley for his freedom as Bett’s co-plaintiff in May 1781 and won. There is no evidence to suggest that Brom was Bett’s “common law husband” or that he also moved with the Sedgwicks to Stockbridge. The recent theory that Brom changed his name to Cato Brum, went to work for the Sedgwicks as their “horse-servant,” and ended his life in prison seems implausible, especially given Catharine Sedgwick’s descriptions of Cato as youthfully misbehaved. Like Elizabeth Freeman, Brom ceased all work and contact with the Ashley family following his suit, and the details of his life after gaining his freedom are lost to history.

Caesar [Ceaser, Ceas, “Ceser Negro”] (? – ?) 

Caesar was enslaved by Colonel Ashley by at least 1776. “Ceas” frequently carted with Brom heavy loads of ore from the Salisbury “Ore Hill” back to Sheffield; by 1780, “Ceaser” carted some loads on his own. After gaining his freedom, Caesar continued to work for Colonel Ashley in the 1780s for wages. In the 1790s, Caesar stopped working for the Ashleys or purchasing goods from their stores for a number of years, suggesting that he had professionally emancipated himself from the family. Entries for Caesar at the General Ashley store appear again consistently from 1798 to 1800. By 1798, Caesar had a son old enough to perform some labor for General Ashley to repay his debts for purchases. 

Around the time of Caesar’s reappearance in the Ashley account books, he may have adopted a new name. “Ceser Negro” and Caesar Freeman (ab. 1759–1845) are possibly the same person because entries for both names in different hands appear in 1798 in the Ashley account books. Caesar Freeman also started paying taxes in Sheffield in 1798. However, there were numerous Black men named Caesar in the area; thus, it is also possible that they were two separate individuals.

Harry [Heary, “Harry Negro”] (? – ?)

Harry may have been enslaved to Colonel Ashley around 1771 following his sale by John Upham of Claverack, New York. A runaway advertisement for an enslaved man named “Harry” suggests that he resisted the sale but was ultimately forced to return to Colonel Ashley’s ownership. Harry first appears in Col. Ashley’s account books in 1784, fetching a cow for a white tenant on Colonel Ashley’s land. After gaining his freedom, he consistently harvested and completed other physical labor for Colonel Ashley in the 1780s and 1790s while living at the Colonel Ashley House. He also purchased various goods from General John Ashley’s nearby store. Harry returned to Claverack for holidays, suggesting that he maintained his family connections in his former home. He played the fiddle and attended community events, such as the Canaan training day and the Boston Election Day. Notably, Harry only paid taxes once in 1791 and never appeared as head of a household in a federal census. If Harry ever took a last name is not known. He continued to work for Colonel Ashley up until the colonel’s death in 1802; Colonel Ashley provided for his continued care in his will. Harry then went to work for Colonel Ashley’s grandson William Ashley (1773–1849), and his trips to Canaan became more frequent. At some point before 1812, Harry married an unknown woman. His final entry in an Ashley account book was in 1816, but when he died cannot be determined.

John Sheldon [“John Negro,” “Old John,” “Black John”] (? – ab. 1810)

John Sheldon was previously enslaved to Colonel Elisha Sheldon (1740–1805) of Salisbury, Connecticut. For the repayment of a debt, Colonel Ashley recorded in his account book that “Colonel Sheldon’s negro John came to live with me May 9, 1782.” John was indentured or “loaned out” to Colonel Ashley with the agreement that he would return to Salisbury to help harvest. Colonel Ashley and Colonel Sheldon renewed John’s indenture to Colonel Ashley for another year in May of 1783. While slavery in Massachusetts was illegal by 1783, John was still legally enslaved to the Sheldon family in Connecticut. The Sheldon family moved to Vermont around 1790, and account entries for John Sheldon no longer mentioned his enslavement to the Colonel Elisha Sheldon or indenture to Colonel Ashley. Throughout the 1790s, John worked for wages alongside other Black and white laborers of Colonel Ashley and made minimal purchases at General Ashley’s store. He traveled the least out of any of the formerly enslaved men employed by Colonel Ashley. From 1798 to 1802, John paid taxes in Sheffield under the names “John Negro” and “John Sheldon negro” for the small amount of real estate and personal property he accumulated. In his will, Colonel Ashley provided for John Sheldon. On December 24, 1807, William Ashley paid his sister Jane Ashley Clark (1784–?) for her remainder of the settlement of Colonel Ashley, including around thirty-three dollars for the “support of John & Zack.” It is possible that John Sheldon lived with Jane after 1802 or that she handled his support monetarily. By October 11, 1810, entries appear in William Ashley’s account book for outstanding debts of “John Negro Deceased.”

Adam Mullen [“Adam Negro”] (ab. 1751–?)

Adam Mullen was probably born in Salisbury, Connecticut to unidentified parents around 1751. By 1756, he and his older brother Zach Mullen were enslaved in the household of John Dutcher (1708–1777) of Salisbury. To repay the damages on a court case over a debt to Jeremiah Hogeboom [Hannah Hogeboom Ashley’s brother] (1711–1784) of Claverack in 1757, John Dutcher handed over to the sheriff Adam, Zach, and two enslaved fifty-year olds—Tom and Mary—who may have been his grandparents. At some point before 1771, Adam and Zach were sold to Colonel John Ashley.

Adam Mullen carted ore from Salisbury to Colonel Ashley’s Ironworks starting in 1775 until 1781. His brother Zach Mullen, Brom, and Elizabeth Freeman gained their freedom from Colonel Ashley in 1781; based on his appearance in the 1781 Sheffield tax records, Adam Mullen also gained his freedom around the same time. Unlike his brother, Adam continued to work for the Ashley family directly after gaining his freedom and returned to living with Colonel Ashley around April 1784. Adam Mullen owned land along the Konkapot River beside the Ashley estate, which he sold in January 1787. The identities of Adam’s daughter—who was born by the mid-1780s— and his first wife went undocumented in the archival record. His son was probably Jacob “Jack” Mullen, who moved to Pittsfield by 1810. Adam Mullen remarried in 1806 to Prudence Steward in Sheffield.

Adam Mullen continued to buy goods from the Ashleys throughout his life and sometimes performed labor until 1807. Afterwards, Adam accumulated debt with various parties that brought cases against him at the Court of Common Pleas as he conducted business outside of the Ashley realm and their extended credit to be repaid with labor. In 1803, Thomas Stevens—a blacksmith of Sheffield—was listed as Adam Mullen’s “Trustee” in a case; Stevens possibly acted in a guardianship role similar to those imposed by the Overseers of the Poor. Adam may have worked for Thomas Stevens in some interrelated iron capacity. By 1805, Adam rented his own bloomery forge “together with the tools & implements” from Ziba Bush until around 1808. An 1807 deed for land recorded the sale of “about an acre of land, with a Dwelling-house & barn thereon standing, and the same on which Adam Mullen now lives,” which may have been from when he worked at the Bush forge. Adam Mullen was likely responsible for providing the iron for the fixtures on the “good well made & well iron bound wagon” he and Elisha Smith sold to Philander Hurlburt without ever fulfilling the order. An 1810 lawsuit over debts owed by Adam Mullen to Colonel Ashley’s grandson, William Bull Jr. (1757–1841), would be his last recorded appearance; the final years of his life are otherwise unknown.

Zach Mullen [Zack, Zachariah, Zackariah, Zacheus, Zaccus, “Zach Negro”] (ab. 1746–1817)

Zach Mullen was probably born in Salisbury, Connecticut or New York State to unidentified parents around 1746. By 1756, he and his younger brother Adam Mullen were enslaved in the household of John Dutcher (1708–1777) of Salisbury. Zach, Adam, and two enslaved fifty-year olds—Tom and Mary— were deeded to Jeremiah Hogeboom as payment for an outstanding debt. At some point before 1771, Hogeboom sold Zach Mullen and Adam Mullen to Colonel Ashley.

Zach never appeared in the earliest Ashley account book when he was enslaved, but his brother Adam did. In April 1781, Zach Mullen brought his grievances against the Ashleys to court and became the first enslaved person in the Ashley House to sue for their freedom. Zach’s case took the typical form of freedom suits; he sued on the grounds of abuse through a “plea of trespass.” His case was delayed three times until it was eventually dismissed. Colonel Ashley and Zach settled out of court around the time that Brom and Bett won their case. He gained his freedom, and he and his brother were taxpayers for the year 1781. From 1781 to 1787, Zach interacted with the Ashley family minimally and only worked sporadically for Colonel Ashley to pay for purchases at the Ashley stores. He may have owned his own land based on the taxes he paid, or he may have lived on his brother Adam’s property nearby until 1787. On November 1, 1789, Zach Mullen, his unidentified wife, his daughter, and possibly his son moved onto a “farm where Stephen Tuttle formerly lived” with a house and “a good garden spot.” They lived here continuously until 1805. Zach Mullen managed and tended this land and earned wages from Colonel Ashley for various labor, mostly consisting of managing the crops and caring for livestock.

The 1790 federal census recorded Zach Mullen as having a household of six people, possibly including his family and members of Adam Mullen’s family. Colonel Ashley’s will provided for Zach’s continued support if he needed it. In the year directly proceeding his death, William Ashley paid Zach for his continued work caring for “the property belonging to Col. Ashley’s estate” and, in another instance, paid him for tending Colonel Ashley’s stock. Sometime in the late 1800s to early 1810s, Zach may have lived and worked for Colonel John Ashley, 3rd (1767–1823), who by then resided in the deceased Colonel Ashley’s home. On December 24, 1807, William Ashley paid his sister Jane Ashley Clark from the Colonel Ashley estate, including around thirty-three dollars for the “support of John & Zack.” Furthermore, in the last year of his life, William Ashley recorded that Zach boarded at his home and his apparel was paid for out of the estate of Colonel Ashley. On March 28, 1813, Zach Mullen moved in with William Ashley and began to work for him. Zach Mullen died on October 13, 1817, in William Ashley’s home.

Elizabeth Freeman [Bett, Betty Freeman, Mumbet, Mum Bett] (ab. 1744–1829)

Elizabeth Freeman was born as Bett sometime between 1742 to 1744 in an unknown location. Many sources point to her birthplace to be in Claverack, New York because they believe she was previously enslaved to Pieter Hogeboom. Theodore Sedgwick II (1780–1839) remembered that “Mum Bett…first lived in Claverac, Columbia county, in the state of New-York, in the family of a Mr. Hogeboom. She was purchased at an early age by Col. Ashley.” However, while she could have been inherited or purchased by Colonel Ashley and his wife Hannah Hogeboom Ashley in 1758, no surviving evidence can be found to conclusively support Claverack as her birthplace. The identity of her parents cannot be determined, though, a friend of Catharine Sedgwick, Harriet Martineau, claimed that her parents came from Africa. Elizabeth Freeman kept in contact with her parents or possibly brought possessions of theirs with her when she was sold or given to the Ashley family. In her will, she bequeathed her daughter Betsey Freeman “1 do. [gown] received of my father” and “a short gown that was my mother’s.”

Folklore tells that Elizabeth Freeman was sold or inherited alongside her sister Lizzie. The evidence of Lizzie’s existence comes singularly from the story of Elizabeth protecting Lizzie from a blow delivered by Hannah Hogeboom Ashley with a hot “large iron shovel.” The Sedgwicks do not discuss the existence of Lizzie beyond this narrative, and nothing suggests that she moved with Elizabeth Freeman to work at the Sedgwick house in 1781. In their investigation on Elizabeth Freeman, Emilie Piper and David Levinson theorized that Lizzie could instead be her daughter, Betsey Freeman. Elizabeth Freeman gave birth to Betsey, or Little Bett, in the early 1770s. The identity of Betsey’s father is unknown. Theodore Sedgwick II recalled that Elizabeth Freeman married at a young age and had Betsey with her husband who died fighting in the Revolutionary War. At present, no recorded soldier who died in service can be identified that fits these parameters. Other researchers have claimed that Brom was her common-law husband, which also lacks substantiation. In her 1781 freedom suit, Bett was labeled a “spinster” and, in her later land transactions in Stockbridge, she was addressed as “singlewoman Spinster,” rather than widow. However, any possible common-law marriage she may have had could be ignored and unrecognized by the legal system.

While enslaved in the household of the Ashley family, Bett—as she was called when she lived in the Ashley House—helped with the domestic chores and served the Ashleys, alongside various short-term white female servants and possibly other enslaved women lost to history. One anecdote attests that Bett began practicing nursing and midwifery as early as 1775, implying that she learned the craft while enslaved in Sheffield. The surviving Ashley account books never recorded Bett, but her role in the household operated outside the bounds of Colonel Ashley’s accounting of his farm, store, potash, mills, and ironworks. Her invisible labor can be discerned in entries where Colonel Ashley sold items like “my wife’s butter” or “a chocolate cake”—goods that Bett undoubtedly would have played a role in producing. Bett also likely tended to the household linens and repaired domestic textiles and apparel. Her will included a linen pocket handkerchief with an embroidered “B”, a pair of cotton hose embroidered with “B.F.,” and two muslin handkerchiefs embroidered “E.B.P.” As one of her roles was likely to mark each textile to help with the laborious process of laundering, Bett would have learned some basic needlework skills that she put to service for her personal use. Given that the Ashley family lived in a rural country context, she may have also performed agricultural labor, tending to the livestock and garden.

In 1781, with their lawyers Theodore Sedgwick and Tapping Reeve, Bett and Brom sued Colonel Ashley for their freedom. They were the first enslaved persons to sue on the grounds of unconstitutionality, and their case claimed that slavery was incompatible with the new 1780 Massachusetts constitution. On August 22, 1781, at the court of Common Pleas in Great Barrington, the case Brom and Bett vs. Ashley was decided in favor of Brom and Bett. They were awarded thirty shillings. At this point, Bett officially took the name “Elizabeth Freeman.” Afterwards, she went to work for her lawyer, Theodore Sedgwick, in Sheffield and moved with the family to Stockbridge in 1785. By 1803, she owned land and, about 1807, left the Sedgwicks’ household to live in her own home with her extended family. Elizabeth Freeman died on December 28, 1829, and was buried in the Sedgwick family plot in Stockbridge.

Betsey Freeman [Betsey Humphrey, Betty, Little Bet] (ab. 1775–1858)

Betsey Freeman was the daughter of Elizabeth Freeman and an unidentified father. Different contemporary records cite her birthdate as 1770, 1772, and 1775. Thus, Elizabeth Freeman most likely gave birth to Betsey when she was still enslaved to Colonel Ashley, making the infant Betsey enslaved to him based on the status of her mother. Whether Betsey was the only child born to Elizabeth Freeman cannot be determined, but she is confirmed to be the only one to survive to adulthood. In her early years, she lived in bondage at the Colonel Ashley House and, then after her mother won her freedom in 1781, moved into the Sedgwick household in Sheffield and later Stockbridge. Catharine Sedgwick remembered her as “rather impish” and an exaggerated storyteller, while the compiler of Catharine’s letters, Mary Elizabeth Dewey (1821–1910), described Betsey as a “shiftless creature, a mere pensioner upon the [Sedgwick] family in which her mother had been a trusted friend.”

Sometime before 1803, Betsey Freeman married Jonah Humphrey (1778–ab. 1835), a member of the close-knit Black community in Stockbridge. In 1803, Humphrey and Elizabeth Freeman purchased land together. Betsey would live in this home until 1840. The couple had two daughters: Elizabeth Humphrey Van Schacck (?–1815) and Mary Ann Humphrey Drean (1804–?). Around 1835, Jonah Humphrey left Betsey and their daughter Elizabeth to move to the new southern Liberia colony of Bassa Cover with their daughter Mary Ann. In 1840, the executors of her mother Elizabeth Freeman’s estate sold the family land in Stockbridge, and Betsey Humphrey moved to nearby Lenox for the remainder of her life.

Mary (? – ?)

Mary was formerly enslaved to William Van Ness (1710–ab. 1790) of Claverack—the husband of Hannah Hogeboom Ashley’s sister. On May 5, 1789, General John Ashley Jr. purchased the “time” of “Mary a negro woman” in an indenture agreement. General Ashley first bought Mary from William Van Ness, freed her, and then rebound her to him as an indentured servant for ten years. Scholar Joanne Pope Melish described this indenture as supposedly being an arrangement Mary “agreed” to, but “Mary’s agreement would almost certainly have been made under duress on “free” ground in Massachusetts as the only way out of continued enslavement in New York. This kind of pressured service, whose legality seems dubious at best, was obviously calculated to extend the slave relation rather than to mitigate it.” Colonel Ashley recorded in his account book that “General Ashley sent to Wm Van Ness” on August 4, 1789 “10:0:24 of iron in which was 2 set of wagon tire,” possibly as a partial payment for the purchase of Mary. She may have been related to other enslaved people possibly inherited by members of the Hogeboom family from the patriarch Pieter Hogeboom (1676–ab. 1758). Right before the death of Gen. Ashley in 1799, Mary’s indenture to the family ended. The details of her life after her indenture ended are unknown.

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As is the case with many historic house museums, the Colonel John Ashley House’s role as a public institution began as a testament to a triumphant war hero and local legend of Sheffield, centering elite white male identity in the process. Narratives around Elizabeth Freeman and certainly the identities of any enslaved or free laborers existed only secondarily. Yet, the Ashley family and the wider Sheffield community’s maintenance of the Colonel Ashley House and its family history resulted in the critical preservation of historical materials. The survival of thirty family account books enables a reevaluation of its history. Revisiting archival material related to the Ashleys and the production of these biographies allows for a new type of engagement and interpretation of the house. As we enter the first stages of the house’s reinterpretation, The Trustees of Reservations is committed to illuminating all the stories of those who lived and were enslaved in the Colonel Ashley House in tangible, permanent, and meaningful ways. The Colonel Ashley House Interpretation Center, situated in a separate building open year-round, will receive a refurbishment and a new exhibition based on these findings. A part of this approach will be to better explicate how the Colonel Ashley House has physically evolved over time through visual aids. This is an important aspect of the conversation surrounding how spaces that enslaved individuals lived and slept in may no longer be accurately reflected in the surviving structure, or even exist. Along with the inclusion of these biographies, the new interpretation within the house will recenter and better educate the public on how the realities of everyday life in bondage in the Colonel Ashely House and rural New England more generally. This ongoing, multi-phase reinterpretation will seek to engage other nonprofit organizations and the Black community to make an impactful and enduring contribution to raise awareness about slavery in the North and its enduring consequences. 

Further Readings and Notes on the Sources:

The following account books are referenced throughout this article in abbreviated form. To mitigate the further spread of myths and misinformation regarding those enslaved at the Col. Ashley House, these biographies derive from evidence found in surviving primary source materials and the below citations provide references for retracing such information. The thirty surviving account books are accessible to the public by appointment at The Trustees of Reservations’ Archives & Research Center in Sharon, MA and the Sheffield Historical Society’s Mark Dewey Research Center in Sheffield, MA.

Colonel John Ashley, Ashley Account Book 1, Ledger, 1768-1786, Colonel John Ashley Papers, 1755-1818, The Trustees of Reservations, Archives & Research Center.

Colonel John Ashley, General John Ashley, and William Ashley, Ashley Account Book 2, ledger, daybook, memorandum, 1777-1819, Sheffield Historical Society, Mark Dewey Research Center.

Colonel John Ashley, and General John Ashley, Ashley Account Book 3, ledger, memorandum, 1786-1796, Sheffield Historical Society, Mark Dewey Research Center.

General John Ashley and William Ashley, Ashley Account Book 5, daybook, 1794-1795, Colonel John Ashley Papers, 1755-1818, The Trustees of Reservations, Archives & Research Center.

General John Ashley and William Ashley, Ashley Account Book 7, daybook, 1796, Sheffield Historical Society, Mark Dewey Research Center.

General John Ashley et al., Ashley Account Book 9, daybook, ledger, 1798-1801, Sheffield Historical Society, Mark Dewey Research Center.

William Ashley, Ashley Account Book 10, index, ledger, 1791-1805, Sheffield Historical Society, Mark Dewey Research Center.

William Ashley, Ashley Account Book 11, daybook, 1799-1806, Sheffield Historical Society, Mark Dewey Research Center.

William Ashley, General John Ashley, and John Ashley 3^rd, Ashley Account Book 12, daybook, memorandum, 1792-1812, Sheffield Historical Society, Mark Dewey Research Center.

William Ashley, Ashley Account Book 15, daybook, 1806-1807, Sheffield Historical Society, Mark Dewey Research Center.

William Ashley, Ashley Account Book 18, daybook, memorandum, 1819-1826, Sheffield Historical Society, Mark Dewey Research Center.

On slavery in the North and public memory, see Joseph Carvalho, “Uncovering the Stories of Black Families in Springfield and Hampden County, Massachusetts: 1650–1865,” Historical Journal of Massachusetts Vol. 40, no. 1/2 (Summer 2012): 70–3; Nicole Saffold Maskiell, Bound by Bondage: Slavery and the Creation of a Northern Gentry (Cornell University Press, 2022), 17–8, 23; Joanne Pope Melish, Disowning Slavery: Gradual Emancipation and “Race” in New England, 1780–1860 (Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 2000); Marla R. Miller and Karen Sánchez-Eppler, “Joining Reinterpretation to Reparations,” Museums & Social Issues 15, no. 1–2 (July 3, 2021): 75–6; Andrea C. Mosterman, Spaces of Enslavement: A History of Slavery and Resistance in Dutch New York (Ithaca, N.Y.: Cornell University Press, 2021), 67; William Dillon Piersen, Black Yankees: The Development of an Afro-American Subculture in Eighteenth-Century New England (University of Massachusetts Press, 1988), 117–21, 136; Marc Howard Ross, “Slavery and Collective Forgetting,” in Slavery in the North: Forgetting History and Recovering Memory (Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 2018), 94–5, 99, 118; Elena Sesma, “‘A Web of Community’: Uncovering African American Historic Sites in Deerfield, MA,” Journal of Community Archaeology & Heritage 2, no. 2 (May 18, 2015): 133; and Gloria McCahon Whiting, “‘Race, Slavery, and the Problem of Numbers in Early New England: A View from Probate Court,’ William and Mary Quarterly 77 No. 3 (July 2020): 405-40.

On background of enslavement at the Colonel John Ashley House, see “Entry for John Ashley,” Sheffield, The Massachusetts Tax valuation List of 1771, Massachusetts State Archives, volumes 132-134; Ashley Account Book 1, 165–6, 173–4, 199, 222–3, 226–9, 291, 294–6; Colonel John Ashley, “Notes regarding work of “Adam” for John Ashley,” 1784-1785, note laid in Account Book 1 (pp. 160), Colonel John Ashley Papers, 1755-1818, Archives & Research Center, The Trustees of Reservations. Ashley Account Book 3, 113–6, 127–8, 133; Ashley Account Book 10, 47; Ashley Account Book 2, 28, 46, 56; “John Ashley, Esq., Sheffield 1802 (Record no. 2195),” in Berkshire County, MA: File Papers, 1761–1917, vol. 1: Berkshire Cases 2000–3999, 5; “Entries for Sheffield,” U.S. Census, 1790, 1800, Sheffield, Massachusetts; and Myron Stachiw, “Col. John Ashley and His Web of Commerce, 1735-1802,” unpublished report (Sheffield, MA: The Trustees of Reservations, 2002); Bernard A. Drew, If They Close the Door on You, Go in the Window: Origins of the African American Community in Sheffield, Great Barrington & Stockbridge (Great Barrington, MA: Attic Revivals Press, 2004).

For the biography of Brom, see: “Christopher Dutcher,” September 15, 1752, Probate Records, 1743-1817: Probate Court, (Litchfield District), 101–5; Ashley Account Book 1, 112, 174, 167, 205, 210, 237, 245, 256, 266–7, 281, 300, 306; George Ballantine, ed., Journal of Rev. John Ballantine: Minister of Westfield, MA, 1737-1774 (Bowie, Maryland: Heritage Books, Inc., 2002), 2443; Brom & Bett vs. J. Ashley Esq, Court Records, Berkshire County Courthouse, Great Barrington, Mass., Inferior Court of Common Pleas, May 28, 1781, vol. 4A; Emilie Piper and David Levinson, One Minute a Free Woman: Elizabeth Freeman and the Struggle for Freedom (Salisbury, CT: Upper Housatonic Valley National Heritage Area, 2010) 132, 136–7; Gelston Hardy, “Mum Bet vs. Ashley: A Little-Known Case Involving Slavery Which, If It Had Been Followed NATIONALLY, Might Have Prevented the CIVIL WAR,” unpublished paper, (Dewey Research Center: Sheffield Historical Society, 1974), 2–3; Drew, If They Close the Door on You, 11, 44; “Catharine Maria Sedgwick to Theodore Sedgwick I,” Stockbridge, MA, April 1, 1804, Catharine Maria Sedgwick Online Letters, Massachusetts Historical Society; Catharine Maria Sedgwick, The Power of Her Sympathy: The Autobiography and Journal of Catharine Maria Sedgwick, ed. Mary Kelley (Boston: Massachusetts Historical Society, 1993), 110.

For the biography of Caesar, see: Ashley Account Book 1, 174, 245, 256, 267, 287, 300; Ashley Account Book 2, 42; Ashley Account Book 11, 250; Ashley Account Book 9, 61, 63, 70, 75, 84, 87, 115, 124, 139, 150, 160, 184, 200, 211, 271, 296; Sheffield, Massachusetts Assessor’s Tax Lists and Records, Sheffield Historical Society, Mark Dewey Research Center, year 1798; “Entry for Caezar Freeman,” July 29, 1844, Massachusetts State Vital Records, 1841-1925, Deaths Registered in Sheffield 1845.

This Caesar Freeman of Sheffield and Great Barrington should not be confused with the Caesar Freeman of Stockbridge that married Margaret “Peggy” Hull, sister of Agrippa Hull.

For the biography of Harry, see: “Runaway Advertisement for Harry,” Connecticut Courant (Hartford, Connecticut), no. 329, April 16, 1771, 3; Ashley Account Book 1, 107; Ashley Account Book 3, 21, 42, 46, 61, 102, 108, 117, 124-5, 128, 130, 197; Ashley Account Book 5, 70; Ashley Account Book 2, 75, 163, 181–2, 223, 226, 247, 256, 270–7; Sheffield, Massachusetts Assessor’s Tax Lists and Records, year 1791; “John Ashley, Esq., Sheffield 1802 (Record no. 2195),” NEHS, 5.

For the biography of John Sheldon, see: Ashley Account Book 1, 291, 295–6; , Ashley Account Book 2, 45; Ashley Account Book 3, 128–9; Ashley Account Book 7, 66; Drew, If They Close the Door on You, 48; Sheffield, Massachusetts Assessor’s Tax Lists and Records, years 1798, 1799, 1800, 1801, and 1802; “John Ashley, Esq., Sheffield 1802 (Record no. 2195),” NEHS, 5; Ashley Account Book 12, 108.

For the biography of Adam Mullen, see: “Attachment, 1757 Dec 8,” Litchfield Historical Society, Wolcott Family Collection: Miscellany, Connecticut County Court (Litchfield County), 1753-1757, Folder 9, Item 4; Ashley Account Book 1, 237, 245, 281; Sheffield, Massachusetts Assessor’s Tax Lists and Records, year 1781; “Adam Mullen, to Samuel Bellows Sheldon, January 30, 1786, vol. 24, (Massachusetts Land Records 1620-1986: Southern Berkshire Registry of Deeds), 263; Col. J. Ashley, “Account regarding work of “Adam” for John Ashley”; “Entry for Jacob Mullen,” U.S. Census, 1810, 1820, Pittsfield, Massachusetts; Ashley Account Book 3, 18, 26; Ashley Account Book 11, 291; Ashley Account Book 15, 299; “Jared Canfield vs. Adam Mullen,” April 18, 1803, case no. 95, Massachusetts Court of Common Pleas records, 1760–1860, vol. 20, 401–2; “Ziba Bush vs. Adam Mullen,” April 1807, case no. 233, 1809, Massachusetts Court of Common Pleas records, 1760–1860, vol. 27, 61–2; “Philander Hurlburt vs. Elisha Smith,” January 4, 1808, case no. 195, Massachusetts Court of Common Pleas records, 1760–1860, vol. 24, 13; Asahel Olds, to John W. Hurlbert, September 21, 1807, vol. 46, (Massachusetts Land Records 1620-1986: Southern Berkshire Registry of Deeds), 83; “William Bull vs. Adam Mullen,” March 16, 1810, case no. 368, Massachusetts Court of Common Pleas records, 1760–1860, vol. 27, 373–4.

For the biography of Zach Mullen, see Adam Mullen as well as “Zach Mullen vs. John Ashley Esq.,” April 1781, case no. 20, Berkshire County, Massachusetts Court of Common Pleas records, 1760–1860, vol. 4, 24; Sheffield, Massachusetts Assessor’s Tax Lists and Records, year 1781, 1784, 1785, 1788, 1789, 1798, 1799, and 1800; Ashley Account Book 3, 60, 77, 91, 109, 111, 119, 126; Colonel John Ashley, “Account regarding work of “Zach” for John Ashley,” 1787-1789, loose note, Ashley Family Genealogy Files, collection of the Sheffield Historical Society, box 2; “John Ashley, Esq., Sheffield 1802 (Record no. 2195),” NEHS, 5, 78; “Entry for Zacheus Mullen,” U.S. Census, 1790, Sheffield, Massachusetts; Ashley Account Book 11, 246; Ashley Account Book 2, 87, 94 –5, 101, 217–8; Ashley Account Book 12, 26; Ashley Account Book 18, 95.

Zach Mullen’s son-in-law also resided with the family in 1795. Moreover, a man named Elijah Mullen (ab. 1784–1860) was born around 1783 in Sheffield to either Zach Mullen or his brother Adam Mullen. Elijah Mullen had a household of four people in Sheffield in 1810, possibly including Zach Mullen. By the 1820 federal census, he had moved to Pittsfield.

For background on the Elizabeth Freeman, see Piper and David Levinson, One Minute a Free Woman; Sari Edelstein, “‘Good Mother, Farewell’: Elizabeth Freeman’s Silence and the Stories of Mumbet,” The New England Quarterly 92, no. 4 (November 1, 2019): 604, 611; Arthur Zilversmit, “Mumbet: Folklore and Fact,” Berkshire History 1, no. 1 (Spring 1971): 5–6.

For the biography of Elizabeth Freeman, see: Theodore Sedgwick, Jr., The Practicability of the Abolition of Slavery: A Lecture, Delivered at the Lyceum in Stockbridge, Massachusetts, February, 1831 (New York, NY: Printed by J. Seymour, 1831), 14, 16; Harriet Martineau, Retrospect of Western Travel, vol. 2, 3 vols. (London: Saunders and Otley, 1838), 104; Elizabeth Freeman, Stockbridge, 1830 (Record no. 4959),” in Berkshire County, MA: File Papers, 1761–1917, vol. 1: Berkshire Cases 4000 –5999, 4; Catharine Maria Sedgwick, “Slavery in New England,” Bentley’s Miscellany, 1853, Vol. 34, 419; Piper and Levinson, One Minute a Free Woman, 63; Beth Luey, “”One Minute’s Freedom”: The Colonel John Ashley House, Sheffield,” in At Home: Historic Houses of Central and Western Massachusetts, Bright Leaf (Amherst, MA: Bright Leaf, 2019), 47; Hardy, “Mum Bet vs. Ashley,” 2–3; Elizabeth Freeman and Jonah Humphrey, to Enoch Humphrey, April 1, 1809, vol. 47 (Massachusetts Land Records 1620-1986: Southern Berkshire Registry of Deeds), 751–2; Enoch Humphrey, to Elizabeth Freeman and Jonah Humphrey, April 1, 1809, vol. 47 (Massachusetts Land Records 1620-1986: Southern Berkshire Registry of Deeds), 233–4.

If sister Lizzie was a real person enslaved in the Ashley House, a possible explanation for her not joining the Sedgwick household could be that she was already married and opted to stay with her spouse in Sheffield. Most of the wives’ names of the enslaved men in the Ashley household are unknown; Ashley Account Book 1, 43, 93; “Elizabeth Freeman, Stockbridge 1830 (Record no. 4959),” NEHS, 4; Felicia Y. Thomas, “‘Fit for Town or Country’: Black Women and Work in Colonial Massachusetts,” The Journal of African American History 105, no. 2 (March 2020): 204–6; Brom & Bett vs. J. Ashley Esq, 1781; Piper and Levinson, One Minute a Free Woman, 118.

For the biography of Betsey Freeman, see: “Entry for Betsey Humphrey,” U.S. Census, 1850, Lenox, Massachusetts; “Entry for Betsey Humphrey,” U.S. Census, 1855, Lenox, Massachusetts; “Entry for Betsey Humphrey,” April 21, 1858, Deaths Registered in Lenox 1858; Piper and Levinson, One Minute a Free Woman, 133, 137–9, 157; Catharine Maria Sedgwick, Life and Letters of Catharine M. Sedgwick, ed. Mary E. Dewey (New York, NY: Harper & Brothers, 1871), 73, 327.

For the biography of Mary, see: “Indenture in two parts between J. Ashley and Mary,” 1789, Sedgwick Family Papers, 1717-1946: miscellaneous manuscripts (Theodore Sedgwick), bound ed., collection of the Massachusetts Historical Society, Boston; Melish, Disowning Slavery, 96–7; Ashley Account Book 3, 134.

Acknowledgements: 

Thank you to my curatorial and archives team at The Trustees of Reservations and the Sheffield Historical Society for supporting and encouraging this deep exploration. Thanks to the Connecticut State Museum, Great Barrington Historical Society, Litchfield Historical Society, Massachusetts Historical Society, Norman Rockwell Museum, Stockbridge Library, Museum & Archives, and UMass Amherst W.E.B. DuBois Library for their assistance and for opening their archives to me. The three Ashley family account books stewarded by The Trustees and the Col. Ashley House historic photograph collection were recently digitized thanks to a grant by the National Endowment for the Humanities. This research was made possible by support from the Decorative Arts Trust in their sponsorship of a Peggy N. Gerry Curatorial Fellowship at The Trustees.

This article originally appeared in January 2025

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Olivia R. Scott (Livy) is the Decorative Arts Trust Peggy N. Gerry Curatorial Fellow with The Trustees of Reservations at the Colonel John Ashley House. This work marks the first of more forthcoming research into the enslaved population of the Berkshires and the reinterpretation of the Col. Ashley House and its historic interiors.