Abijah Prince

Abijah Prince was born around 1706 and enslaved by Reverend Benjamin Doolittle of Northfield, MA, from around the age of 12. Prince eventually gained his freedom, then lived in Northampton for two years. After he left Northampton, he married a woman named Lucy Terry, had children, and lived most of his life throughout the Connecticut River Valley area and southern Vermont. Abijah Prince appears in records under several notations: Abijah, Abijah a Free Negro, Abijah Negro, and Abijah Freeman. 

There has been extensive research done on Prince by Gretchen Holbrook Gerzina for her book Mr. and Mrs. Prince: How an Extraordinary Eighteenth-Century Family Moved Out of Slavery and Into Legend. Like Agrippa Hull, Prince is someone whose life has been documented at book length, so this report does not function as a record of all of the knowledge we are aware of about his life, but contains a brief summary of his life. We recommend consulting the above book for a more comprehensive account.

Prince was enslaved by Rev. Benjamin Doolittle and his wife Lydia Todd, who first lived in Wallingford, CT, and then moved to Northfield, MA. Prince knew how to read and write and was taught other skills, probably by the Doolittle family. Prince’s life in Northfield would have been racially isolated, as the town was still in its infancy and he was likely the only Black person living in the town. 

In 1747, Prince enlisted in Captain Elijah Williams’ company in Deerfield to fight in King George’s War. After his service ended, he stayed with Williams in Deerfield, working in the community by doing repairs, running errands, and other tasks. While in Deerfield, Prince learned that Northfield was about to allot parcels of land but that only legal, free residents could acquire the land. Scholar Holbrook Gerzina believes that before enlisting Prince had previously arranged for a man named Aaron Burt to purchase him from Doolittle, with the understanding that Prince would be freed, either by paying his military salary or some other agreement. Burt did grant Prince his freedom and Prince was then able to apply to eventually receive a parcel of land. 

Prince then moved to Northampton, MA, in 1752 and stayed in town for two years. He worked for church deacon and hatter Ebenezer Hunt and lived with Amos Hull, also a formerly enslaved man, and his wife (see entries for Agrippa Hull and the Hull family). He had hopes of working toward a new life for himself. Northampton was far more racially diverse than any of his previous residences, so Prince was able to form connections with other black people, especially free men like himself. He may have even felt like he had a self-made family by staying with the Hulls. He gained insight from the black community in town for how to establish oneself as a free man, in particular how to obtain property and make a living. He also learned about legal self-defense through a man named Ralph Way of Hadley. Way was a well-established free black man who frequently went to court to recover money owed to him or to dispute charges against him. Prince formed a close connection to Way and perhaps saw him as a role model for the life he might be able to build.

After leaving Northampton, Prince met Lucy Terry and the two married on May 17, 1756.