Bathsheba Hull
Bathsheba Hull was referred to as “Bathsheba Negro” in the listing that recorded her as a member of Northampton’s church (First Church of Christ Records). We currently do not have a record of her early life, but she may have been born in the early 1720s.
Hull may have been the “Bathsheba Negro” who testified in Jonathan Edwards’ investigation of the “bad book” episode. In 1744, Edwards accused several white young men and boys of reading lewd material, possibly a midwifery text. Bathsheba testified that she had seen Noah Baker, Timothy Warner, and Elkanah Burt reading a book they jokingly referred to as “the bible” and then read it aloud to her and Naomi Warner. Documentation from Edwards’ notes here is a bit unclear, but what follows is “Ready to kiss them, and catch hold of the girls an [sic] shook ‘em,” which suggests that the accused may have assaulted Bathsheba and Warner. Bathsheba also recalled another incident when she and Joanna Clark were in the street, and Oliver Warner came up to them to ask them about knowledge he had learned from the book, saying “When does the moon change girls? I believe you can tell.” Joanna Clark also testified, and recalled the exact same thing (Documents Relating to the “Bad Book” Case, Church and Pastoral Documents (WJE Online vol. 39.), ed. Jonathan Edwards Center).
If this testimony refers to Bathsheba Hull, there are a few details here that could suggest more about her life. The record stated that Bathsheba was “Maj. Pomeroy’s servant,” probably referring to Ebenezer Pomeroy, which indicates her enslaver. The document also suggests her age. In both instances, either the recorder or the speaker refers to Bathsheba and the person she was with as “girls.” This would indicate both that she was younger at the time, and that she was probably around the same age as Naomi Warner and Joanna Clark, who were 25 and 17, respectively. We do not know the exact relationship that Bathsheba had with Warner and Clark, whether it was social or an aspect of her enslavement. We do know that she gained her freedom, but we do not know when or how. Electa Hunt wrote that Agrippa Hull’s parents were both free, which suggests that she was already free by 1759 when he was born.
She was married to Amos Hull, and together they had five children. Since all evidence points to her children being born free, it is highly likely that she herself had gained her freedom by the time they were born. Amos Jr. was born in 1754, Asaph was born in 1755, Margaret was born in 1757, Agrippa was born in 1759, and Margaret was born in 1761. We believe all of these children had both Amos and Bathsheba as their biological parents, but—as was very common at the time for children of married parents—no mother was listed on birth records.
We do not know the full details of Hull’s occupation, but we do know that at least on one occasion she took in laundry for Ebenezer Hunt (Judd manuscript, Northampton vol. 3, p. 68). Hull first lived in a home near present-day West Street. It was referred to as “near Welsh-End Bridge” in the Judd manuscript (Judd manuscript, Northampton vol. 2, p. 300). Proximity to the Mill River (which at that time ran through downtown, just south of Main Street) made this poor land, since the Mill River flooded frequently.
She later bought a house and land from John McLane. The exact purchase date is not currently known, but since Judd describes her as being a widow when she lived there, it may have been later than 1761, when Amos Sr. died (Judd manuscript, Northampton vol. 2, p. 300). Trumbull described this land as “on the Island near South Street bridge, formed by the Mill Trench.” The Mill Trench was the route that waste water from the town’s original mill took to get back to the Mill River.
The water in the Mill River Trench eroded the land around it. When the trench was first dug, it crossed over four home lots. The original English owner of the land where Hull lived, John Webb, petitioned the town to replace his land that had been scoured by the trench water. In 1659, he was given two acres elsewhere in town to make up for “Damages hee suffers in his home lott by Reason of the Mill and the Trench diging Gravell” (History of Northampton Massachusetts, vol. 1, p. 96). As a part of this transaction, Webb gave ownership of this part of his lot to the town. This would probably not have been an easy piece of land to live on, and Hull would have had to deal with the same soil erosion issues as Webb, as well as flooding from the Mill River, and the difficulties of entrance and exit that came from living on an island.
Judd wrote that one local named John Hodge, whom Judd talked to about Hull, remembered that during this period in her life she was “stout.” Hodge also recalled that “the boys sometimes threw snowballs at her house, + she would sally out after them. She once caught Hodge and gave him a good licking” (Judd manuscript, Northampton vol. 2, p. 300). In 1765, Northampton claimed rights to the land that Hull was living on. The town’s case rested on the question of ownership by the father of the man who had sold Hull her house. Trumbull wrote that Culbert McLane had not actually bought the lot from the town, but was squatting on it. Therefore, since his son John McLane could not rightfully inherit it, he did not have the right to sell the home and land to Hull, since he did not own it himself (History of Northampton, vol. 2, p. 316).
Northampton went to court to take ownership of the land away from Hull, and in 1766 the court ruled in the town’s favor. In 1767, the town voted to offer to purchase Hull’s house instead of just seizing it. If Hull refused to sell or “would not accept a reasonable price for it” the town was authorized to “demolish and abate [her house] in such a manner as to render it uninhabitable.” There is no record of exactly what Hull’s reply was, but it seems that she did sell, since in 1768 the town moved her belongings to “the lower end of Pleasant St.” (History of Northampton, vol. 2, p. 316). We have no record of anyone stating the exact reason for Northampton’s sudden interest in seizing this land, so below are some of the major factors that could have contributed to this decision.
There is no doubt that Hull would have faced considerable racism in Northampton, as not just as a Black woman, but also as a Black woman who owned property. Culbert and John McLane had been in this spot for more than a generation. They had lived on the land, passed it from one generation to another, and sold it to Hull without Northampton’s raising any objections. This pattern suggests that Hull’s race (and possibly her gender, or the intersection of the two) was a motivating factor behind the dispossession.
In 1778, Ithamar Strong built a cider mill on the Island (Judd manuscript, Northampton vol. 2, p.301). His agreement with the town was that every year he would pay Northampton “the full value of half the cyder which he shall make from the apple trees that are upon the town’s land at that place as long as he shall enjoy the same.” The usage of “at that place” and “the same” imply that the trees were in the same place where Strong built the cider mill: the island. The presence of the apple trees would raise the value of the land that Hull’s house was sitting on, and the chance to take a big cut of the income from those trees would be a motivation for Northampton to seize land that they could claim was legally theirs to begin with.
One big unknown in this situation is how Bathsheba’s second husband, Philemon Lee, fit into the legal battle. During a court case related to Lee’s being warned out of town, he said that he desired to purchase property in Northampton. Without reading too much into this, it is worth thinking about Lee’s intention and any buying power he had as another sticking point for Northampton. If she retained the property and he expanded their holdings, they could well have become among the largest if not the largest landholders in town who were Black.
During and after the eviction proceedings, Bathsheba was separated from all of her male children. Her son Agrippa was sent to be fostered by the Binney family, in Stockbridge. Hull may have been able to choose Agrippa’s destination herself because there was already a connection between the Binney and Hull families. (Both lived in Northampton in the 1750s and were enslaved by the same man). Her son Asaph was sent by the Northampton Overseers of the Poor to be an indentured servant in Fairfield, CT, where he died. Her oldest son Amos went to Hadley, though we are not sure in exactly what capacity. The only child who remained with her was her daughter Margaret.
At some point between 1761 and 1768, Bathsheba married her second husband, Philemon Lee. In 1766, Lee was warned out of Northampton, but returned. As a result, in November of 1767 he was placed in jail in Springfield. After moving to Springfield and then being warned out (see entries for Philemon Lee and Margaret Hull for more about this), Hull and her daughter Margaret went to Stockbridge and were reunited with Agrippa.
Between 1768 and 1791, Lee either died or the couple separated. By 1791, Bathsheba was in a position where she needed to be cared for by her children. Agrippa provided for her care, but her daughter Margaret’s husband, Cesar Freeman, did not. Agrippa ended up suing Freeman, and the report on the case stated that “the mother of the said Agrippa is a poor impotent Person, blind & altogether unable to provide for her support & Maintenance.” Since the case was never resolved, the family may have worked out an agreement outside of the courtroom. (Berkshire Court of Common Pleas 11:292, no.195).
Since we do not have a definite death date for Bathsheba Hull, it is also possible that this situation was resolved if she died between 1791 and 1792.