Joab Binney

Though Joab Binney is one of the most well-documented people who was enslaved in Northampton, little is known of his early life. He was probably born sometime between 1710 and 1730. Dr. Stephen West, a minister who profiled Binney’s wife Rose, wrote that Binney was born in Africa, in the same territory as Rose (West did not name that territory.) At some point after he was enslaved and taken from his home, he came to Northampton. Here, he was enslaved by Jonathan Hunt III. It is also possible that he was previously enslaved by a female member of the Strong family. It is probable that he was the only enslaved person in Hunt’s household at this time, though Hunt would later enslave a second man, Amos Hull.

Slavery in Northampton

While enslaved in Northampton, Joab began a relationship with Rose, the enslaved woman he would eventually marry and be with for the rest of his life. The Hunts were a well-to-do family in Northampton, but Rose was enslaved by a man who was famous on a national scale: Jonathan Edwards, the town minister and leader of the First Great Awakening. There is a record of a baptism for an enslaved person named Joab (see entry for Joab) at this time, and if this referred to Joab Binney, then he would have been regularly at church services confronted with the person who enslaved his partner. West remembered that Joab was a pious man, suggesting that, whether or not the Joab record referred to him, at some point Binney did convert to Christianity.

According to one account, Edwards’ political situation facilitated a defining moment in Joab’s life. In the late 1740s and early 1750s the relationship between Northampton and Edwards soured, and the town voted to dismiss him in 1750, whereupon he moved to Stockbridge, Massachusetts. Electa Jones (herself a descendant of the Hunt family that enslaved Joab), wrote in her history of Stockbridge that Jonathan Hunt III was particularly angry with Edwards, and unhappy about the fact that, since the Binneys were already romantically involved, Edwards’ household would have a tie back to Northampton from Stockbridge. Jones recounts that Hunt gave Binney his freedom so that he could follow Rose Binney to Stockbridge, and Hunt would be rid of all connections to the Edwards family forever. This story could be true, but there are some holes in it. The idea that Edwards himself would come back to Northampton so that the Binneys could visit is very unlikely, and Hunt would not actually have been ridding himself of Northampton’s strongest connection to Edwards: one of Edwards’ daughters, Mary Edwards Dwight, who still lived in town. Whether or not the story is true, Joab was free in 1751, and when Jonathan Edwards left Northampton for Stockbridge, taking Rose with him, Joab followed her.

It is possible that Hunt freed Binney for some other reason. However, it is also possible that Binney bought his own freedom, and a story that cast the Hunts in a more positive light was passed down to Jones. There is some evidence to suggest that Joab may have had the means to purchase his freedom. By the time he was in Stockbridge, Joab was employed in one, if not two, skilled trades (tanning and blacksmithing). He may have learned these trades in Northampton. His connection to tanning is particularly interesting, since it suggests a connection to the Strong family, as implied by the baptismal record. The Strong family were tanners in Northampton and had a plot of land next to Jonathan Hunt III.

If Joab was skilled in two trades in Northampton, he would have offered an alternate revenue stream for Hunt: he could be hired out to practice these skills. In some cases, enslaved people who were hired out were able to keep a very small percentage of their wages, which he could have saved to buy his freedom. It is unlikely, however, that he claimed his freedom by escaping from Hunt. If he was following Rose, he ran the risk that Edwards would return him to Hunt.

The year 1751 marked another milestone for Joab. After he got to Stockbridge, he and Rose were married. Some accounts say that Edwards performed the ceremony. When Edwards departed Stockbridge for a post at Princeton, New Jersey, he did not bring Rose with him, suggesting that by this point she was a free woman. Whether Edwards voluntarily gave her her freedom or Joab and Rose purchased it is unknown.

In Stockbridge, Joab embarked on the life of a free landowner. He worked as a tanner, possibly also doing blacksmith work. Though he appears to have been successful in business, he and Rose had a series of personal tragedies. Between 1761 and 1771, they had five daughters, four of whom died in infancy. We only know the name of the daughter who survived to adulthood: Tamar. 

Fostering Agrippa Hull

The Binneys took in another former Northampton resident: Agrippa Hull, son of Bathsheba and Amos Hull. In the mid-1760s, Agrippa was sent from Northampton to be fostered by the Binney family when he was 6 years old. Amos Hull had died, and Bathsheba Hull had been forced from her land by the Northampton government. We do not know whether Agrippa going to live with the Binneys was Bathsheba’s choice. Her older son, Asaph, had been indentured by the town with the family of Joab Binney’s and Amos Hull’s former enslavers. However, at 6, Agrippa may have been deemed too young to indenture, and Bathsheba may have been able to dictate where he was placed. It is reasonable to assume that Amos Hull and Joab Binney would have known each other, as they were both enslaved by the same man, and there may have been a pre-existing relationship between the families that would make Bathsheba feel safe entrusting her son to their care. However Agrippa came to the Binneys, it is probable that he was the only Hull son to be reunited with his mother. She moved to Stockbridge in the late 1760s; for more information, see Bathsheba’s profile, or those for the rest of the Hull family. Agrippa seems to have remained close to the Binney family for several generations.

Family Home and Children

A 1771 property assessment gives a glimpse into what the Binney family’s home was like. At that point, Joab was listed as owning a 10.5 acre farm. More than half of it could be farmed, and he produced 54 bushels of grain and 3.5 tons of hay per year. He owned two horses, two oxen, two pigs, and three cows. This farm would have been both home and workspace for Joab, Rose, and their daughter Tamar. The family was enlarged again in 1782, when the Binneys had their last child, another daughter, Clamira.

Though Clamira would live to adulthood, Joab would not live to see it. Joab Binney died in 1783. His will focused on providing property for his daughters. He left Rose farm animals, firearms, raw provisions, and clothing, but no land. He set aside one-third of his land for Rose to use during her life, but after her death, it would go to Tamar. This type of arrangement was not uncommon if the surviving spouse was a wife, though some wives did inherit property outright. The remaining land was divided between Tamar and Clamira. Tamar ultimately had a bigger share than Clamira, inheriting ownership of two-thirds of the land. Joab also gave her half his “implements of household” (the other half went to Rose), all of the money that was owed to him, and a cow. This could be seen as favoritism, but it may have been pragmatism. Clamira was an infant, but Tamar was probably a teenager or young adult, and as such, of marriageable age. Giving her more in the will enlarged the dowry she would bring with her into a marriage and made her a more attractive prospect. Clamira’s property had time to appreciate in value; Tamar’s did not. 

Joab assigned white Stockbridge men as guardians for both of his daughters, but Tamar’s guardian, Timothy Edwards, was the son of Jonathan Edwards, who had enslaved Rose. In his will, Joab refers to Timothy Edwards as “my friend,” but the exact nature of this relationship is unclear. It could be exactly what it seems—that despite the origins of their connection, the two men had formed a close enough relationship for Joab to want Edwards to look after one of his children when he was gone. However, “friend” could also be a more general term, and Joab could have chosen Edwards simply because Edwards was a man of means who was acquainted with his family. In either case, the continued connection to the family who had enslaved Rose is apparent even decades after Rose had gained her freedom.

Joab’s plan to provide for his family worked. Tamar married Thomas Kellis, and Clamira married Nicholas Rich. In 1798, the land Joab left behind was appraised again, and the estate had grown since 1771. It was now 25 acres and appraised at $200. Comparing it to other farms in the survey, this was one of the smaller estates, but by no means the smallest, and was probably still providing income. The valuation also revealed that, even though she had remarried, Rose still lived on the farm. 

Census records for Clamira list her husband Nicholas’ profession as “laborer” and list him as illiterate. The same records, however, reveal that Clamira could read. Clamira died of dropsy (now known as edema) in 1854, possibly without ever having children. Tamar had two children, both sons. Her first, Charles Binney Kellis, was born in 1799. Her second, born in 1803, was named Joab, probably for her father. Dr. Joab Kellis was the first Black physician in Stockbridge. In his later years, he completed a kind of historical circle when he became a boarder in the home of Margaret Timbrook Hull, the wife of Agrippa Hull, who had lived in his grandfather’s house as a child. When Joab Kellis died in Stockbridge in 1866, his gravestone read that he was a “friend of the oppressed, he died lamented by all who knew him.”