Agrippa Hull

Since Agrippa Hull’s life has been documented in standalone articles and books, this entry will simply outline some major milestones of his life. For a more comprehensive biography, see Friends of Liberty by Gary Nash, Graham Russell, and Gao Hodges. This book will be particularly informative for anyone who wants more on the details of his service in the Revolutionary War, which will only be touched on briefly here.

Agrippa Hull was born in Northampton on March 7, 1759, to Bathsheba and Amos Hull. He lived there for the first six years of his life. When his mother was evicted from her home in 1765, he was sent to be fostered by Joab and Rose Binney in Stockbridge, MA. It seems that Hull kept up a relationship with the Binney family throughout his life – some sources refer to them as second parents to him. After his death, the Binneys’ grandson would move in with Hull’s widow as a border. When Bathsheba Hull moved to Stockbridge in 1768, she and Agrippa would have been reunited. ​ Agrippa Hull enlisted in the US army in May of 1775 and fought in the American Revolution as a private for more than six years. He served as an assistant for General Tadeusz Kosciuszko, which may have been where he got his nickname, “Grip” or “Grippy.” Later in life, Hull would retell a story of his time in the army: one night when Kosciuszko left the camp, Hull put on Kosciuszko’s military uniform and threw a party for all of the Black servants in the camp.

When Hull returned to Stockbridge after the Revolution, he bought a piece of land for £9, helped support his mother Bathsheba, and went to work in the household of Theodore Sedgewick. Sedgewick was the lawyer who represented Elizabeth Freeman (Mumbet) in her suit for freedom. One day, a self-emancipated woman, Jane Darby (or Darbe), came to Sedgewick to ask him to help her to gain her legal freedom from her enslaver, a Mr. Ingersoll (possibly from Lenox, MA). Sedgwick negotiated with Ingersoll, and after Darby was free she and Hull got married. They had three children who survived to adulthood, Charlotte, James, and Aseph (possibly named for Hull’s brother Asaph). Hull was the father of two other children who passed away. At some point in the early 19th century, Jane Darby Hull died.

In the year 1800, Hull was the largest Black landowner in Stockbridge. After his first wife’s death, Hull remarried Margaret Timbrook (or Timbroke), commonly called Peggy, in 1813. Timbrook was born in Newport, Rhode Island in 1789. An account from one of her descendants states that as a baby she was abandoned by a man who had initially sought to drown her. Timbrook was a gifted chef, specializing in root beer and gingerbread, and she made the wedding cakes for many in Stockbridge. The couple adopted a daughter named Mary Tilden, who was the biological daughter of a self-emancipated person from New York. ​ Hull had to sell off some of his land in the 1830s, but was still a fixture of Stockbridge society, known for being witty and charming. He loved children and took on the role of an elder for many young people in his neighborhood and kept up relationships with the children and grandchildren of the soldiers he served with. Hull was a storyteller, who would retell tales from the Revolution and show off objects that he retained from his service. (Much of this is gleaned from Friends of Liberty by Gary Nash, Graham Russell, and Gao Hodges).