Lydia Hill

On April 8, 1770, Lydia Hill was admitted to church membership in Northampton. She was described as a “negro.” The inclusion of a last name suggests that she was a free person at this time (First Church of Christ Records, section 2, p. 10).

Lydia Hill is named in a court record from 1778 summarized in the Judd manuscript: “Lydia Hill, negro + her children on the town 1775. Matthew Phelps paid for 3 quarts + part of room 3/6…John Wright’s wife as midwife 6/. She died 1778. Elisha Pay as charged 35/ a week for keeping her…+c 60/week. He paid on coffin 36/. 3 pts…27/. 1 Sugar 6// one old sheet 20/. pt honey 4/“ (Judd manuscript, Northampton vol. 3 p. 79).

This record documents town expenses for Hill and her children. The fact that the town was involved in these expenses confirms that Hill was a free woman. Such costs give just a few details of her life: she had children and gave birth to at least one while the town was contributing to her expenses. This document also tells us that Hill died in 1778. It is possible, since it mentions that there was a weekly cost for caring for her while she was sick, that she died from a prolonged illness, perhaps the same illness that caused her to need the town’s aid in the first place.

During the mid-18th century, the laws regarding the poor in Massachusetts were rewritten, and it was required that towns provide “care” or “effective care” for residents deemed to fall into certain categories by either overseers of the poor or by selectmen. If a town denied someone who deserved aid, that town could be fined (“The Transformation of the Law of Poverty in Eighteenth-Century Massachusetts” by Douglas Lamar Jones). For more on town support, see the entry for Philemon Lee.

It is possible that Hill was the mother of Paul, a boy who was indentured as a child in Southampton, but the indenture paperwork does not give a surname. (See entry for Paul).