Philemon Lee

Warning Out

To give background, “warnings out” or cautions were devices by which the board of selectmen controlled residency in the location the selectmen administered. The selectmen often did not give a reason in the text of their ruling, but the stated purpose of warnings out in general was to remove non-residents who required public support due to their economic circumstances. Officially, these warnings could only be given to people who were not residents of the given location. Unofficially, the warning-out policy was used even against people of color who were lawful residents of New England towns. In her book Unwelcome Americans: Living on the Margin in Early New England, Ruth Wallis Herndon recounts instances in the 1780s and ’90s where officials in Rhode Island making up warrants for warning out asked for lists of non-residents who had a reason to be warned out, and lists of people in town who were persons of color, regardless of whether or not they were residents.

Residency could be established in four ways:

Being born in the town
Serving out an apprenticeship or term of indenture there (This may also have been applied to enslaved persons.)
Owning property in the town
Marrying a man who was a resident in the town (At the time, this option was only open to women.)

Non-residents could live in towns for years without being warned out, but unless they fit one of the above criteria, no amount of time living within town limits would establish residency. If a non-resident’s circumstances changed (they got older and required care, became pregnant and were unemployed or unmarried, or were injured and required long-term medical attention), they could be warned out at any point.

A non-resident also could be warned out if their neighbors complained about their general behavior. This opened the door for already marginalized people to be expelled from New England towns.

Philemon’s Case

On June 18, 1766, a warrant was filed for Lee to be warned out of Northampton. This warrant was recorded in court records on August 26: “the following were warned to depart out of the said Town by Abner Barnard Constable to wit Philemon Lee on the fifth…and the said Abner certifies that Philemon Lee came here from Simsbury in Connecticut…” (Hampshire Council of Governments records, vol. 10, p. 6).
Lee refused to leave Northampton, despite being warned out. Since he had not left by April of 1767, the town had him removed from Northampton on April 27 of that year and taken back to Simsbury. (The large gap between warning him to leave and removing him would not have been that unusual, since in some places warnings out were handled only once annually.)

On May 1, 1767, Lee returned to Northampton. The selectmen of Northampton convened legal proceedings against him again. Because he had returned after being warned out, on August 18, 1767, they sent Lee to jail in Springfield, where he was kept for one week before being released on August 25, 1767, with his promise that he would never again return to Northampton.

On September 1, 1767, just one week later, Lee returned to Northampton. The selectmen initiated legal proceedings against him again, and he was removed from Northampton and sent to jail in Springfield for a second time on November 10, 1767. During these proceedings, Lee expressed “a Design and an Intention of obtaining an estate in Land in the Said Town of Northampton” (Hampshire Council of Governments records, vol. 10, p. 69).

We do not know exactly when Lee began a relationship with Bathsheba Hull, a free Black woman who lived in Northampton, but we know that they were married by 1768, so that suggests that their relationship began sometime during or before he was in the process of being warned out of Northampton. This presents one reason why he would so consistently return to a place he had been legally expelled from: his family lived there. Residency laws meant that even though Bathsheba was a lawful resident of Northampton, her husband was not (had their positions been reversed, her marrying him would have gained her residency in whatever place he was living). We also do not know what role Lee would have had in Hull’s legal proceedings with the town of Northampton over the ownership of her house. For more on this, see the entry on Bathsheba Hull.

Lee was released from jail on May 17, 1768, and again promised not to return to Northampton (Hampshire Council of Governments records, vol. 10, p. 80). As far as we know, this time he did not return. On the same day, Bathsheba Hull and her daughter Margaret, were warned out of Springfield (Hampshire Council of Governments records, vol. 10, p. 81). Since Hull and her daughter relocated to Springfield in the month Lee was released, it could suggest that the two events were related. If they knew he was going to be released soon, Bathsheba and Margaret Hull could have come to Springfield to meet him and start their lives in a new place, either in Springfield or another city that would allow Lee to buy property and become a resident. Otherwise, if Hull’s situation in Northampton had deteriorated considerably after her eviction, she could have come to Springfield to petition for his release as a support for his family, since, as a man, he would have more avenues of employment open to him than she did.

In the case of Lee and his family, the usual excuse for warning out non-residents may not have been the real reason. That is, the stated purpose of cautions and warnings out was to remove non-residents who, for economic reasons, would rely on town funds. It was common in the first caution, which was very brief, not to mention any reason why people were being warned out, but Lee had multiple cases brought against him by the selectmen of Northampton that required hearings, and nowhere in those hearings did anyone mention that he required any town support. Indeed, the only documented statement by Lee was that he wanted to buy land in Northampton, implying that he was in a financial position to do so, which would mean he probably did not require town support. This suggests that the reason for his being warned out of Northampton may have been racially motivated, and that it was this exact desire for property ownership that led the selectmen to desire his removal.