The Underground Railroad in Connecticut

11. Middletown, a Way Station

C H A P T E R 11 MIDDLETOWN, A WAY STATION IN THE decade before the Civil War, Middletown presented a peaceful scene of horse-drawn vehicles rolling along the tree-lined streets. It was not unusual to see a Negro hackman quietly speaking to his team as they climbed the slope toward Wesleyan University's brownstone buildings, or a Negro laborer working with pick and shovel on the right of way of the New York and Boston Rail Road, then under construction. Generally, however, a decent living did not come easily to these people just emerging from slavery, among whom were not a few fugitives from Southern bondage. In 1850, most of the 149 Negroes in the city were seamen, laborers, or—unfortunately —paupers, though one had an estate valued at $2000.1 There had been something of a Negro population in Middletown since 1661, a decade or so after the first settlement, when sea captains brought a few African slaves from Barbados and sold them at auction. The slave trade never became as important here as it was in New London, Boston, and some other ports; but it is recorded that John Bannister, Newport merchant, was pleased in 1752 to MIDDLETOWX, A WAY STATION 151 find Middletown purchasers for "the finest cargo of Negro men, women, and boys ever imported into New England." 2 The number of slaves had risen by 1756 from its original handful to 218 in a total population of 5664. Middletown then ranked third among Connecticut towns in Negro inhabitants, but hardly anyone at that time "held more than two slaves." 3 If one of these bondsmen was sold, the purchaser was likely to be someone in a nearby town or in Middletown itself. In 1777 Joseph Stocking signed a document that transferred ownership of one Silvia to George Wyllys:4 Know all men by these presents that I Joseph Stocking of Middletown in the County of Hartford and State of Connecticut for the Consideration of Thirty Pounds lawful Money received to my full satisfaction of George Wyllys Esquire of Hartford in the County aforesaid do give grant Bargain and sell & convey and deliver to the said George Wyllys Esqr his Heirs and Assigns a certain Negro woman slave name Silvia of the Age of twenty three years. At about the same time a colored woman named Pegg was sold by Theophilus Woodbridge of Middletown to Benjamin Arnold of the same place. Arnold later brought suit against Woodbridge, claiming that the seller had represented the slave as enjoying the best of health, although he knew she suffered from epileptic fits. Arnold won the case in court, and an award of damages was upheld on appeal.5 Just as those who bought slaves were sometimes dissatisfied with their purchases, so the slaves wr eresometimes unhappy with their owners. One in Middletown went so far as to emasculate his master's son. This presented a legalistic puzzle for the Superior Court at Hartford, where the offender was brought to trial, "for there existed no law 151 152 The Underground Railroad in Connecticut covering such a crime." Finally the Court invoked the Mosaic injunction of "an eye for an eye and a tooth for a tooth." The slave was punished accordingly.6 Connecticut's laws for the gradual emancipation of slaves had taken full effect in Middletown by 1830. But many Negroes, although they had achieved freedom in a legal sense, were the victims of discrimination, living in a sort of half-caste status in the least desirable parts of the town. A Wesleyan University man, identified only by the initial "K," reported on this situation in 1840:7 One cold, bleak, November evening, I knocked at the door of a miserable block, in one of the darkest lanes in town, and enquiring for the person of whom I was in pursuit was directed up stairs, till reaching the attic, an emaciated colored female answered my summons, and welcomed, with the most grateful acknowledgements,my visit to her desolate home. There were a few expiring embers upon the hearth, over which two small children sat shivering. The furniture of the room consisted of a broken chair, an old chest, a straw pallet in one corner, and a much used family Bible. . . . I saw that I had interrupted her evening meal, and requested her to proceed without noticing me. She gathered her little ones around...