Editor’s note: This story has been continued from the April 7 edition of The Ledger-Transcript.
Pomp was 16 when he became part of the Wilton contingent sent to fight in the Battle of Bennington. Several years after he was discharged, he was finally free. He acquired 30 acres of land and livestock in what was then known as Packersfield, now Nelson, N.H., and in 1788 he married his once enslaved wife, Margaret (Peggy) Cut. Their two sons, Peter and Zadock, were born in Packersfield. An interesting side note is that his commanding officer, now General Moses Nichols, of Amherst, married Pomp and Peggy. They became the only Black family in the Packersfield/Nelson community. Judy learned that Peggy sang in the church choir and Pomp, a skilled blacksmith, played the fiddle.
The genealogies of Wilton’s Russell, Abbot and Holt families were keys to unlocking Judy’s discoveries. Weld, Maine records also revealed that seven of Pomp’s 10 siblings and their spouses were among the earliest to follow Wilton’s Jacob Abbot’s suggestion — to settle Plantation No. 5, now Weld, Maine, starting in the late 1790s. These Wilton, NH young people moved as a group to found a new settlement. Mere survival was a challenge; the strong relationships and skills of these men and women were needed to successfully build a new community. It was the norm at a time when large, trusted, interdependent groups of young men and women moved, cleared land, built houses and churches and shared their lives in new communities.
While growing up in Andover, Mass., and Wilton, Pomp would have been known as the enslaved servant to his Russell siblings’ parents. Meanwhile, Pomp’s role with his siblings appeared different. He was their eldest brother, uncle to their children, and soldier of the Revolution when living in Wilton. The extended Russell family, Pomp’s kith and kin, stayed together as a unit throughout their lives, across three generations. Pomp is also remembered as an important community member in Weld, Maine, where he moved with Peggy, Peter, and Zadock in 1805 after his brothers offered land, a house and safety for him and his family. His presence seems to have had a powerful influence on both his family and the broader Weld community. A few of his closest siblings and friends became early leaders in our country’s anti-slavery movement from its beginnings in 1834. Men and women who knew Pomp and his family formed anti-slavery societies and wrote Congress numerous petitions stating their opposition.
Judy’s latest discovery happened in the Historical Society’s rooms above the Wilton library. She had known that some of Pomp’s sisters and friends had joined their husbands’ efforts to end slavery in Weld, Farmington and Temple, Maine by starting anti-slavery societies in those towns. When Judy shared the involvement of these early Wilton-to-Weld families with Marcia Potter, to her surprise, Marcia showed her an old notebook that had been gifted to the Society.
When Judy saw it, she said, “I realized what I was seeing, the type of record often searched for but rarely found.”
This small, pristine notebook was the record of the Wilton, N.H., Female Anti-Slavery Society; the first pages were their Constitution, and the recording of their meeting minutes. Even more important, it contained names, the signatures of 40 women from Wilton who were willing to stand up for justice.
Just as Pomp Russell’s story was lost to history, the correspondence of women is often overlooked, people seeing them as personal records rather than Town Records. Fortunately for Wilton, it was saved and now is part of Wilton’s historical record. Of the 40 names in this booklet, over half were Abbots/Abbotts.
What startled Judy was when she realized these Abbot/Abbott, Frye, Gray and other families, their parents and grandparents, could have known Pomp Russell, from his enslavement at birth in Massachusetts, to his adolescence into adulthood in Wilton, as a soldier, blacksmith and family friend.
Judy added, “What I realized was that just as the Russell family was part of the group of Abbots/Abbotts, Holts and others that relocated to Wilton in search of land, these same families were connected to Pomp from his earliest days as part of their large community. It is those names that fill the roles of one of the first anti-slavery societies to exist in this country. It is apparent that Pomp’s character and skill as a blacksmith and talent as a musician were valued and trusted, and slavery made little sense to those whose goals were based upon working for the common good of all.”
“The decision of the younger members of these Wilton families, particularly the Abbots/Abbotts and Russells, to move from Wilton to acquire land for their growing families in Maine, along with Pomp and his wife later in 1805, was probably the reason for the Farmington and Weld anti-slavery societies to form. But records such as those found in Wilton have not yet been uncovered in these Maine communities. We only know that the men and women of these families were known for their strong anti-slavery beliefs.”
Judy is filled with stories. One final question you may ask is, “Why did all these young men and women move as far north as Weld, Temple, Wilton and Farmington, Maine?” That has to do with another important connection that starts with the location of the warehouses on the Kennebec River and the need for a road to be cut through the wilderness to deliver goods from the Kennebec to New Hampshire and Vermont customers.
Jacob Abbot, the father of Lydia who married Thomas Russell Jr., offered to take on this task and was able to cut through deep wilderness to create the Great Coos Road in record time. While doing this, he learned that Jonathan Philips, who he had known from Andover, had acquired 196,000 acres of land in the Weld and surrounding areas. Philips asked Jacob Abbot to sell the land. Jacob knew the Weld land was good, set in the mountains, with abundant water below, so he encouraged his friends and family to settle homesteads for themselves.
At the same time, some of the younger men in this group had had a falling out with the minister of their church and were ready to move out on their own. This was a timely offer they grabbed onto. Pomp was added later to this mix with an offer of land and a house. His place would be with his large, extended family, where he would contribute his skills and his family would be safe. Judy says we still do not know Pomp’s death date, but he was buried on Center Hill in Weld, Maine by 1838. And best of all, he is buried in his own family plot, something rare for a Black family of the times.
In the meantime, Judy is still in search of more information that will fill in gaps and tie things even more closely together. She would be happy to hear from anyone who may have information for her on any of the Russell or Abbot/Abbott families who tie in with this story or any group who would like to hear this story in person. Her email is judithgranger@comcast.net or telephone 802-223-1396.