During Friday’s Amos Fortune Forum, Nora Suarez Lewis shared the stories of some of the state’s earliest Black citizens, as they have been compiled for the state’s Black Heritage Trail.

Lewis, a first-generation Cuban-American and the current development associate for the Black Heritage Trail of New Hampshire, spent her time at the podium outlining some of the characters that make up New Hampshire’s Black history – including Jaffrey’s own Amos Fortune and James Due of Hancock – and those that hold a place in the country’s Revolutionary history.

One of the stories she told was that of Prince Whipple, one of 20 men who had been born free in Africa and captured into slavery in Portsmouth, who had signed the 1779 Petition for Freedom submitted to the state’s Legislature.

Lewis said the measure was tabled in the Legislature, and as required, printed in the newspaper, but with the disclaimer that it was for “reader’s amusement.”

Ona Marie Judge Stains was a slave owned by Martha Washington. She was one of seven slaves owned by the Washingtons who stayed in the presidential home in Philadelphia, but would be sent periodically back to Mount Vernon to avoid being freed by a Pennsylvania emancipation law. Judge fled in 1796, as the Washingtons were preparing to return to Mount Vernon for the summer, after learning Martha Washington intended to give her as a gift to the Washingtons’ eldest granddaughter. With the help of abolitionist groups, she slipped away to Portsmouth, and eventually settled in Greenland, where she married Jack Staines, a free Black sailor, and had three children. She resisted multiple attempts to coax her back to the Washingtons or recapture her.

In her freedom, she was poor, considered a pauper by the time’s standards, but when asked during a newspaper interviewer if she regretted leaving the relative comforts of the presidential house for poverty, Judge replied, “No, I am free, and have, I trust, been made a child of God by the means.”

Lewis said it is important to remember and mark these stories, because it is too easy for the contributions of Black Americans to be lost to history.

One such instance was the story of George Blanchard of Milford. While living as a free man in Milford, he owned 72 acres of land and ran multiple businesses. He was a veteran of the Revolutionary War, and among his businesses were a barrel mill, a boarding house and a blacksmith shop. He also worked as the town veterinarian, as recorded in an early Milford history. But a later book of Milford history states that there was no veterinarians in town before 1899, even though previous histories state Blanchard moved to town as a veterinary surgeon in 1804 and the veterinary practice was handed to his son, Timothy Blanchard, when he was 20.

Lewis said the story shows the ease with which, within a generation, African-Americans and their stories can disappear from town records.

Sometimes, there is not much known about the early residents of New Hampshire towns such as Due.

“He must have been a remarkable person with a fascinating story, but we know almost nothing about him,” Lewis said.

What little is known about Due includes that he must have been a man of some means, as he was involved with 42 land transactions over the course of his life. When he died, Due gave the town 100 acres in western Hancock to support Jack Weare, a former slave and older man who had come to Hancock with Due.

These are some of the stories told on the Black Heritage Trail, which now includes stories from multiple New Hampshire towns. Lewis said the trail is working on creating an “outdoor virtual museum” with allows “anyone with a cellphone” to explore a more-diverse view of New Hampshire history.

“Without a shared history, society loses its memory of core values and past decisions, resulting in confusion and present issues. This is power in our history; this is American history,” Lewis said at the conclusion of her talk.

The Amos Fortune Forum is held every  Friday evening in the summer at 8 p.m. in the Jaffrey Meetinghouse. Talks are available online on the Amos Fortune Forum YouTube channel. The July 26 presentation is “Seeing Beyond Polarization” with Mark Beckwith.