POMP HENRY

Plaque location: 482 Hamburg Rd, Lyme Public Library

​

The life of Pomp Henry, enslaved by absentee landlord William Browne (1737-1802) from Salem, MA, has been variously documented, but only conjecture traces his early years. He could possibly be the “Negro Boy named Pomp” listed in the 1761 probate record of Nathan Jewett (1710-1761) who owned a large farm in North Lyme near Browne’s sprawling estate. Browne visited Jewett in 1754 and praised his “abundance of good land, cleared and well brought to, upon which grew the finest grass, wheat, and Indian corn, I have seen anywhere this year.” Jewett’s will distributed his “Negro Boy named Peter” to his daughter Mary Jewett (1743-1825) but did not specify the allocation of the child servant Pomp. Another conjecture is that Pomp Henry could be the Negro man Pomp who appears in a 1781 appraisal of Browne’s Colchester property, which was offered for sale two years later at the house of John Henry, one of the appraisers who purchased two large plots. Henry may have indentured Pomp who then took his surname during the term of service. Pomp is more likely the son of an enslaved Black mother and a Narragansett or Nehantic father in the Henry family in Charleston, RI. John Mumford, Sr. (1712-1796), who managed Browne’s estate in Connecticut for most of a decade, was from South Kingston, RI, where his family engaged in the slave trade. Mumford is thought to have supplied many of Browne’s enslaved workers after 1760, and Pomp at age about 13 may have labored for Mumford on Browne’s estate, later taking the Henry surname.

​

Runaway advertisements provide information about Pomp’s circumstances at age 23. John Mumford, Jr. (1740-1825), who lived in his father’s mansion house just north of the Salem-Lyme border, took over management of the Browne estate in about 1769. It was likely the younger Mumford who posted a notice in the New London Gazette on April 27, 1770, for a runaway called Sambo, a “Negro Man.” Sambo, later identified as Pomp, wore a “lightish colour’d Kersey Jacket and breeches, striped Flannel under Vester, white Flannel Shirt, and dark grey Stockings.” Mumford offered a reward of three dollars for Sambo’s return to him in Lyme.

​

Two years later a “negro man named Pomp, about 25 years old” ran away from a relative of William Browne’s in Stockbridge, MA. Samuel Browne, Jr. (1727-1792), who likely had obtained a lease from Mumford for the former fugitive, posted a notice in the Connecticut Courant on September 29, 1772, describing Pomp as “a thick set fellow, about 5 feet 6 inches high.” The advertisement states that Pomp “speaks quick broken English” and “has lost the first joint of his right thumb.” He had on when he went away “a mix’d colour’d blue & red homemade coat, lined with blue shalloon, with mettle battens,” a pair of buckskin breeches, a pair of buckles, and a “flower’d and somewhat worn” felt hat. Browne offered a reward of five dollars to “whoever will take up said negro, and return him to his master.”

​

When Pomp ran away again in Stockbridge two years later, Browne published advertisements in three states for his return. In the Newport Mercury on November 7, 1774, he offered a reward of six dollars, identifying the runaway as a “Negro man Servant,” about 27 years old, “formerly own’d by Col. Brown of Salem, and liv’d with Mr. John Mumford of Colchester, where he was call’d by the Name of SAMBO, but since by the Name of POMP.” The notice states that Pomp spoke “quick, and something broken English, can talk some Dutch.”

​

Additional details appear in subsequent notices. The advertisement for Pomp’s return in the Massachusetts Gazette on November 17, 1774, notes that the runaway was “an indentured servant for six years.” A Connecticut Gazette advertisement on December 2, 1774, specifies that Pomp had “a Fillon on one Thumb and the Nail grows quite over the end of the Thumb” and notes that he wore “a yellow lac’d Hat, white Shirt, red and blue mixt homemade Coat, and new buckskin Breeches.” The latter item, together with other colorful clothing, suggests that Pomp, although identified as “Negro” and later described as “very black,” had Native heritage.

​

Two years later Pomp was in Connecticut when Samuel Dorrance, Jr. (1745-1795) of Voluntown offered a three-dollar reward in 1776 for his capture. A notice in the Norwich Packet on June 17 advertised for “one SAMBO, a Negro fellow, formerly belonging to Col. William Brown of Salem; was last Year a Soldier at Newport; he is very black, something short, talks very broken.” The notice states that Sambo had “his Wool cut off the Top of his Head” and wore a “Felt Hat, cut very beauish.” Dorrance accused Sambo of stealing multiple articles of clothing, including a mixed gray coat, dark-colored vest, two “Holland shirts,” a pair of white thread stockings, a scarlet broadcloth coat, and a blue cotton velvet jacket, along with a pocketbook containing three “Notes of Hand.”

​

Pomp married in about 1777 Betsy Rodman, daughter of Abiatha Rodman of South Kingston, identified as an “Indian man.” For the next decade Pomp’s circumstances have not been traced, and no manumission document has been found. He and Betsy had a son, born in Lyme in 1787, whom they named Abiather Rodman Henry, and Pomp was apparently free by 1790 when he is listed as “Negro Pomp” in the Lyme census with seven in his household. He may have been indentured for a few years in Waterford to Nathaniel Shaw Woodbridge (1771-1797), whose probate documents in 1797 include “an agreement with Pomp . . . to give him, when his time was out, a mare, a cow, ten sheep and a yoke of Oxen.” Three years later in 1800 the Lyme census lists Pomp Henry with five in his household.

​

Unlike Prince Brown, also enslaved on William Browne’s estate, Pomp Henry never owned land, and the town of Lyme petitioned the state twice for his financial support. A selectmen’s letter in 1798 noted that after the confiscation of William Browne’s estate, those whom he had enslaved were “reduced to want and distress . . . specially a family consisting of five in number ‘that hath of late been confined by sickness for a great length of time, to the expense of the town twenty dollars.” When the General Assembly approved the town’s request, it resolved that “said slaves viz Pomp Henry so called his wife Betsey Sally Hannah Levi & Abiather Children of the said Pomp be considered as the Pauper of this State & be supported accordingly.” Multiple records show ongoing payments for the care of Pomp Henry and his family, and Lyme’s selectmen petitioned again in 1815 for support for “Pomp Henry a black man now residing in said Town of Lyme,” formerly a “servant and slave for life of one William Brown,” who had become “poor infirm, and unable to support himself.”

​

Pomp Henry died in May 1823 at about age 76. A carved rectangular stone with the initials PH and two heart-shaped symbols marks his likely burying place not far from the former Mumford house and close to the Salem-Lyme border. Those who placed the gravestone are not known, but the engravings suggest both the West African symbol Sankofa that conveys the importance of retrieving and commemorating the past and the heart-shaped symbol carved on Native ceremonial beads.

​