PHYLLIS

Plaque location: 12 McCurdy Road, Duck River Cemetery

 

Only one record documents Phyllis’s passage through Lyme. A New London County Superior Court inquest found that the “Negro woman servant to Archibald Starr Greenfield of Lyme” died on January 28, 1758, because “she had been poorly provided with proper clothing and bedding in freezing weather.” In 1758 Greenfield, a mariner, and his wife Sarah had three young children, whom Phyllis likely attended. Why she was denied warm clothing in the depths of winter and allowed to die of exposure has not been discovered. Land records describe Greenfield as owning a “mansion house” on Mile Creek Hill. Whether that is the same dwelling as the so-called Greenfield house standing today on Johnnycake Hill Road, said to have been built in 1690, is not known.