BOSTON

Plaque location: 482 Hamburg Rd, Lyme Public Library

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Boston’s life in Lyme can be glimpsed only through runaway notices. Enslaved by Ezra Selden (1727-1814), he fled in 1763 at age about 28. The notice that Selden posted in the New-London Summary on August 26 notes that Boston was “pretty Small, hath some Scars of the Small Pox about his Nose.” The advertisement notes also that Boston was wearing “nothing but a Check Wollen Shirt, a short stone-grey plain Cloth Dublit or jacket, without any Sleves or Buttons, a pair of short Trowsers, no Hatt, Cap, Stockings or Shoes, but may have pick’d up some since.” Selden offered a reward of 20 pounds to anyone who “will take up said Negro, and secure him, or bring him to his said Master.”

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An advertisement in the Connecticut Gazette eight years later on August 10, 1771, states that Boston, a “Negro slave,” had escaped from Caleb Humastun (1715-1776) of Waterbury on August 1 and again on August 9 “after being taken at Lyme.” Boston was then “about 35 years of age, being a Negro man that was formerly owned by Mr. Ezra Selden, of Lyme.” Humaston described the fugitive as a “short well built fellow” who “hath had the small pox, and hath lost one of his fore teeth.” Boston “had on a pair of short trowsers and a check’d linen shirt” when he fled, and he “was hand cuff’d.”

Humaston further described Boston as “pretty talkative, flattering, and will tell any story to deceive, so as to prevent being secured.” Anyone who “shall take up said Negro, and confine him in any of his Majesty’s goals, or secure him so as his master may have him again, shall receive THREE DOLLARS reward.” If Boston was taken in the town of Lyme, he could be delivered “to the custody of said Selden.” In a different version of the runaway notice, Humaston stated that Boston had escaped wearing “a pair of iron handcuffs which he may have got off.”

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Whether Boston was “secured” in Lyme after his third escape or returned to his Waterbury owner is not known. Humaston’s estate inventory in 1777, preserved by the Mattatuck Museum, lists “a negro man named mingo” appraised at 42 pounds and “a negro girl calld Silve” appraised at 20 pounds. Boston’s name does not appear.

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