Nancy and Toney, Part 1

Record of Nancy’s birth, Fairfield First Congregational Church record book. It reads: “Anna daughter of Toney and Nanny – a Negro child offered by Andrew Eliot – baptized November 27th 1774”. Courtesy of Fairfield Museum and History Center.

Many reading this will be familiar with Nancy Toney. We have long interpreted her life at the Windsor Historical Society. Her picture hangs in Chaffee House, where we talk about her connection to the site, her time in town, and her status as one of the last people enslaved in Connecticut. Recently, new information on Nancy and her family has surfaced. This new knowledge fills in missing years and places much of what we’ve known about Nancy into a new context.

This is a story about Nancy, her father Toney, and a bid for freedom.

We do not know where Toney was born, nor who his parents were. What we do know is that as a young man, Toney was enslaved by Deacon Jeremiah Sherwood in the Greens Farms section of Fairfield, Connecticut. There he met Nanny, who was enslaved by Reverend Andrew Eliot, also of Fairfield. In December of 1770, Toney and Nanny had their first child, a boy named after his father. Evidence suggests that baby Toney did not live long. The 1775 church records note that “Negro child Toney” is “dangerously sick”. While there is no record of his death, no further records on little Toney have been found. In November of 1774, Anna, later known as Nancy, was born. Three months later, her parents were married by Nanny’s enslaver, Rev. Eliot. Finally, in June 1776, Nanny and Toney’s youngest, Flora, was born.^{1 2}

The family was complete, but it does not appear that they lived together. In all of these records, Toney was recorded as belonging to Jeremiah Sherwood while Nanny was enslaved by Rev. Eliot. When little Toney was sick, the people who reported this to the church were Jonathan and Deborah Sturges, suggesting that he lived in a different household than either of his parents. It is impossible to say where Nancy and Flora lived at that point. Barely more than babies, they might still have lived with their mother at Rev. Eliot’s, or they too might have lived with other families.

Toney’s enslaver, Jeremiah Sherwood, died in 1777. While no will has been uncovered, accounts suggest that Toney was given to Job Bartram, also of Fairfield.³ It was there that Toney spent the next two years until the morning of July 7, 1779. On that day, in midst of the American Revolution, over 2,000 British soldiers landed on Fairfield’s beach.

Nanny’s enslaver, Rev. Eliot, wrote a letter to his brother after the raid describing what he saw:

“The approach of the fleet was so sudden that but few men could be collected, though the alarm guns were fired immediately…There was no thought of opposing their landing, as our force was nothing to theirs…

The burning-parties carried on their business with horrible alacrity…All the town, from the bridge by Col. Gold’s to the Mill River, a few houses excepted, was a heap of ruins…

Many were killed on both sides. The numbers cannot be ascertained. They carried off some prisoners…The distress of these poor people is inexpressible!” ⁴

Rev. Eliot said a lot about the burning of Fairfield in this letter and in later sermons, but he failed to mention two things important to our story. The first was that his house was among those burned down in the attack. Neighbors noted that the only thing saved from the reverend’s home was the church record book, the same book that recorded the marriage of Toney and Nanny and the births of their children. The second thing he failed to mention was what became of Nanny.
It is perhaps safe to say that all of the reverend’s household made it out of the raid safely. His wife and children certainly survived, and although we have no records of Nanny by name after the burning of Fairfield, Rev. Eliot’s entry in the 1790 census shows that there were three enslaved people living in his house. One could have been Nanny.

But what about the rest of the family— Toney, Nancy, and Flora? To answer that, we must look to the British.

By the American Revolution, slavery was largely illegal within the United Kingdom. This ruling did not extend to the American or Caribbean colonies, but there was hope that one day it might. There was also a general notion that most enslaved people were not going to gain anything from this War of Independence because the independence being fought for was not for them. Although some individual men were promised freedom in return for their service, most knew that their status would remain unchanged when the fighting was done. The British knew this.

In need of more troops to fight the Patriot army, Lord Dunmore, the royal governor of Virginia, issued a proclamation on November 14, 1775 offering freedom to “all indented Servants, Negroes, or others…that are able and willing to bear Arms.” Over the following years, the British extended this promise twice more, expanding its reach each time.^{5 6} The message was clear: join the British, gain your freedom.

Estimates vary widely, but it is believed that between 80,000-100,000 enslaved individuals escaped slavery after these proclamations.⁷ Many joined the British Army; even more became camp followers. Most did not join but escaped when they saw the British troops coming. The post-Dunmore Proclamation wave was the largest instance of enslaved individuals claiming freedom until the issuance of the Emancipation Proclamation in 1863.⁸

Now back to July 7th, 1779. Fairfield was burning. The town was in chaos. The British Army was there. At some point in the raid, Job Bartram was shot.⁹ And Toney saw an opportunity. He grabbed his daughters, Nancy and Flora, and joined the British Army.

Anthony Bartram’s name as it appears in various documents

Toney, then going by Anthony Bartram, appeared in several British documents after his escape from Fairfield. We do not know how much say Anthony had in his new last name. As an enslaved individual, he had not had one during his time in Fairfield. Most enslaved people didn’t. This was one of the many ways that the institution of slavery drew lines of power between the enslaved and the enslavers. To have a last name is to be seen by society as a full person, a person of social and political merit. When he joined the British, Toney was given the last name of his most recent enslaver, Job Bartram. This was the standard of the British Army; almost everyone who joined them in order to escape slavery was given a last name in this vein.¹⁰

While on one hand, this might not have been the name Anthony would have elected if given the choice, it does serve as an indicator that for the first time in his life, the law saw him a full and free person, not a slave. It is also the name that he kept for the rest of his life, despite the opportunity to change it across the decades. As such, for the rest of this paper, we will refer to him as ‘Bartram’, as is the academic convention.

The documents concerning Anthony Bartram’s time with the British allude to him serving under Captain Nathaniel Hubbell, Loyalist from Fairfield County. Hubbell oversaw the British Armed Boat Company, a series of former whaling ships in the Long Island Sound, from 1781-1783. He and his crew carried out attacks, raids, and caused general chaos along the Connecticut shoreline throughout the war.^{11 12} While we cannot know for sure that Bartram was part of Hubbell’s crew, as there is no complete roster,¹³ we do know that Capt. Hubbell’s crews were comprised of both white and Black men,^{14 1516}that they conducted raids at Compo Beach, near Green Farms where Bartram had formally lived,¹⁷ and that the two men knew each other.¹⁸ With this in mind, it seems likely that Bartram worked on these ships during his tenure with the British.

Peace negotiations for the end of the Revolutionary War began in Paris in April 1782, but were not signed until September of 1783. During this time, Loyalists gathered in New York City. New York had been a British stronghold throughout the war, and as the fighting came to an end, it became a final safe haven. The protection New York offered was particularly important for the nearly 4,000 Black Loyalists living there because one of the greatest sticking points in the Treaty of Paris regarded them. General George Washington and his party were determined that the British return all stolen property, including enslaved people. British Commander in Chief Guy Carleton disagreed. He noted that a return to slavery would be a poor reward for their years of service, not to mention a broken promise.¹⁹

Birch Certificate for Cato Rammsay. Courtesy of the Nova Scotia Archives.

Thus, Carleton decreed that any formerly enslaved person who had joined the British cause by 1782 would be granted a certificate from General Birch. These Birch Certificates would serve as an indication of freedom, a guarantee of protection from the British Army, and serve as a pass to the British colony of Nova Scotia, where freedom seekers would be out of the reach of those who wished to re-enslave them. Not only that, but Carleton guaranteed that the Black Loyalists would be paid by the British Army until they could depart in November. Then, once in Nova Scotia, they would be given 20 acres each for their service.²⁰

The Patriots were not happy about this. As the negotiations continued, slave catchers entered New York City by the thousands. In April of 1782, the Hessian officer Carl Leopold Baurmeister estimated that “almost five thousand persons have come into this city to take possession again of their former property”.²¹ During this time, many were kidnapped. Some were saved by British officers, others were not. And as the year went by and the British hold on New York grew weaker, so did their power to reinforce these protections.

Both Anthony Bartram and Capt. Hubbell were among the Loyalists waiting in New York City for their turn to sail to Nova Scotia. Although we do not have the exact dates of their arrival, we know that by May 28th of 1783, Capt. Hubbell had retired from the Armed Boat Company and moved to New York City. He appears on that date in Loyalist Sarah Frost’s diary.²²

We know Bartram was there by May as well because on May 30th he submitted a report to the British Army Commission. His 8-year-old daughter, Nancy, had been kidnapped. She was being held by Loyalist merchant, Henry Rogers, who intended to sell her back to her former enslaver. Bartram had the law on his side when he went for help. Capt. Hubbell certified to the commission that Bartram and his daughters came together over British lines in July of 1779. This confirmed that they were entitled to British protection. The Commission also determined that Rogers had no legal claim to Nancy, as he had not been her enslaver. The evidence was clear. The commission ordered Rogers to let Nancy go. It appears he did not.²³

Anthony Bartram case file. Courtesy of the Nova Scotia Archives.

We do not know what measures the British Army took to help Bartram get his daughter back. We do not know what Rogers did to elude them. We do know that Nancy ended up back in Fairfield, Connecticut in the possession of the Bradley family. The mother, Abigail Bradley, was the sister of Jeremiah Sherwood, the man who had enslaved Nancy’s father when Nancy was born.²⁴ Despite her father’s plea, and despite British support, Nancy ended up back in slavery. And on November 30, 1783, Anthony Bartram boarded the Brig Concord, alone, without either daughter, and left New York for Nova Scotia.^{25 26}

It is at this point the stories diverge. Three strands, once braided together, divide. We do not know what happened to Flora. No further record of her has been found. We do not know if she too was captured, or if Bartram, nervous about bringing a little girl into the Canadian wilderness, left her with someone he trusted. Or perhaps she had died, as many small children did, sometime during his service. We do, however, know what happened to both Nancy and Toney.

To find out the rest of their stories, check out Part 2 of this article.

This research was inspired by “Black Loyalist Refugees: Toney Escapes During the Burning of Fairfield,” by Alec Lurie published on ConnecticutHistory.org, September 2023, which brought the Anthony Bartrum case to the British to our attention.

By Heather Lodge, program manager, 2024

Footnotes