Nancy Toney's portrait 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.
Celebrate Juneteenth this year like never before. Gather around the fire on grounds once walked by Windsor’s enslaved people to share in the dramatic reading of James Mars’ personal account of his life in 19th-century [...]
Windsor's George Turrer is remarkably well-represented in our archives. This rare collection of documentary footprints allows us to envision the activities of a Black man who was well-integrated into his primarily white hometown in the post-Revolutionary War period.
Since the Society’s two historic houses have been closed for the past year due to the COVID-19 pandemic, the staff has taken this opportunity to reinterpret the Dr. Hezekiah Chaffee House to more deeply [...]
The service of a doctor requires skill, understanding, patience, and knowledge. To become one after being torn from your family and forced into servitude for a man you know nothing of makes the already arduous feat exceptional. In the late 18th century, after years of enslavement Dr. Primus Manumit became Windsor’s first Black doctor.
They worked in the kitchen from dawn to dusk cooking, washing, and ironing. They emptied chamber pots every morning after sleeping in basements and attics. And they were supposed to be invisible whenever guests came calling. Who are ‘they’? They are the slaves of Windsor’s Chaffee family.