Hartford Courant du lieu suivant : Hartford, Connecticut • Page 137

Primus 20'x40' w6'diamspa 43'ofKccl-Deck TU' 18'x36V wtfdamspa w6'diamspci 43'ofKool-Declc A 3' fowl-Deck $17,900 $10,900 $19,900 life he was a porter in the Humphrey and Seyms grocery store on Main Street. By 1849, Primus had saved enough money to buy a home for his young family, a two-story frame house at 20 Wadsworth St On this score alone, he was a man of stature in the community: of the 716 black residents of Hartford in 1860, 35 owned property. From the same list of 35 came the officers in the two black churches and the members of the black Masonic society. They were the core of Hartford's black middle class. In the same year that he purchased his family home, Primus 1 KJ Financing You buy fence, electricity water LIFETIME WARRANTEE not to cracknot to leak $1,000 Rebate for February orders ($500 Rebate (or March orders) The Common Sense Pool Durham Avon SIMPLE mm AccrfcfTA ret? Builder 1 -800-851 -6645 Norwich Rldgefleld VALUE i.

at the Center Church and frequently serving as waiter and major domo at white society functions in Hartford. He acted as an employment broker, along with his wife, helping match black workers with prospective white employers. By no means well off, he nevertheless achieved a way of life unusual for blacks in his time. The probate listing made at the time of his death in 1884 shows that the family parlor, for example, contained a piano, carpet books, a looking glass, 10 pictures, an arm chair and five small chairs. He appeared to have no cash savings, but his estate was valued at $3,924.68.

In 19th-century America, any black who managed to buy a home and maintain a middle-class standard of living, as Primus did, had to be industrious, thrifty and reasonably lucky. Highly paid, skilled jobs were not open to blacks, and job security was unknown, but Primus's personal qualities enabled him to maintain a 40-year association with the same firm. Known among blacks and whites as a wise and honest man, he held offices in theTalcott Street Congregational Church, of which he was a founding member, and the Prince Masons. Energetic and ambitious, he worked extra jobs all his life. His unmarried children lived at home and no doubt contributed to the family income.

His wife ran a business of her own. Mehitable Primus, the former Mehitable Jacobs, was the daughter of the first free black man to settle in Hartford. That distinction, along with ownership of his shop, made Jeremiah Jacobs, cobbler, a respected member of the black community, and accounts for Rebecca's light-hearted reference to her mother's family in one of the letters as "venerable and famous." Mehitable was as industrious and as much admired as her husband. She cared for her children; kept chickens; raised flowers, vegetables and fruit; and trained domestic workers in her home. All this was aside from her dressmaking business, which extended to hiring other women to do sewing at home.

Rebecca's sisters, Henrietta and Isabel, were less gifted than she, and Henrietta, especially, seemed to feel herself in Rebecca's shadow, boarding out even in her early teens rather than living at home. Nelson, meanwhile, won prizes for drawing at an early age, Contimwd on next page Continued from page 12 dress immaculate, face shining: she already knew her letters. If Mrs. Pennington asked a question, Rebecca's hand was in the ah- the pupil all teachers pray for. Here was a student who could herself someday become a an occution that com- manded universal respect I Rebecca rose eagerly to the.

i academic challenges the Penning-i tons offered, and along with her I lessons absorbed their belief in the importance of securing justice i and equality for blacks. The Rev. '( Pennington was a fugitive slave whose freedom was purchased by I John Hooker of Hartford, hus- band of Isabella Beecher. A na-I tionally known lecturer, Penning-I ton urged his congregation to take 1 part in the movement for racial up- lift. As a youngster, Rebecca un- doubtedly heard abolition, colo- nization (emigration to Liberia or other states governed by blacks) and the search for justice debated I in church, in school, and at home.

I Her response was to cultivate in I herself the qualities that would demonstrate the worthiness of blacks for full citizenship. encouraged Dy ner lamny ana 1 1 1 spuireu uy ner own ueuicauoii, Rebecca did become a teacher, al-i though we have no information about where she was trained or where she taught She was not listed as instructor at either of Hartford's African Schools, but letters from her friend Addie Brown in leoi ana ieoz reier to ner Keeping a private school. Addie wished she was a schoolgirl again so she could attend. By the time she was 25, then, Rebecca was a teacher. Literate, principled, well-spoken, proud, she represented the culmination of decades of hard work and determination on the part of blacks in Hartford, virtually all of whose forebears had been brought to New England in chains.

Her father, Holdridge, may have been the single most important black individual in the city. Grandson of a slave who had earned his freedom by serving in the Revolutionary War, Primus arrived in Hartford from Guilford in 1827 at the age of 12 and became a servant to the Ellsworth family. He was taken along to Washington when William Ellsworth, later governor of the slate, served in Congress (1829-33), but for most of his adult if i If." and maintai as to nous. and reasonably lucky. set out for California and the Gold Rush in the great adventure of his life.

The "Humphrey" of Humphrey and Seyms had a son who wanted to join the prospecting expedition of the Hartford-based Warburton Mining and Trading and his father would allow it only if Primus became a member of the party. Although it meant leaving his wife and children behind, Holdridge agreed to go as company cook. When the dreams of gold inevitably dissipated and the company collapsed, he found work with the Adams Express Co. in San Francisco. The white members of the party straggled back to Hartford poorer than when they left, and Primus returned with a gold medal from Adams Express for faithful service.

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