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Letters to the Herald

Inside view of free Black farmer’s life

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Born in Amwell Township, N.J., to a free Black mother, Jacob Francis lived 82 years in a world of change. He was caught in the rising tide of Revolution in the 1760s and 70s and served 14 months in the 16th Continental Army regiment, including at the Battle of Trenton, and then in the Third Hunterdon County militia regiment for over six years.
After starting work as a farmer, he married an enslaved woman named Mary and freed her. Together they raised nine children in the vicinity of Flemington during a period of interest in abolition.
The story of Jacob Francis and his family provides an inside view of life in New Jersey in the late 18th and early 19th centuries and the revolutionary changes affecting the lives of both free and enslaved Black people.
The Old Barracks Museum, a preserved building used during both the French and Indian War and the American Revolution, will host a lecture by historian Larry Kidder later this month.

The lecture is online, free to attend, and starts at 7 p.m. on Jan. 26. The talk focuses on Kidder’s new book, “The Revolutionary World of a Free Black Man: Jacob Francis, 1754-1836.”
Register at barracks.org.
Lauren Ronaghan, Old Barracks Museum

Trenton, N.J.


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