South Shore was haven for former slaves
Patriot Ledger: From all indications, James Tuttle was a pillar of Hingham’s small, thriving 19th century African-American community. Employed by a local shoe factory, he helped lead a drive to secure land and money for a small church the neighborhood built in 1873.
The Tuttles and their fellow families lived through momentous years. James and Henrietta Tuttle’s daughter was born 2 months before Abraham Lincoln was nominated for president. Their younger son was born 6 months after the Confederate attack on Fort Sumter and beginning of the Civil War. Yet their only remembrance is on local maps that identify the residential area around the High Street-Ward Street intersection as Tuttleville.
Far from the bondage of Southern slave states, Tuttleville was typical of countless now-forgotten black, working communities that could be found throughout the North. And it wasn’t the only one on the South Shore.
Parting Ways, close to the Kingston-Plymouth border, was founded after the Revolutionary War by four slaves who were freed after they fought in the Continental Army. In Norwell, Cuffey Hill, named for another freed slave, symbolizes the more than 100 blacks who worked at the Scituate shipyards in the 17th and 18th centuries, when the town included what is now Norwell.
Slavery was a fact of life in Massachusetts for 150 years, though it was never widespread. The institution was waning by the time state supreme court Judge William Cushing of Scituate effectively ruled slavery illegal in 1783.
Cato Howe was honorably discharged from Gen. George Washington’s army that same year after fighting at Valley Forge, Saratoga, Trenton and other campaigns. He probably enlisted as a free black, and in 1792 he petitioned the town of Plymouth as a veteran for farm land.
He was granted 93 acres at the edge of the Plymouth-Kingston line, a few hundred feet from the current location of Sacred Heart Elementary School, just off Route 80. He soon asked three freed slaves and fellow veterans to join him along with their families - Quamony Quash, Prince Goodwin and Plato Turner.
Together they founded the Colony of New Guinea. The settlement did not formally last beyond Howe’s death in 1824, but Plymouth never sold the land. The last descendants of the four men lived there until 1908.
Archaeological digs were conducted there in 1975 and 1976, and the first of repeated efforts to turn the acreage into a museum and historical site were launched about the same time. In 2009, town selectmen approved yet another project, with a 10-year deadline for the Parting Ways Museum nonprofit group to obtain construction permits and substantially complete the proposal.
Cuffey Hill in Norwell is a landmark to an equally old, looser-knit black community in Scituate. Freed slaves and their descendants worked at North River shipyards.
All that is known about the hill’s namesake is that he, too, was emancipated by his local owner and given land. By local tradition he and his sons developed a now-private road and stone wall at the site, a quarter mile north of Mount Blue Street.
Tuttleville appears to be the South Shore’s longest-lived, most cohesive black community of the time, with a dozen or so families - most notably the Tuttles and Simpsons. James Tuttle was born there in 1834. His descendant Marion Teague still lives in the neighborhood, in an 1850s-era house once owned by James Tuttle’s younger son Edward.
Teague says most of the men of the community worked in the shoe factories. “That was the thing to do,” she said. “And they farmed.”
From her research, Teague says the building of the Free Christian Mission was one of the community’s most important projects. Now a dentist’s office, the building has come to symbolize the end of Tuttleville.
“They were here for four generations,” Teague said. “Then they moved away, like people do.”
Lane Lambert may be reached at llambert@ledger.com.
The Tuttles and their fellow families lived through momentous years. James and Henrietta Tuttle’s daughter was born 2 months before Abraham Lincoln was nominated for president. Their younger son was born 6 months after the Confederate attack on Fort Sumter and beginning of the Civil War. Yet their only remembrance is on local maps that identify the residential area around the High Street-Ward Street intersection as Tuttleville.
Far from the bondage of Southern slave states, Tuttleville was typical of countless now-forgotten black, working communities that could be found throughout the North. And it wasn’t the only one on the South Shore.
Parting Ways, close to the Kingston-Plymouth border, was founded after the Revolutionary War by four slaves who were freed after they fought in the Continental Army. In Norwell, Cuffey Hill, named for another freed slave, symbolizes the more than 100 blacks who worked at the Scituate shipyards in the 17th and 18th centuries, when the town included what is now Norwell.
Slavery was a fact of life in Massachusetts for 150 years, though it was never widespread. The institution was waning by the time state supreme court Judge William Cushing of Scituate effectively ruled slavery illegal in 1783.
Cato Howe was honorably discharged from Gen. George Washington’s army that same year after fighting at Valley Forge, Saratoga, Trenton and other campaigns. He probably enlisted as a free black, and in 1792 he petitioned the town of Plymouth as a veteran for farm land.
He was granted 93 acres at the edge of the Plymouth-Kingston line, a few hundred feet from the current location of Sacred Heart Elementary School, just off Route 80. He soon asked three freed slaves and fellow veterans to join him along with their families - Quamony Quash, Prince Goodwin and Plato Turner.
Together they founded the Colony of New Guinea. The settlement did not formally last beyond Howe’s death in 1824, but Plymouth never sold the land. The last descendants of the four men lived there until 1908.
Archaeological digs were conducted there in 1975 and 1976, and the first of repeated efforts to turn the acreage into a museum and historical site were launched about the same time. In 2009, town selectmen approved yet another project, with a 10-year deadline for the Parting Ways Museum nonprofit group to obtain construction permits and substantially complete the proposal.
Cuffey Hill in Norwell is a landmark to an equally old, looser-knit black community in Scituate. Freed slaves and their descendants worked at North River shipyards.
All that is known about the hill’s namesake is that he, too, was emancipated by his local owner and given land. By local tradition he and his sons developed a now-private road and stone wall at the site, a quarter mile north of Mount Blue Street.
Tuttleville appears to be the South Shore’s longest-lived, most cohesive black community of the time, with a dozen or so families - most notably the Tuttles and Simpsons. James Tuttle was born there in 1834. His descendant Marion Teague still lives in the neighborhood, in an 1850s-era house once owned by James Tuttle’s younger son Edward.
Teague says most of the men of the community worked in the shoe factories. “That was the thing to do,” she said. “And they farmed.”
From her research, Teague says the building of the Free Christian Mission was one of the community’s most important projects. Now a dentist’s office, the building has come to symbolize the end of Tuttleville.
“They were here for four generations,” Teague said. “Then they moved away, like people do.”
Lane Lambert may be reached at llambert@ledger.com.