Abijah Prince of Northfield: From Enslaved to Entrepreneur

Presented by Gretchen Holbrook Gerzina

LOCATION: Trinitarian Church – 147 Main Street, Northfield

Born in Wallingford Connecticut at the beginning of the 1700s, Abijah Prince was taken to Northfield when he was about twelve years old by the Rev. Benjamin Doolittle, Northfield’s first minister. He remained enslaved there until he was in his fifties. Then, through his own efforts, he became free and completely changed his life. He has gone down in the record books as a self-made man, and was the husband of Lucy Terry Prince of Deerfield, perhaps the earliest known African American poet.

Part of Deerfield’s 350th Lecture Series.

Free and open to the public.