1.
Stockbridge, Massachusetts
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Stockbridge is a town in Berkshire County in western Massachusetts, United States. It is part of the Pittsfield, Massachusetts, Metropolitan Statistical Area, the population was 1,947 at the 2010 census. A year-round resort area, Stockbridge is home to the Norman Rockwell Museum, the Austen Riggs Center, Stockbridge was first settled by English missionaries in 1734, who established it as a mission for the Mahican Indian tribe known as the Stockbridge Indians. The township was set aside for the tribe by English colonists as a reward for their assistance against the French in the French, the Reverend John Sergeant from Newark, New Jersey, was their missionary. Sergeant was succeeded in this post by Jonathan Edwards, a notable Christian theologian associated with the First Great Awakening, First chartered as Indian Town in 1737, the village was officially incorporated on June 22,1739, as Stockbridge. The English colonists named it after Stockbridge in Hampshire, England, although the Massachusetts General Court had assured the Stockbridge Indians that their land would never be sold, the agreement was rescinded. Despite the aid by the tribe during the Revolutionary War, the state forced their relocation to the west, first to New York State, the village was taken over by British-American settlers. With the arrival of the railroad in 1850, Stockbridge developed as a resort for the wealthy of Boston. Many large houses, called Berkshire Cottages, were built in the area before World War I, one estate on the Lenox border, Tanglewood, was adapted for use as the summer home of the Boston Symphony Orchestra. Since 1853, Stockbridge has benefited from the presence of the Laurel Hill Association, the Stockbridge Bowl Association maintains and preserves the natural beauty of Stockbridge Bowl and the surrounding Bullard Woods. Stockbridge was the home of Elizabeth Freeman, a freed slave, the former slave engaged the attorney Theodore Sedgwick to file a freedom suit on her behalf, based on the statements in the new state constitution in 1780. In the case with a slave named Brom, the county court ruled that they were free under the constitution. Their case served as precedent to a case before the State Supreme Court. Freeman transferred as a woman to work in the household of Sedgwick. Also working in the household was Agrippa Hull, a black veteran of the war. Freeman was buried in the Sedgwick family plot at the Stockbridge Cemetery, catharine Maria Sedgwick, a daughter of Theodore and his wife, became a renowned 19th-century literary figure. She was born in Stockbridge in 1789 and she is the author of six novels, including her most famous, Hope Leslie. Pagenstecher later went on to found numerous pulp and paper mills throughout the Northeast and Canada, the town has a tradition as an art colony
2.
Massachusetts
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It is bordered by the Atlantic Ocean to the east, the states of Connecticut and Rhode Island to the south, New Hampshire and Vermont to the north, and New York to the west. The state is named for the Massachusett tribe, which inhabited the area. The capital of Massachusetts and the most populous city in New England is Boston, over 80% of Massachusetts population lives in the Greater Boston metropolitan area, a region influential upon American history, academia, and industry. Originally dependent on agriculture, fishing and trade, Massachusetts was transformed into a manufacturing center during the Industrial Revolution, during the 20th century, Massachusetts economy shifted from manufacturing to services. Modern Massachusetts is a leader in biotechnology, engineering, higher education, finance. Plymouth was the site of the first colony in New England, founded in 1620 by the Pilgrims, in 1692, the town of Salem and surrounding areas experienced one of Americas most infamous cases of mass hysteria, the Salem witch trials. In 1777, General Henry Knox founded the Springfield Armory, which during the Industrial Revolution catalyzed numerous important technological advances, in 1786, Shays Rebellion, a populist revolt led by disaffected American Revolutionary War veterans, influenced the United States Constitutional Convention. In the 18th century, the Protestant First Great Awakening, which swept the Atlantic World, in the late 18th century, Boston became known as the Cradle of Liberty for the agitation there that led to the American Revolution. The entire Commonwealth of Massachusetts has played a commercial and cultural role in the history of the United States. Before the American Civil War, Massachusetts was a center for the abolitionist, temperance, in the late 19th century, the sports of basketball and volleyball were invented in the western Massachusetts cities of Springfield and Holyoke, respectively. Many prominent American political dynasties have hailed from the state, including the Adams, both Harvard University and the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, also in Cambridge, have been ranked among the most highly regarded academic institutions in the world. Massachusetts public school students place among the top nations in the world in academic performance, the official name of the state is the Commonwealth of Massachusetts. While this designation is part of the official name, it has no practical implications. Massachusetts has the position and powers within the United States as other states. Massachusetts was originally inhabited by tribes of the Algonquian language family such as the Wampanoag, Narragansett, Nipmuc, Pocomtuc, Mahican, and Massachusett. While cultivation of crops like squash and corn supplemented their diets, villages consisted of lodges called wigwams as well as longhouses, and tribes were led by male or female elders known as sachems. Between 1617 and 1619, smallpox killed approximately 90% of the Massachusetts Bay Native Americans, the first English settlers in Massachusetts, the Pilgrims, arrived via the Mayflower at Plymouth in 1620, and developed friendly relations with the native Wampanoag people. This was the second successful permanent English colony in the part of North America that later became the United States, the event known as the First Thanksgiving was celebrated by the Pilgrims after their first harvest in the New World which lasted for three days
3.
African Americans
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African Americans are an ethnic group of Americans with total or partial ancestry from any of the Black racial groups of Africa. The term may also be used to only those individuals who are descended from enslaved Africans. As a compound adjective the term is usually hyphenated as African-American, Black and African Americans constitute the third largest racial and ethnic group in the United States. Most African Americans are of West and Central African descent and are descendants of enslaved peoples within the boundaries of the present United States. On average, African Americans are of 73. 2–80. 9% West African, 18–24% European, according to US Census Bureau data, African immigrants generally do not self-identify as African American. The overwhelming majority of African immigrants identify instead with their own respective ethnicities, immigrants from some Caribbean, Central American and South American nations and their descendants may or may not also self-identify with the term. After the founding of the United States, black people continued to be enslaved, believed to be inferior to white people, they were treated as second-class citizens. The Naturalization Act of 1790 limited U. S. citizenship to whites only, in 2008, Barack Obama became the first African American to be elected President of the United States. The first African slaves arrived via Santo Domingo to the San Miguel de Gualdape colony, the ill-fated colony was almost immediately disrupted by a fight over leadership, during which the slaves revolted and fled the colony to seek refuge among local Native Americans. De Ayllón and many of the colonists died shortly afterwards of an epidemic, the settlers and the slaves who had not escaped returned to Haiti, whence they had come. The first recorded Africans in British North America were 20 and odd negroes who came to Jamestown, as English settlers died from harsh conditions, more and more Africans were brought to work as laborers. Typically, young men or women would sign a contract of indenture in exchange for transportation to the New World, the landowner received 50 acres of land from the state for each servant purchased from a ships captain. An indentured servant would work for years without wages. The status of indentured servants in early Virginia and Maryland was similar to slavery, servants could be bought, sold, or leased and they could be physically beaten for disobedience or running away. Africans could legally raise crops and cattle to purchase their freedom and they raised families, married other Africans and sometimes intermarried with Native Americans or English settlers. By the 1640s and 1650s, several African families owned farms around Jamestown and some became wealthy by colonial standards and purchased indentured servants of their own. In 1640, the Virginia General Court recorded the earliest documentation of slavery when they sentenced John Punch. One of Dutch African arrivals, Anthony Johnson, would own one of the first black slaves, John Casor
4.
Sheffield, Massachusetts
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Sheffield is a town in Berkshire County, Massachusetts, United States. It is part of the Pittsfield, Massachusetts Metropolitan Statistical Area, the population was 3,257 at the 2010 census. Sheffield is home to Berkshire School, a preparatory school. The former resort town includes the village of Ashley Falls, and is bordered by other towns and villages, such as Egremont. The land was purchased on April 25,1724, from Chief Konkapot and 20 other Stockbridge Mahican Indians and its price was 460 pounds,3 barrels of cider and 30 quarts of rum. The lower township of Housatonic was first settled by Matthew Noble of Westfield, but New York claimed west of the Housatonic River under the Westenhook Patent, dated July 11,1705, and insisted that Massachusetts cease encroachment. Indeed, one settler was arrested and incarcerated at Albany as a trespasser on Westenhook land. Nevertheless, Sheffield, Massachusetts, was incorporated on June 22,1733. Its north parish was set off and incorporated as Great Barrington in 1761, located on the fertile floodplain of the Housatonic River valley, the principal industry was agriculture. Sheffield was also the site of the bloodiest battle on February 27,1787, during Shays Rebellion. According to the United States Census Bureau, the town has an area of 48.6 square miles, of which 47.5 square miles is land and 1.1 square miles. Sheffield is located along the border of the county and state, north of Litchfield County. Sheffield is 27 miles south of Pittsfield,47 miles west of Springfield, the extreme southern portion of Sheffield is just under 100 miles away from the northern edge of Central Park, New York City, given only that the shortest available travel distance route is taken. To the northeast, the peak of East Mountain lies just over the Great Barrington border, several hills also dot the area south of this, along the New Marlborough town line. To the west, Mount Everett, part of the Taconic Range, peaks in the town of Mount Washington, part of the Mount Everett State Reservation and Mount Washington State Forest also crosses into town. Between Mount Everett and East Mountain, the Appalachian Trail crosses through the third of town. Sheffield lies along U. S. Route 7, which divides the town roughly in half, Massachusetts Route 41 also ends at the towns southern border, heading from Egremont along the western part of town to the state border, where it becomes Connecticut Route 41. The nearest interstate, Interstate 90 lies to the north, with the nearest entrance being in Lee,18 miles north-northeast of town, the town also lies along the Housatonic Railroad line, which extends autumn service between New York and Great Barrington along a line of the MTA
5.
American Revolutionary War
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From about 1765 the American Revolution had led to increasing philosophical and political differences between Great Britain and its American colonies. The war represented a culmination of these differences in armed conflict between Patriots and the authority which they increasingly resisted. This resistance became particularly widespread in the New England Colonies, especially in the Province of Massachusetts Bay. On December 16,1773, Massachusetts members of the Patriot group Sons of Liberty destroyed a shipment of tea in Boston Harbor in an event that became known as the Boston Tea Party. Named the Coercive Acts by Parliament, these became known as the Intolerable Acts in America. The Massachusetts colonists responded with the Suffolk Resolves, establishing a government that removed control of the province from the Crown outside of Boston. Twelve colonies formed a Continental Congress to coordinate their resistance, and established committees, British attempts to seize the munitions of Massachusetts colonists in April 1775 led to the first open combat between Crown forces and Massachusetts militia, the Battles of Lexington and Concord. Militia forces proceeded to besiege the British forces in Boston, forcing them to evacuate the city in March 1776, the Continental Congress appointed George Washington to take command of the militia. Concurrent to the Boston campaign, an American attempt to invade Quebec, on July 2,1776, the Continental Congress formally voted for independence, issuing its Declaration on July 4. Sir William Howe began a British counterattack, focussing on recapturing New York City, Howe outmaneuvered and defeated Washington, leaving American confidence at a low ebb. Washington captured a Hessian force at Trenton and drove the British out of New Jersey, in 1777 the British sent a new army under John Burgoyne to move south from Canada and to isolate the New England colonies. However, instead of assisting Burgoyne, Howe took his army on a campaign against the revolutionary capital of Philadelphia. Burgoyne outran his supplies, was surrounded and surrendered at Saratoga in October 1777, the British defeat in the Saratoga Campaign had drastic consequences. Giving up on the North, the British decided to salvage their former colonies in the South, British forces under Lieutenant-General Charles Cornwallis seized Georgia and South Carolina, capturing an American army at Charleston, South Carolina. British strategy depended upon an uprising of large numbers of armed Loyalists, in 1779 Spain joined the war as an ally of France under the Pacte de Famille, intending to capture Gibraltar and British colonies in the Caribbean. Britain declared war on the Dutch Republic in December 1780, in 1781, after the British and their allies had suffered two decisive defeats at Kings Mountain and Cowpens, Cornwallis retreated to Virginia, intending on evacuation. A decisive French naval victory in September deprived the British of an escape route, a joint Franco-American army led by Count Rochambeau and Washington, laid siege to the British forces at Yorktown. With no sign of relief and the situation untenable, Cornwallis surrendered in October 1781, Whigs in Britain had long opposed the pro-war Tory majority in Parliament, but the defeat at Yorktown gave the Whigs the upper hand
6.
United States Declaration of Independence
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Instead they formed a new nation—the United States of America. John Adams was a leader in pushing for independence, which was passed on July 2 with no opposing vote cast, a committee of five had already drafted the formal declaration, to be ready when Congress voted on independence. The term Declaration of Independence is not used in the document itself, John Adams persuaded the committee to select Thomas Jefferson to compose the original draft of the document, which Congress would edit to produce the final version. The next day, John Adams wrote to his wife Abigail, The Second Day of July 1776, will be the most memorable Epocha, but Independence Day is actually celebrated on July 4, the date that the Declaration of Independence was approved. After ratifying the text on July 4, Congress issued the Declaration of Independence in several forms and it was initially published as the printed Dunlap broadside that was widely distributed and read to the public. The source copy used for printing has been lost. Jeffersons original draft, complete with changes made by John Adams and Benjamin Franklin, the best known version of the Declaration, a signed copy that is popularly regarded as the official document, is displayed at the National Archives in Washington, D. C. This engrossed copy was ordered by Congress on July 19, the sources and interpretation of the Declaration have been the subject of much scholarly inquiry. Having served its purpose in announcing independence, references to the text of the Declaration were few in the following years. Abraham Lincoln made it the centerpiece of his rhetoric, and his policies and this has been called one of the best-known sentences in the English language, containing the most potent and consequential words in American history. The passage came to represent a standard to which the United States should strive. Believe me, dear Sir, there is not in the British empire a man who more cordially loves a union with Great Britain than I do. But, by the God that made me, I will cease to exist before I yield to a connection on such terms as the British Parliament propose, and in this, I think I speak the sentiments of America. By the time that the Declaration of Independence was adopted in July 1776, relations had been deteriorating between the colonies and the mother country since 1763. Parliament enacted a series of measures to increase revenue from the colonies, such as the Stamp Act of 1765, Parliament believed that these acts were a legitimate means of having the colonies pay their fair share of the costs to keep them in the British Empire. Many colonists, however, had developed a different conception of the empire, the colonies were not directly represented in Parliament, and colonists argued that Parliament had no right to levy taxes upon them. This tax dispute was part of a divergence between British and American interpretations of the British Constitution and the extent of Parliaments authority in the colonies. In the colonies, however, the idea had developed that the British Constitution recognized certain fundamental rights that no government could violate, after the Townshend Acts, some essayists even began to question whether Parliament had any legitimate jurisdiction in the colonies at all
7.
Abolitionism in the United States
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Abolitionism in the United States was the movement before and during the American Civil War to end slavery in the United States. In the Americas and western Europe, abolitionism was a movement to end the Atlantic slave trade, in the 17th century, English Quakers and Evangelicals condemned slavery as un-Christian. At that time, most slaves were Africans, but thousands of Native Americans were also enslaved, in the 18th century, as many as six million Africans were transported to the Americas as slaves, at least a third of them on British ships to North America. Abolition was part of the message of the First Great Awakening of the 1730s and 1740s in the Thirteen Colonies, in the same period, rationalist thinkers of the Enlightenment criticized slavery for violating human rights. A member of the British Parliament, James Edward Oglethorpe, was among the first to articulate the Enlightenment case against slavery, founder of the Province of Georgia, Oglethorpe banned slavery on humanistic grounds. He argued against it in Parliament and eventually encouraged his friends Granville Sharp, soon after his death in 1785, Sharp and More joined with William Wilberforce and others in forming the Clapham Sect. Although anti-slavery sentiments were widespread by the late 18th century, colonies and emerging nations, notably in the southern United States, continued to use and uphold traditions of slavery. Massachusetts ratified a constitution that declared all men equal, freedom suits challenging slavery based on this principle brought an end to slavery in the state, in other states, such as Virginia, similar declarations of rights were interpreted by the courts as not applicable to Africans. During the ensuing decades, the abolitionist movement grew in Northern states, britain banned the importation of African slaves in its colonies in 1807 and abolished slavery in the British Empire in 1833. The United States criminalized the international trade in 1808 and made slavery unconstitutional in 1865 as a result of the American Civil War. Historian James M. McPherson defines an abolitionist as one who before the Civil War had agitated for the immediate, unconditional and total abolition of slavery in the United States. He does not include antislavery activists such as Abraham Lincoln, U. S. President during the Civil War, or the Republican Party, the first Americans who made a public protest against slavery were the Mennonites of Germantown, Pennsylvania. Soon after, in April 1688, Quakers in the town wrote a two-page condemnation of the practice and sent it to the governing bodies of their Quaker church. The Quaker establishment never took action, the Quaker Quarterly Meeting of Chester, Pennsylvania, made its first protest in 1711. Within a few decades the entire slave trade was under attack, being opposed by leaders as William Burling, Benjamin Lay, Ralph Sandiford, William Southby. Slavery was banned in the Province of Georgia soon after its founding in 1733, the colonys founder, James Edward Oglethorpe, fended off repeated attempts by South Carolina merchants and land speculators to introduce slavery to the colony. In 1739, he wrote to the Georgia Trustees urging them to hold firm, If we allow slaves we act against the principles by which we associated together. Whereas, now we should occasion the misery of thousands in Africa, by setting men upon using arts to buy, the struggle between Georgia and South Carolina led to the first debates in Parliament over the issue of slavery, occurring between 1740 and 1742
8.
Litchfield Law School
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The Litchfield Law School of Litchfield, Connecticut, was the first proprietary law school founded in the United States of America. Reeve, who became the Chief Justice of the Connecticut Supreme Court. Some of the schools most notable students include Burr and John C, the law school, including Reeves house, was declared a National Historic Landmark in 1965 as the Tapping Reeve House and Law School. The Society also operates the Litchfield History Museum, Tapping Reeve, the founder of the Litchfield Law School, was born in 1744, son of the Rev. Abner Reeve, a Presbyterian minister who had graduated from Yale in 1731, and his wife Deborah. Tapping Reeve attended the College of New Jersey, later Princeton and he remained in Elizabethtown to teach at a grammar school associated with the college. Reeve then tutored at Princeton and was hired to teach the orphaned children of the Rev. Aaron Burr, Sr. the former President of the college. Tapping Reeve taught young Aaron Burr and his sister Sally for several years, by 1771 Reeve had moved to Hartford, Connecticut, where he studied law with Judge Jesse Root, passing the bar there in 1772. Reeve moved to Litchfield the same year and established a practice and he built a home on South Street and established a legal practice. In 1774 his brother-in-law, Aaron Burr, left his studies with the Reverend Joseph Bellamy. Burr left a year later to join the Continental Army on the outbreak of the Revolutionary War, in the early years Reeve continued the clerking or apprenticeship system of having the young men work for him while they studied his law books. He also presented talks on the principles of law, in 1784, as the number of young men in his office increased following the close of the Revolution, Reeve built a small building next to his house where he gave his lectures. He based them upon Blackstone’s Commentaries, which he refined into a 14-month-long course of study, the curriculum covered all areas of legal practice, noting developing changes in the new nation’s adaptation of British Common Law. Students took rough notes during the lectures, copying them carefully after checking citations, many students had their notes carefully bound into leather volumes, which became important reference works for them in their future practice. Reeve was the proprietor of the school until 1798, when he was elected to the Connecticut State Supreme Court. At that point, he hired James Gould, a former student, Gould built his own small lecture room next to his home on North Street and men attended lectures there as well as at Reeve’s. Both men lectured to the students until Reeve’s retirement in 1820, the Litchfield Law School was the second formal school of law in the United States offering a vocational curriculum for future attorneys. The College of William & Mary in Virginia started the first law school in the United States, Legal study began at William & Mary in January 1780, with about 40 students. These students studied the law and the Virginia Constitution
9.
Great Barrington, Massachusetts
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Great Barrington is a town in Berkshire County, Massachusetts, United States. It is part of the Pittsfield, Massachusetts, Metropolitan Statistical Area, the population was 7,104 at the 2010 census. Both a summer resort and home to Ski Butternut, Great Barrington includes the villages of Van Deusenville and it is the birthplace of W. E. B. In 2012, Smithsonian magazine ranked Great Barrington #1 in its list of The 20 Best Small Towns in America, Great Barrington today is a vibrant small town acting as the hub for South County. The town and its surroundings support a population as well as second homes. Great Barrington is home to over 70 restaurants catering to a wide spectrum, the recently renovated Mahaiwe Theater has become a center for year-round music and cultural events. The Mahican Indians called the area Mahaiwe, meaning the place downstream and it lay on the New England Path, which connected Fort Orange near Albany, New York, with Springfield and Massachusetts Bay. The Konkapot River in southwestern Massachusetts is named after him, the village was first settled by colonists in 1726 and from 1742–1761 was the north parish of Sheffield. In 1761, it was incorporated as Great Barrington, named after the village of Great Barrington in Gloucestershire. In the summer of 1774,1,500 men shut down the Berkshire County Court in response to British oppression, in the winter of 1776, Henry Knox passed through Great Barrington while transporting the cannon from Fort Ticonderoga to the Siege of Boston. Due to his time in the area, he established an agricultural interest in the area of Great Barrington. With the arrival of the railroad in the late 19th century, Great Barrington developed as a Gilded Age resort community for those seeking relief from the heat, wealthy families built grand homes called Berkshire Cottages here, as others would in Lenox and Stockbridge. Leavitt was instrumental in the development of the local Housatonic Railroad, later estates included Searles Castle, commissioned in 1888 by the widow of Mark Hopkins together with her second husband, Edward Francis Searles, and Brookside, built for William Hall Walker. In 1895, Colonel William L. Brown, part owner of the New York Daily News, presented Great Barrington with a statue of a newsboy, Great Barrington is the birthplace of W. E. B. Du Bois, an African-American academic and civil rights activist, most known for being one of the co-founders of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People in 1909. Du Bois was born on February 23,1868, at a house replaced by where present-day Route 23 would run. As a child, Du Bois attended the Congregational Church, many of these church members donated the funds needed for Du Bois to attend college. Du Bois lived in the town until he was seventeen, Du Bois Boyhood Homesite has interpretive trails and a walking tour
10.
W. E. B. Du Bois
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William Edward Burghardt W. E. B. Du Bois was an American sociologist, historian, civil rights activist, Pan-Africanist, author, born in Great Barrington, Massachusetts, Du Bois grew up in a relatively tolerant and integrated community. Du Bois was one of the co-founders of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People in 1909, Du Bois rose to national prominence as the leader of the Niagara Movement, a group of African-American activists who wanted equal rights for blacks. Instead, Du Bois insisted on full civil rights and increased political representation and he referred to this group as the Talented Tenth and believed that African Americans needed the chances for advanced education to develop its leadership. Racism was the target of Du Boiss polemics, and he strongly protested against lynching, Jim Crow laws. His cause included people of color everywhere, particularly Africans and Asians in colonies and he was a proponent of Pan-Africanism and helped organize several Pan-African Congresses to fight for independence of African colonies from European powers. Du Bois made several trips to Europe, Africa and Asia, after World War I, he surveyed the experiences of American black soldiers in France and documented widespread bigotry in the United States military. Du Bois was a prolific author and he wrote one of the first scientific treatises in the field of American sociology, and he published three autobiographies, each of which contains insightful essays on sociology, politics and history. In his role as editor of the NAACPs journal The Crisis, Du Bois believed that capitalism was a primary cause of racism, and he was generally sympathetic to socialist causes throughout his life. He was an ardent peace activist and advocated nuclear disarmament, the United States Civil Rights Act, embodying many of the reforms for which Du Bois had campaigned his entire life, was enacted a year after his death. William Edward Burghardt Du Bois was born on February 23,1868, in Great Barrington, Massachusetts, to Alfred, Mary Silvina Burghardts family was part of the very small free black population of Great Barrington and had long owned land in the state. She was descended from Dutch, African and English ancestors, William Du Boiss maternal great-great-grandfather was Tom Burghardt, a slave, who was held by the Dutch colonist Conraed Burghardt. Tom briefly served in the Continental Army during the American Revolutionary War and his son Jack Burghardt was the father of Othello Burghardt, who was the father of Mary Silvina Burghardt. William Du Boiss paternal great-grandfather was James Du Bois of Poughkeepsie, New York, One of James mixed-race sons was Alexander. He traveled and worked in Haiti, where he fathered a son, Alfred, Alexander returned to Connecticut, leaving Alfred in Haiti with his mother. Sometime before 1860, Alfred Du Bois emigrated to the United States and he married Mary Silvina Burghardt on February 5,1867, in Housatonic. Alfred left Mary in 1870, two years after their son William was born, Mary Burghardt Du Bois moved with her son back to her parents house in Great Barrington until he was five. She worked to support her family, until she suffered a stroke in the early 1880s, Great Barrington had a majority European American community, who treated Du Bois generally well
11.
Sojourner Truth
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Sojourner Truth was an African-American abolitionist and womens rights activist. Truth was born into slavery in Swartekill, Ulster County, New York, after going to court to recover her son, in 1828 she became the first black woman to win such a case against a white man. She gave herself the name Sojourner Truth in 1843 after she became convinced that God had called her to leave the city and her best-known speech was delivered extemporaneously, in 1851, at the Ohio Womens Rights Convention in Akron, Ohio. The speech became known during the Civil War by the title Aint I a Woman. A variation of the original speech re-written by someone using a stereotypical Southern dialect, whereas Sojourner Truth was from New York. During the Civil War, Truth helped recruit troops for the Union Army, after the war. In 2014, Truth was included in Smithsonian magazines list of the 100 Most Significant Americans of All Time, Truth was one of the ten or twelve children born to James and Elizabeth Baumfree. Charles Hardenbergh inherited his fathers estate and continued to enslave people as a part of that estates property, when Charles Hardenbergh died in 1806, nine-year-old Truth, was sold at an auction with a flock of sheep for $100 to John Neely, near Kingston, New York. Until that time, Truth spoke only Dutch and she later described Neely as cruel and harsh, relating how he beat her daily and once even with a bundle of rods. Neely sold her in 1808, for $105, to Martinus Schryver of Port Ewen, a tavern keeper, Schryver sold her in 1810 to John Dumont of West Park, New York. Around 1815, Truth met and fell in love with a slave named Robert from a neighboring farm, roberts owner forbade their relationship, he did not want the people he enslaved to have children with people he was not enslaving, because he would not own the children. One day Robert sneaked over to see Truth, when Catton and his son found him, they savagely beat Robert until Dumont finally intervened, and Truth never saw Robert again. He later died some years later, perhaps as a result of the injuries, Truth eventually married an older slave named Thomas. She bore five children, James, her firstborn, who died in childhood, Diana, fathered by either Robert or John Dumont, and Peter, Elizabeth, and Sophia, all born after she and Thomas united. The state of New York began, in 1799, to legislate the abolition of slavery, Dumont had promised to grant Truth her freedom a year before the state emancipation, if she would do well and be faithful. However, he changed his mind, claiming an injury had made her less productive. She was infuriated but continued working, spinning 100 pounds of wool, late in 1826, Truth escaped to freedom with her infant daughter, Sophia. She had to leave her children behind because they were not legally freed in the emancipation order until they had served as bound servants into their twenties
12.
Litchfield, Connecticut
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Litchfield is a town in and former county seat of Litchfield County, Connecticut, United States. The population was 8,466 at the 2010 census, the boroughs of Bantam and Litchfield are located within the town. There are also three unincorporated villages, East Litchfield, Milton, and Northfield, located southwest of Torrington, Litchfield also includes part of Bantam Lake. According to the United States Census Bureau, the town has an area of 56.8 square miles. Litchfield is about 95 mi from Central Park in New York, about 50 mi from the Hudson River valley, and about 40 mi from the nearest sea coast, on Long Island Sound. Bantam East Litchfield Litchfield Milton Northfield As of the census of 2000, there were 8,316 people,3,310 households, the population density was 148.4 people per square mile. There were 3,629 housing units at a density of 64.7 per square mile. The racial makeup of the town was 96. 99% White,0. 75% Black or African American,0. 23% Native American,0. 47% Asian,0. 01% Pacific Islander,0. 46% from other races, and 1. 09% from two or more races. Hispanic or Latino of any race were 1. 56% of the population,26. 5% of all households were made up of individuals and 13. 2% had someone living alone who was 65 years of age or older. The average household size was 2.45 and the family size was 2.98. In the town, the population was out with 25. 2% under the age of 18,3. 6% from 18 to 24,25. 6% from 25 to 44,28. 6% from 45 to 64. The median age was 43 years, for every 100 females there were 92.5 males. For every 100 females age 18 and over, there were 90.3 males, the median income for a household in the town was $58,418, and the median income for a family was $70,594. Males had an income of $50,284 versus $31,787 for females. The per capita income for the town was $30,096, about 2. 8% of families and 4. 0% of the population were below the poverty line, including 2. 6% of those under age 18 and 5. 2% of those age 65 or over. Route 202 is the main east-west road connecting Bantam and Litchfield center to the city of Torrington, Route 63 runs north-south through the town center. The Route 8 expressway runs along the line with Harwinton. It can be accessed from the center via Route 118
