HISTORY OF THE TOWN OF MEDFORD, Middlesex County, Massachusetts, FROM ITS FIRST SETTLEMENT, IN 1630, TO THE PRESENT TIME, 1855.
Charles Brooks, Ed.

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“ [439] after his decease, sent back to their own country the greater part of the Malays, retaining only three or four of them for domestic service. Among these was a youth named Caesar, who was master of the tailor's trade, and made all the clothes of the family, three of the children being boys. He worked not only for his mistress, but was permitted by her to do jobs in other families; and, being quick and docile, he became a general favorite. But, in the summer of 1805, Mrs. Andriesse was induced to return to Batavia, having received the offer of a free passage for herself and family in one of Mr. David Sears's vessels, and having ascertained, that, if she returned, her boys might be educated there at the expense of the Dutch government, and she herself would be entitled to a pension. All her servants returned with her, except Caesar. He was sold to a son of old Captain Ingraham, who resided at the South, and owned a plantation there. Whether his mistress thus disposed of him for her own advantage, or because he was unwilling to return to his own country, cannot now be ascertained. In process of time, four or five years afterwards, Mr. Ingraham came on from the South to visit his aged father, bringing with him his ‘boy’ Caesar, who left behind a wife and two children. Caesar renewed acquaintance with his former friends, and expressed a decided preference for the freedom of the North over all the blessings which he had enjoyed at the South. They were not slow to inform him that he might be a free man if he chose; and he accordingly attempted to escape from his master. But, not having laid his plan with sufficient skill, he was overtaken in the upper part of the town, on his way to Woburn, and closely buckled into a chaise by Mr. Ingraham, who intended to drive into Boston with him, and lodge him on board the vessel which was to convey both of them home. Caesar, however, had a trusty friend in Mr. Nathan Wait, the blacksmith, who had promised in no extremity to desert him; and as the chaise reached Medford Bridge, upon the edge of which stood Mr. Wait's smithy, he roared so lustily that Mr. Wait sprang out of his shop, hot from the anvil, and, standing before the horse, sternly forbade the driver from carrying a free man into slavery. Being ordered to mind his own business, he indignantly shook his fist at Mr. Ingraham, and retorted, that he would hear from him again in a manner less acceptable. A general commotion then ensued among Caesar's friends, and they included many of the most respectable ”