Medford Historical Society Papers, Volume 3.

At the time of the Revolution several gentlemen in Medford owned slaves. They were uniformly well treated. Mr. Zachariah Pool owned a slave named Scipio. In his will Mr. Pool left money to Benjamin Hall and others, in trust, for Scipio's support.

He was boarded with a family of free negroes, and when he died his guardians followed him to the grave. This story was told me by one of Mr. Pool's descendants, and is in contradiction of Mrs. Lydia Maria Child's version, in one of her books, which says that Scipio was sold at the settlement of the estate. The negro's name appears on the tax list in 1778.

Prince was a negro servant of Stephen Hall, Esq. He married Chloe, the servant of Richard Hall, in 1772. An amusing story is told of Prince's struggle with a sixty-five-pound bass in Mystic river, at low tide. The negro tried to carry the fish to land in his arms. Two trials proved failures, but the third was successful. Prince thought his prize worthy to be presented to the commander at Winter Hill. He dressed the fish, and putting on his best clothes, borrowed his master's wagon, and drove to headquarters with his present. He was rewarded with—six cents! That this extreme liberality did not make a Tory of him is shown by his subsequent career. He ran away and enlisted, March 31, 1777, for the war.

Slaves who enlisted with the consent of their masters became free at once.

As Prince was a runaway, his master probably claimed him, and he returned to Medford in the early part of 1778. In June, 1778, he went into the army again for nine months, this time with the consent of Mr. Hall, for on May 25 Prince signed the following receipt: ‘Received of the Town of Medford, by Richard Hall $35 in part for my bounty from said town which I promise to march to join the army for nine months for said town, when called for, as witness my hand, Prince Hall.’

Prince was thirty years old and was five feet five