George Washington - Brattleboro Historical Society

George Washington, Ona Judge and Susannah Bradshaw (slavery 1840’s)

George Washington was born in 1732. He was the first President of the United States, leader of the Continental Army during the American Revolution and presided over the Constitutional Convention in Philadelphia. He certainly was a great influence on the founding and formation of the United States. While researching the life of Brattleboro’s Susannah Bradshaw we came across references about George Washington in newspaper articles from the 1840’s. Susannah Bradshaw was an infant when her parents moved to Brattleboro in 1823. At the time, the Bradshaw’s were the only African American family living in town. The 1820 census shows that there were 2027 residents in Brattleboro. Three of the people listed in the census were African American servants who worked for two prominent families. Each of them lived with the family they worked for. There were no African American families recorded in the census before the Bradshaw’s arrived. The Bradshaw’s first rented, and later purchased, […]

Samuel Wells and British Spies in the Revolution

This week we tell the story of an early local Brattleborough resident who was described by the United States Congress as a “perfidious man”. In 1730 Samuel Wells was born in Deerfield, Massachusetts. That’s about 25 miles south of here. He was a tavern keeper in Deerfield and also served in the Massachusetts militia during the French and Indian War. Like many war veterans, as the conflict was winding down, Wells decided to move into the northern frontier territory that had recently been part of the war between the Abenaki, French and British. In 1762 British colonists began to build homes and successfully claim land north of Fort Dummer. Both British colonies, New York and New Hampshire, claimed the area. The Abenaki had been fighting to remain on the land for at least 100 years but, with the end of the war, their French allies withdrew from the region and the Abenaki found it more […]