Executive Director JerriAnne Boggis of Black Heritage Trail New Hampshire and Forest Society President Jack Savage say their organizations joined together with local historians and volunteers in Hancock to help bring a chapter of New Hampshire’s Black history out of the shadows.
Hancock residents and visitors dedicated a monument Saturday honoring James Due and his friend Jack, two “free men of color” who were among the earliest settlers of Hancock.
Executive Director JerriAnne Boggis of Black Heritage Trail New Hampshire and Forest Society President Jack Savage say their organizations joined together with local historians and volunteers in Hancock to help bring a chapter of New Hampshire’s Black history out of the shadows.
HANCOCK — This is the story of two “free men of color” who were among the earliest settlers of Hancock, working in the late 1700s to carve out the necessities of life in the rocky soil of southwestern New Hampshire.
It is also the story of two Granite State organizations with missions merging themes of history, caring and stewardship: Black Heritage Trail New Hampshire and the Society for the Protection of New Hampshire Forests.
However the story is framed, Saturday in Hancock marked the unveiling of a plaque honoring the two men, James Due and his friend Jack.
The commemoration and placement of the marker — the Black Heritage Trail’s first outside Portsmouth — is on the site of what was once the Welch Family Farm and Forest, donated to the Forest Society in 2000.
A plaque in honor of James Due and his friend Jack, free men of color in the late 1700s, was unveiled in Hancock recently.
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Local historian Eric Aldrich read a short history of Due and his family and Jack, a formerly enslaved African who was later in life referred to as Jack Weare.
“This story really begins with riddles,” Aldrich said. “And it may end with riddles, because we don’t know everything.”
“We know James Due settled right here, built a home, raised a family, farmed the land like most of his neighbors and did what others did and just simply tried to get by and be a good God-loving citizen,” Aldrich said.
In the late 1700s and early 1800s there were no other people in Hancock identified as “people of color” according to Aldrich’s research. He said that Jack lived with the Due family, off and on, and James Due gave the town some 70 acres of land for the support of Jack.
“It must have been hard as it was for other families in town who were trying to farm these rocky soils. It wasn’t easy, and being a family of color probably included its own challenges,” Aldrich said.
JerriAnne Boggis, executive director of Black Heritage Trail New Hampshire, said Aldrich’s work has helped bring a part of New Hampshire’s Black history out of the shadows.
“We all learn from each other,” she said. “We all grow and hopefully this work continues and creates this much more inclusive, truthful telling of our stories.”
Boggis said she was thrilled and grateful to the volunteers who brought the monument project to fruition. Forest Society President Jack Savage likewise credited Aldrich and Boggis for helping educate the public about Hancock history.
“We might all think of ourselves as different, but we all have a connection to this same land — not only connecting us through history, but uniting us through history,” he said.
Hancock residents and visitors dedicated a monument Saturday honoring James Due and his friend Jack, two “free men of color” who were among the earliest settlers of Hancock.
R.C. Reis/Union Leader Correspondent
About 45 people climbed the grassy path off Route 123 two miles northwest of the town center to a clearing where the stone monument sits. The site overlooks Skatutakee Mountain.
Abigail Ladd, fourth great-granddaughter of James Due, pulled the shroud off the monument to reveal an inlaid bronze plaque with two paragraphs of verse that spoke of the tales and travails of the Due family and Jack. The other side of the monument honors the Welch family, who farmed the land in later generations.
“It’s an honor to find out that you’re from a whole set of people and culture,” Ladd said.
Raised in Keene, and now living in Derry, Ladd said she was aware she had ancestors in Hancock, but knew little of their heritage.
The marker ceremony was followed by a box lunch and a series of remarks delivered at the Hancock Congregational Church, where anti-slavery activities took place in the early 1840s.
Rev. Robert Thompson of Exeter, the founding and immediate past president of Black Heritage Trail New Hampshire, opened and closed the afternoon event with song.
