Homestead of an eighteenth-century property owner who was a veteran of both the French & Indian wars and the War of Independence who married a Nipmuc woman, establishing an Afro Indian family still present in Worcester, many of whose members have played important political roles in the city.
At this site lived Jeffrey Hemenway [1736-1819] and Hepsibeth Bowman [1763-1847], and their eight children. Jeffrey Hemenway, in earliest source materials, is referred to as “mulatto,” of uncertain parentage, raised in the household of Ebenezer Hemenway, member of a socially and politically prominent Framingham family; a veteran of French & Indian wars involved in a 1762 expedition to Canada, Jeffrey Hemenway had married a Euroamerican at Framingham where children from his first marriage, including Revolutionary War soldier Thaddeus Hemenway, were born.
Jeffrey Hemenway had been a member of the Framingham Minute Man company, seeing action at Concord and Cambridge, before moving Worcester, at the same time that some members of the white Hemenway family relocated from Framingham. In the late 1770s, Jeffrey Hemenway enlisted in the Continental Army and after military service took up permanent residence at Worcester, in 1789 marrying Hepsibeth Bowman, member of a well documented Nipmuc Indian family.
Jeffrey Hemenway had been a member of the Framingham Minute Man company, seeing action at Concord and Cambridge, before moving Worcester, at the same time that some members of the white Hemenway family relocated from Framingham. In the late 1770s, Jeffrey Hemenway enlisted in the Continental Army and after military service took up permanent residence at Worcester, in 1789 marrying Hepsibeth Bowman, member of a well documented Nipmuc Indian family.
Recipient of a Revolutionary pension, Jeffrey Hemenway was among the first “people of color” to acquire real estate at Worcester, purchasing a farm valued at $350 on the then outskirts of the town. Hemenway and family became stable and established residents of Worcester, as suggested by the estate inventories at the time of his death in 1819; in addition to their farm, the family possessed a variety of oak and maple furniture pieces; painted chairs; quantities of pewter and crockery; three beds with large numbers of quilts, blankets, towels, coverlets and pillow cases; a looking glass and painted oil portraits of family members. These were not grand possessions, but the records of household accounts listing items charged during the last months of Jeffrey Hemenway’s life imply a standard of living higher than that many the town’s “colored” people. Among possessions of the Hemenway family traceable through 19th century family wills and estate inventories is an oil portrait of Hepsibeth Bowman Hemenway, now at the Worcester Historical Museum, its provenance uncertain; the whereabouts of a companion oil portrait of Hannah Hemenway, the daughter of Jeffrey and Hepsibeth Hemenway, also mentioned in family probate records, has not been determined.
Additionally, their status in the community is underscored by several period descriptions of the Hemenways as “nice colored people,” on easy and familiar terms with many of Worcester’s white residents.
Offspring of Hepsibeth and Jeffrey Hemenway remaining at Worcester in the ante-bellum period included: Hannah Hemenway, with her mother, a celebrated wedding cake maker, in her old age “venerated and esteemed” as one of the earlier members of the [First] Baptist Church; Lydia Hemenway Johnson, with her children and grandchildren; and, their brother Ebenezer, for a long time janitor at Worcester City Hall. Ebenezer Hemenway may have expressed his political affiliation in 1838 naming a son William Lloyd Garrison Hemenway, and another child Francis Greenleaf Whittier Hemenway. He was also involved in many of the fraternal and social organizations addressing needs of “colored” people at Worcester. In his autobiography Isaac Mason reported that in 1854, he and his family arrived from Maryland at the home of Boston African-American activist Lewis Hayden, staying:
…with him two or three weeks, and being unsuccessful in obtaining work in that city where we were we were sent to Worcester…I left my wife in Boston with the Hayden family. Mr. William C. Nell a colored man, and agent of the Anti-Slavery Society sent us with letters of introduction to Mr. William Brown, now living and widely known. On arriving in this city, we soon found Mr. Brown and stayed with him that night. The next day we secured permanent lodging with Mr. Ebenezer Hemenway.
Mason’s text confirms a close working relationship between national black leaders like Lewis Hayden and William C. Nell to Worcester men like upholsterer William Brown and Ebenezer Hemenway, the Worcester community finding Mason employment with Rejoice Newton.
Moreover, a son of Ebenezer, Alexander F. Hemenway played comparable leadership roles in the “colored” community at Worcester. The younger Hemenway was a successful barber and A.M.E. Zion Church member. Through association of his father with leading regional activists, Alexander Hemenway was possibly familiar with political struggles of colored people. In 1854, for example, Alexander Hemenway was one of four men “of color,” two of them part of Native American families, arrested and charged in what Worcester historians call the “Butman Riot.” He was one of area men joining the 54th Regiment or other “colored” units of Civil War volunteers, and his wife, Emily Hemenway was among Worcester women visiting and delivering baked treats to area men at the Readville training camp outside Boston where “colored” troops were prepared before being sent South.
A few days prior to departure of the 54th Regiment from Readville to the South, Thomas D. Freeman of Worcester wrote to resident William Brown, on May 8, 1864, “I should like much to see all my Worcester friends before I leave…Mrs. Bundy, Mrs. Hemenway and Sister, and a Host of Boston people Have visited our Camp. We all had a nice time and I am Happy as a King,” in MS Brown Family Papers, American Antiquarian Society, Worcester, Mass.
Following service in several Southern campaigns, Alexander Hemenway left the army as a sergeant, and returned to Worcester where he continued playing prominent and active roles in community affairs until his death in 1896.