By Emily Fox
8th Grade Student at Lakeview Junior High School, Dracut, Massachusetts

During our research of Claypit, we discovered that African Americans may have been laid to rest there including Barzillai Lew who served during the Revolutionary War.  We then decided to learn more about the African American community that existed back then in Dracut. According to census records, there were several free colored families living in Dracut. The first African American family to settle within Dracut’s borders was the family of Anthony Negro.

According to Martha Mayo, archivist at the Center for Lowell History, Anthony Negro was born around 1680. We found it interesting that a free African American family was living in Dracut at this time. It is likely that he had been an indentured servant and was granted his freedom at the end of his contract. About 250,000 indentured servants reached America in the colonial era. [1]  In 1706 Anthony married a woman by the name of Margaret. However, she died in September of 1712 and Anthony then married Sarah “Sary” Mingoe.[2] The Negro family became known as the Anthony family and all of the children’s names ended in “Anthony Negro”. There are records of nine children of Anthony and Sary.[3] They are:

On the 1790 census there were five possible categories people could be counted under. These categories were free white males 16 and older, free white males under 16, all other free persons, and slaves.  The members of the Anthony Negro family would have fell under the category of “all other free people.” However, no one appears on the 1790 census at all with the surname Negro or Anthony Negro. According to the 1800 census, five families by the name of Negro appear but none were living in Middlesex County.  It is unknown whether any of these Negro families were descendents of Anthony Negro.

According to Martha Mayo, prior to settling in Dracut, the Anthony Negro family previously lived in Concord, Massachusetts. There are records of Anthony Negro in Concord, by the name of “Antoner”. Together the family traveled to Dracut between the years of 1712 and 1716. Anthony was granted several lots of land throughout the town. In 1721 Anthony purchased one lot of land in Dracut.[4] Unfortunately, there are no records of land transactions made by Anthony Negro in the Middlesex Registry of Deeds. 

The northeast area in Dracut, where most of his land was located, was referred to as “Black North” probably because he owned so much land there.[5] This land was located on Marsh Hill and beyond Dracut’s border into Pelham. A brook in Pelham bears the name “Tony Brook” after Anthony Negro.[6] He passed away on June 10, 1741, when he was in his sixties.

Anthony Negro’s probate record listed Josiah Richardson as executor of his estate. His probate also lists that he owned ninety acres of land in Dracut, £25 in cash, a table, an ax, and other old irons.[7] On his probate it states that he had in his possession a bond, which entitled him to £15 due from Caleb Dalton. The executors of his estate found this bond to be of no value.  They do not explain why they came to this conclusion. According to Anthony Negro’s will, he left his estate to his children:

We have been unable to locate any further records of the Negro family.    This is due to the fact that as an African American family in colonial America, they often did not always appear in towns’ vital records and left very few other records. Anthony Negro still holds an important place in the town’s history and the history of the African American community in Dracut.