A new research database waiting to be explored
The History Center has posted a new research database of Free, Enslaved, and People of Color in Andover from 1600 through 1850 researched and compiled by local historian Joan Patrakis.
How hard do you have to look to find one answer? How about hundreds?
Joan’s work on assembling the database began in 2016, but the story she worked to uncover had started centuries ago.
Joan Patrakis started volunteering with the History Center in the 1980s. In 1990, she published her first Historical Society newsletter article on the history of people of color who lived in Andover. In her article, Joan highlighted Pomp and Rose Lovejoy, Cato Freeman, Rose Coburn, Phillip Abbot, Salem Poor, Robert Rollings, and Allen Hinton. She wrote about the daily lives of the women and the men’s service in the Revolutionary and Civil Wars.
Over the years as she researched and wrote, Joan began to compile lists of names.
“My goal was to list all the names that appeared in the records I found. In the process I was able to determine family groups and individuals who may have had a prolonged visit or a brief stay in Andover.
Between 2016 and 2021, Joan assembled her research into a database of folders organized by family name. But she needed a way to share the information she had been gathering.
“I knew it was just going to happen one day. I was going to create this database. I needed to record all the names I was finding,”
And so the “Free, Enslaved, and People of Color in Andover” database started to come together.
“This project was inspired by the men, women and children of color who populated Andover from 1600 through 1850, for two and a half centuries. Throughout the story of Andover, people of color have been referenced as “Slaves,” “Servants,” “Blacks,” “Negroes,” “Coloreds,” “Half-breeds,” “Mulattos” and “Indians.” In their honor, the project was named Andover Persons of Color, a name that was referenced as early as 1796, according to The American Heritage Guide to Contemporary Usage and Style.”
Work like this is never done alone! Joan wrote in her introduction to the database,
“In acknowledgement I sincerely thank Edward L. Bell, author of Persistence of Memories of Slavery and Emancipation in Historical Andover for his many insightful comments and references to a number of early Andover people of color. Follow-up stories of many of the people listed here are told in Ed’s book.”
Today, Joan’s database, “Free, Enslaved, and People of Color in Andover,” is live on the History Center’s website. It’s there for students, researchers, genealogists . . . for anyone and everyone who wants to explore the deep history of people of color who lived in Andover.
Joan wants other researchers to share the information they discover to grow the database beyond 1850. Contribute to it, share, it, expand it.
She would like researchers who follow her to dig deeper and unravel the stories held in the database. Her vision is to carry the data on past 1850. To discover, not just the data about someone’s life (birth, marriage, death), but to uncover individual stories about how people lived.
How did each person come to Andover? What was their life like when they were here?
So many questions!
Are Mars and Cloe Elfily, who married in Andover in 1780, the same couple as Mars and Cloe Philo? Was it an Andover woman who gave birth in 1843 to the “pappoose of a Basket Maker from Old Town Maine?” Why were the deaths or burials of black residents not entered into the records of the Andover Town Clerk from the 1770s through the 1810s?
You can be one of the first people to explore the database. It’s on the History Center website, AndoverHistoryandCulture.org/research-websites (link). Or, click on the image below to go directly to the database.
If you have questions, or you find something you want to share, or you have questions about something in the database, please send an email to info@AndoverHistoryandCulture.org.
You can explore this and other research websites on the History Center’s webpage, andoverhistoryandculture.org/research-websites.
Thanks for reading! Please like, share, and leave comments. We love hearing from History Buzz readers.
~Elaine
I second Martha's comment. Joan's database will help fill gaps in our knowledge & help everyone tell the stories of Andover's history.
Thank you Joan for caring, persevering and telling important stories about marginalized and oft ignored people of color in our community. You are a maverick historian. The rest of us can learn from your research and those who follow you, hopefully finding your research integral to telling accurate history.