Luse

Birth & Death Dates Unknown — Appears in an 1814 Record

I will and order, that in Case it should herafter happen, that my Negro women or either of them shall herafter come to want & need Support, that in such a case, my will is that my two Sons Job Gray & John Gray, shall provide support and maintenance, for my Negro woman Luse and that my two sons Pardon Gray & Thomas Gray Shall provide support for the other Negro woman named Druselar. Equally between them.

Pardon Gray’s Will, 1814^[1]Will of Pardon Gray, Tiverton, RI, Probate Records, Book 7, p. 62.

In 1814 Job inherited half of his father’s responsibility toward Luse (perhaps Lucy), and it seems that he may have fulfilled it by welcoming her into his household and giving Luse her freedom. Two free people of color lived in Job and Judith’s household in 1820, a boy under the age of fourteen and a woman between the ages of twenty-six and forty-four.^[2]1820 Federal Census, Little Compton, RI.

Marjory Gomez O’Toole, Executive Director, LCHS

First published in “If Jane Should Want to Be Sold: Stories of Enslavement, Indenture and Freedom in Little Compton, Rhode Island,” by the Little Compton Historical Society, 2016.

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