By John Mills

In the 1640s, John Griffin arrived in the Connecticut Colony and settled in Windsor, where he practiced the craft of making tar and pitch for waterproofing ships. His work soon encroached on Tunxis land known as Massacoe. As Lucius I. Barber recounts in A Record and Documentary History of Simsbury (The Abigail Phelps Chapter, DAR, 1931), Griffin accused a Native man named Mannahanoose of setting a fire that destroyed his property. The incident became a landmark example of how colonial authorities handled disputes between settlers and Indigenous communities, setting a precedent that intertwined land seizure with the emerging system of racialized servitude.

According to J. Hammond Trumbull’s transcription of early governmental proceedings in The Public Records of the Colony of Connecticut (Brown and Parsons, 1850), the colony passed a law on October 30, 1646, permitting the forcible capture of Indigenous people to compensate settlers for damages. If Indigenous defendants could not afford to pay, colonists were legally permitted to keep them as servants or trade them for enslaved Africans. Mannahanoose, unable to pay his fine, was turned over to Griffin. Fearing that Mannahanoose would be sold, the Tunxis transferred the Massacoe land to Griffin in an attempt to protect him. In 1661, the court reclaimed this land and redistributed it among the English residents of Windsor. The land was officially renamed Simsbury on May 12, 1670, as Barber notes. Years later, Griffin’s grandson, Stephen Griffin, and his wife, Mary, enslaved a man named London—an ancestor of the family at the heart of this history.

London and his wife, Irana, became parents on February 2, 1754, to a daughter also named Irana. In her birth record, preserved in volume 39 of The Barbour Collection of Connecticut Vital Records, edited by Lorraine Cook White, London appears with his chosen surname, Wallace. A son, Zebulon, was born on April 10, 1756. Ten days later, London enlisted in the 6th Company of the 1st Connecticut Regiment to fight in the French and Indian War. His service and discharge on December 1, 1756, are documented in volume 1 of the Rolls of Connecticut Men in the French and Indian War, 1755–1762 (Connecticut Historical Society, 1903). After returning home, he was known within the community as Colonel London Wallace—a title reflecting his pride in his service rather than his official military rank.

On February 16, 1757, London and Irana purchased land and a home from Samuel Griswold, with Mary Griffin’s approval. As recorded in volume 8 of the Simsbury Land Records, London had built the house himself and planted apple trees on the property. The cost was £40. The couple went on to have six more children: Reuben, Joseph, London Jr., Esther, Rebecca, and Susannah. Three of their sons later followed their father’s example by enlisting to fight in the Revolutionary War. Pension files held in the National Archives indicate that Zebulon served in the 1st Connecticut Regiment, Joseph in the 2nd, and London Jr. in the 3rd.

Sometime after the war, London and Irana’s daughter, Esther, married Peter Jackson. The timing of the marriage can be inferred from Esther’s 1857 probate documentation. No direct evidence connects Peter and Esther’s family line to the 1646 law regarding the trading of Indigenous people for Africans. Nonetheless, a 1922 account by George Mitchelson—a member of a prominent local tobacco family—preserved in the Simsbury Historical Society’s manuscript collection reports that his father believed the Jacksons were originally brought from Bermuda through that very practice. Regardless of their origins, Peter and Esther built a strong Black family rooted in the Simsbury community. On November 23, 1810, tragedy struck when Peter slipped and fell into Salmon Brook and drowned while traveling from Turkey Hill to Simsbury, according to Hartford County Superior Court records (RG 003, Box 100, Peter Jackson file, 1810). Although the loss must have been devastating, Esther continued with remarkable resilience and faith.

By the dawn of the Industrial Revolution, Simsbury was transforming rapidly. In 1836, Esther purchased a home located off Hopmeadow Street near the present-day Westminster School from Chauncey Eno. As industrial expansion advanced, she sold that home to the railroad company in 1849, a transaction also recorded in the Simsbury Land Records (volume 37). The 1850 federal census places her on Hoskins Road beside the household of Asa Hoskins, whose home still stands today near the corner of Hoskins and Kilbourn Roads. Noah Hoskins lived just to the west, and Chauncey Spellman lived next to him. The 1869 Atlas of Hartford and Tolland Counties (Baker and Tilden) shows these homes aligned from east to west. Since we know Esther’s home stood beside those of Asa and Noah, it is clear she lived just east of Asa Hoskins’s house on Hoskins Road.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

According to the census, three of Esther’s grandsons were living with her in 1850. Unbeknownst to her at the time, those three—and four of her other grandsons—would later enlist in the Union Army during the Civil War. Two of them joined regiments in Massachusetts and Rhode Island before Connecticut established its own Black infantry regiment in November 1863. Of her seven grandsons who served, six never made it home.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Table: Civil War Service of Esther Jackson’s Grandsons

Name	Regiment	Company	Date of Enlistment	Date of Death	Place of Death
George Reader	54th Massachusetts (Colored) Infantry Regiment	E	March 4, 1863	April 20, 1863	Dedham, Massachusetts
Erastus Jackson	14th Rhode Island Heavy Artillery (Colored)	F	September 4, 1863	October 13, 1864	Plaquemine, Louisiana
Cornelius Reader	29th Connecticut (Colored) Infantry Regiment	C	November 18, 1863	November 15, 1864	Hampton, Virginia
William Jackson	29th Connecticut (Colored) Infantry Regiment	C	November 30, 1863	March 24, 1865	Virginia Beach, Virginia
James Jackson	29th Connecticut (Colored) Infantry Regiment	C	December 9, 1863	October 29, 1865	New Orleans, Louisiana
Abraham Jackson	29th Connecticut (Colored) Infantry Regiment	F	December 14, 1863	October 24, 1864	Portsmouth, Rhode Island
Gilbert Jackson	14th Rhode Island Heavy Artillery (Colored)	F	March 4, 1865	Survived the war	—

Sources: service records and pension files from the National Archives; regimental histories of the 54th Massachusetts (Colored) Infantry Regiment, 29th Connecticut (Colored) Infantry Regiment, and 14th Rhode Island Heavy Artillery (Colored).

 

It was perhaps fortunate that Esther did not live to witness this immense tragedy. She died on September 21, 1857, four years before the outbreak of the Civil War. Known for walking the two-mile distance from her home on Hoskins Road to Simsbury United Methodist Church, she last made this journey at age 93, only eight days before her death. Her funeral was held at that same church. The Connecticut Courant published her obituary on October 3, 1857, reporting that she had been born in Windsor, had lived in Simsbury since about 1777, retained her faculties to a remarkable degree, and enjoyed the confidence and kind affections of all who knew her.

The Jackson–Wallace family is extraordinary—a family entwined with the earliest foundations of Simsbury. Their story intersects with the exchange of Indigenous people for Africans, with the rise of the region’s tobacco industry, and with the railroad-driven transformation of the town. They owned land at a time when Black landownership was rare, and they sent twelve family members into three wars central to the nation’s formation, six of whom died while in service. Despite these profound contributions, they remained largely unknown to their city, their state, and their country. No buildings or streets bear their names as they do for many of their neighbors.

To address this silence, my nonprofit, the Alex Breanne Corporation, commissioned New London artist Kern Bruce to create a reimagined portrait of Esther, drawing on images of her present-day descendants. The portrait is displayed at the entrance of the Simsbury Library through spring 2026. We also raised nearly $9,000 to erect a monument in honor of the family at the gravesite of Peter and Esther Jackson in the Simsbury Cemetery.

I believe there are many Peter and Esther Jacksons—African Americans whose family histories, though central to the making of the nation, remain invisible or forgotten. By bringing their names back into public memory, we not only honor one family but also reclaim a vital chapter of Connecticut’s—and America’s—forgotten history. I am hopeful that one day we will all know their names and their stories.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

John Mills is a software architect, historian, and president and founder of the Alex Breanne Corporation, a nonprofit dedicated to uncovering, preserving, and memorializing the forgotten histories of enslaved people and their descendants. Through research, restoration projects, and public education, the organization seeks to return these stories to their communities and reinject them into our collective history.

Learn More!

“Family History—Separating Fact from Fiction,” Connecticut Explored, Fall 2019

Charles (Ben) Hawley, “Connecticut’s Black Civil War Regiment,” Connecticut Explored, Spring 2011