STORY OF AGGIE, SLAVE GIRL OF BARRINGTON
TITLE: "Old Aggie" The last Slave in the State of NH
SOURCE: EXCERPS FROM THE ROCHESTER COURIER -ISSUES - September 26, 1930 & October 10, 1930 (pages 1-16) (Submitted by This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.)
The following sketch of the life of "Old Aggie," the famous Barrington slave girl of a century ago, was given by Mrs. Annie Wentworth Baer of Marjery Sullivan chapter, D.A.R., at the recent unveiling of the tablet in Aggie’s memory at Pine Grove cemetery in East Barrington:
The first settlements in Barrington were made between 1732 and 1740 and were mostly families from Portsmouth, N.H. The original proprietors of the town were Portsmouth men.
Captain Mark Hunking, son of Col. Mark Hunking, was born in Portsmouth about 1700. He was a sea Captain and sailed on long foreign voyages and gained much wealth. About 1750 he came to Barrington and settled in the eighteen-year-old town. He built a garrison house on an elevation a few rods north of where the railroad crosses between it and Winkley’s pond. His burial ground is on the south side of the railroad not far from where the carriage road crosses the railroad.
When Capt. Hunking was sailing on one of his late voyages to the West Indies, about 1750, he brought home a jet black Negro girl, eleven years old. This child came with the family to Barrington and was one of the few slaves in New Hampshire. It is written that she was the last slave who died in our state.
The last of Capt. Hunking’s life he was seriously afflicted with rheumatism, and was unable to move about much, so he had trucks put under an arm chair, and in this Aggie, this slave girl, wheeled him about the house and premises.
He died in 1775. After his death we read that Aggie lived in the family of Parson Benjamin Balch, who was pastor of the Congregational church from Aug. 25, 1784, till 1815 when he died.
Some records tell us that she lived in the Winkley family. One of Captain Hunking’s daughters married Francis Winkley of Portsmouth and lived near the Hunking garrison. Elsewhere we read that she at last became a town charge, and was bid off to the lowest bidder, that is, to the one who would board her the cheapest. Town farms and county farms were yet to come.
The local historian of this historic town, Mr. Wiggin, tells that she was often boarded in some Foss family and must have been happy there, since at one town meeting a man whose name was not Foss bid the lowest and she went to this new home, but she was so homesick that she was allowed to return to the Foss home.
The milk of human kindness flowed unadulterated and Aggie’s heart beat naturally. She was a constant attendant at church, and sat in the gallery, often all alone. It is remembered how faithfully she nursed the town folk when stricken with a contagious disease, and spared not herself in her service to others. She died in 1840 or thereabouts. the records of her death differ a little, but it is believed that she had lived a century, and "her memory smelleth sweet."