Joseph Brown (1749 - 1834)

Born 18 Nov 1749 in North Kingstown, Washington, Rhode Island

Husband of Lucretia (Thomas) Brown — married [date unknown] (to 1834) in Marblehead, Essex, Mass., USA

Died 3 Apr 1834 at age 84 in Marblehead, Essex, Massachusetts

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Biography

Joseph was born in 1749. He passed away in 1834.

Sources

Find a Grave

• Joseph “Black Joe” Brown

Birth 1750 Death 1834 (aged 83–84) Burial Old Burial Hill Cemetery Marblehead, Essex County, Massachusetts, USA Memorial ID 15208423 · View Source

Marblehead's "Black Joe" A Revolutionary Soldier & Respected Citizen

https://www.familysearch.org/search/record/results?count=20&query=%2Bgivenname%3Ajoseph~%20%2Bsurname%3Abrown~%20%2Bbirth_place%3Amass~%20%2Bbirth_year%3A1750-1750~%20%2Bdeath_place%3A%22marblehead%2C%20mass%22%20%2Bdeath_year%3A1834-1834~

His Rev War Pension file has info that he was a slave in North Kingston, Washington County, Rhode Island, before moving to Marblehead... see those records in the images...

Joseph Brown in the U.S., Revolutionary War Pension and Bounty-Land Warrant Application Files, 1800-1900

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Name: Joseph Brown Pension Year: 1833 Application State: Massachusetts Second Applicant Name: Lucretia Brown Second Applicant Pension Year: 1849 Second Applicant Application State: Massachusetts Archive Publication Number: M804 Archive Roll Number: 372 Total Pages in Packet: 30

Source Information Ancestry.com. U.S., Revolutionary War Pension and Bounty-Land Warrant Application Files, 1800-1900[database on-line]. Provo, UT, USA: Ancestry.com Operations, Inc., 2010. Original data: Revolutionary War Pension and Bounty-Land Warrant Application Files (NARA microfilm publication M804, 2,670 rolls). Records of the Department of Veterans Affairs, Record Group 15. National Archives, Washington, D.C. Description This data collection contains an estimated 80,000 application files from officers and enlisted men who served in the Revolutionary War in all branches of the American military: army, navy, and marines. The files that make up these records consist of 10" x 14" cards or 10" x 14" envelopes that can contain documents relating to an application for a pension or bounty-land warrant by a Revolutionary War veteran, his widow, or his heirs. The files can contain a wide variety of records submitted to support an application. Information of genealogical interest includes the application itself, which can provide the soldier’s name, rank, unit, time of service, age, date of birth, residence, and sometimes birthplace. Learn more...

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About ten references to this family in Marblehead, Mass.

https://www.familysearch.org/search/record/results?count=20&query=%2Bgivenname%3Alucretia~%20%2Bsurname%3Abrown~%20%2Bresidence_place%3A%22marblehead%2C%20mass.%22~%20%2Bresidence_year%3A1850-1855~

site not working to show records, so none were put here to see...

one of these records says Lucy may be adopted by the Browns...

1790 - 1830 census refs for Joseph Brown

note some years there are two, so we have to look to see if one is black

https://www.familysearch.org/search/record/results?count=20&query=%2Bgivenname%3Ajoseph~%20%2Bsurname%3Abrown~%20%2Bresidence_place%3A%22marblehead%2C%20mass%22%20%2Bresidence_year%3A1790-1830~

read the traditional story of his life.... Marblehead Magazine Black Joe - Legend, Inc. Central www.legendinc.com/Pages/MarbleheadNet/MM/Articles/Black... Black Joe's grave lies in a hollow of Marblehead's Old Burial Hill where the winter snows drift deep, blanketing all but the carved eagle holding the banner that reads "Victory Peace."

the legend of Black Joe

Photos by Blythe Purdin (the original has photos)

Black Joe's grave lies in a hollow of Marblehead's Old Burial Hill where the winter snows drift deep, blanketing all but the carved eagle holding the banner than reads "Victory Peace." In summer, the gravestone of Marblehead's most famous black resident stands in stark relief against the grass, its back scarred as if a streak of green lightning had struck it one night when the spirits of the dead grew restless.

The town has several times honored this former slave, whose tavern still stand on Gingerbread Hill beside the mill pond that bears his name. After World War II, a group of citizen's privately erected the present gravestone to honor Black

Black Joe's Pond off Gingerbread Hill in early June.

Joe's memory, and in 1973, Town Meeting named the wooded area on the far side of Black Joe's pond, the Joseph Brown Conservation Area. For the town's 350th birthday party, "Joe Frogger" jars were the unofficial symbol of the celebration, immortalizing the rum and gingerbread cookies that bear his name. Black Joe's presence hovers over Marblehead, but why?

Not because of his service in the Revolutionary War, for there where many local black soldiers, like "Pomp" Deveraux, who marched beside his master in Marblehead's militia, the Glover Regiment. So many slaves were freed to join the army that by 1778, Massachusetts boasted two negro companies which included several Marblehead blacks in their ranks. Unfortunately, the details of Black Joe's military service, and even the name of his regiment are lost to history. Ownership of a tavern made Black Joe master of his own fate, able to devote his later years to fiddling and spinning yarns, but that was not unusual either. In the late 1800's Marblehead boasted many taverns, yet most of them are no more than a name on yellowing newsprint today.

No, Black Joe's fame springs from the fact that he and his wife Lucretia were "characters" in the finest Marblehead tradition, capable of capturing the imagination of a town that prides itself on independence and individual quirkiness. They were exceptional for their time, no doubt.

Black Joe's House, preserved for antiquity, as it still stands today. The stories about Black Joe and Lucretia's life together still have the power to amuse and delight. They also reveal the bias that has hidden away so many women's contribution to history. While Black Joe got a remarkable gravestone, Lucretia's resting place is unknown. The cookie was named after him even though she created the recipe and spent the better part of her life mixing the batter. Black Joe is a household word in Marblehead and yet, Aunty 'Crese, as Lucretia was called, has received no comparable public recognition.

It is hoped that this account will redress that imbalance.

Black Joe was the son of a black mother and native Gray Head Indian father. He was born in 1750, when nearly every Marblehead family of sufficient wealth owned several slaves. He was thirty before the new Massachusetts constitution gave free black men the right to vote and forbade slave owners to treat the children of slaves as property. He must have been gainfully employed for his name does not appear as one of the black "drifters" forced out of Marblehead in 1788, when they were regarded as such a drain on the town's charitable funds that Town Meeting ordered all former slaves to find work or leave.

Seven years later, when Black Joe was forty-five, he bought the northeast end of a house on Gingerbread Hill from William Peach, a relative of John Peach, Sr., on of Marblehead's founders. The "mansion-house," as the deed describes it, is small by contemporary standards. A colonial saltbox, it is thought to have been built by ship's carpenters in 1690. For two years, John and Lucretia Brown's hone consisted of a first floor parlor and a small "keepin room" where infants slept, a bedroom on the second floor, and half an attic. When the co-owner Joseph Seawood died, his widow Mary sold their portion to the Browns, including the small "borning room" where women delivered.

With all that space and an energetic wife 22 years her husband's junior, who wouldn't open a tavern?

While Black Joe lived, his tavern was the liveliest spot in town, and the Barnegat section of town surrounding it, the roughest neighborhood. During "Election Week" in May, slaves were given their only legal holiday on Wednesday, and the schools closed so that all citizens could turn out to see the soldiers training.

Then Gingerbread Hill came alive with parents and children, and Aunty 'Crese did a brisk business in "Joe Froggers". The never-stale cookies, named for her husband and the neighboring amphibians in the pond, accompanied many a Marblehead fisherman on long sea voyages. "Sir Switchels" were a big hit too, a thirst-quenching blend of water and molasses, which a touch of vinegar to cut the sweetness.

Nights on Gingerbread Hill, however, were a different matter, earning the Barnegat area an unenviable reputation. According to Marblehead Historian Joseph Robinson, "a more uncouth assemblage of ruffians could not be found anywhere." It would not be surprising if the term "Down bucket!" originated here, that fearful Marblehead expression warning those below that the contents of the chamber pot where about to be flung out a bedroom window.

Undaunted by their ill repute, both white and black men gathered at the tavern after a long day of fishing, blacksmithing, boatbuilding, farming or shop keeping to spend the night dancing, drinking and gambling. About five percent of Marblehead's population were black and the two races mixed freely, crowding into the two downstairs rooms, each no bigger than 10 by 14 feet. Inexpensive clay pipes passed from hand to hand, the long stems shrinking as each man broke off the tip after taking a few puffs. Even the bitterest cold night was warmed by the wood fires, alcohol, and the body heat of active men dancing jigs and reels to Black Joe's fiddle accompaniment.

Aunty 'Crese kept a sharp eye on the girls who helped serve her homemade beer and rum, and the fish chowder from the kettle hanging over the fire. If any other women were present, they were probably even less respectable than the men. 'Headers with nicknames like Spanish Joe, Short Jacket, Eagle Beak, Horse Eye, Pie Mouth and Corkleg tossed pennies against the wall or matched coins, heads and tails, in the candlelight reflecting off pewter sconces.

Years later, Black Joe's Revolutionary War gun was discovered in the attic, another man's initials in the walnut butt. It was probably passed on to Black Joe from a soldier too wounded or dead to have further use of it. It is not unlikely that Black Joe kept his musket close at hand, hanging upside down from one of the rough-hewn beams to keep dust from clogging the firing mechanism. The French steel bayonet may have helped him bring the merrymaking to an end many a night. Drink and exasperation oftentimes combined to send handfuls of pennies into the pond, and in the general confusion, it was not unusual for a sore loser to follow his money into the water.

The tavern's gambling crowd was known to be ready to wager at the drop of a hat. One day, the story goes, patrons began to argue about whether a horse and carriage could make it down Gingerbread Lane, a small path that still traverses the hill directly across from the tavern's front door. A baker making deliveries took up the challenge and urged his horse down the steep embankment. The baker lived to collect his money, although reports insist his wagon was in splinters by the time it reached Beacon Street. Another version says the horse did not survive.

Widow Bowen, who ran a rival tavern on Gingerbread Hill, did her best to compete with such goings-on. "Ma'am Sociable," as she called herself, baked 'lection cakes with just as many raisins and currants as those of Aunty 'Crese, sold penny candy, brewed alcoholic beverages and encouraged penny-pitching contests. Highly competitive, she had a practice of waylaying visitors heading towards Black Joe's tavern, stopping them in the street, and inquiring, "Have you any pennies, my dear?"

Understandably, this was a source of friction between the two women. There is no evidence that Aunty 'Crese ever retaliated, but Widow Bowen's suspicions grew that Aunty 'Crese was stealing from her flock of geese paddling about on Black Joe's pond. Her shrill accusations inspired the neighborhood boys to invent one of the few practical jokes to make the history books. The boys would crawl into Widow Bowen's bushes and squawk noisily until the old woman came running out, convinced she had caught Aunty 'Crese in the act.

Lucretia, the daughter of two slaves freed by Marblehead's Samuel Tucker, Commodore of the Continental Navy, used to visit Burial Hill after her husband died. A widow at 40, she would rise at daybreak to reach the graveyard while the dew still glistened on the wild roses that clung to the rocky ledges. She would gather rose petals and carry a bundle back to the tavern where she placed them, liberally sprinkled with coarse salt, in covered wooden buckets called "firkins."

The sign hanging outside of the old Tavern.

All of Barnegat could tell the day Aunty 'Crese dumped the rose petals into a great iron cauldron, sealed the cover with clay, and began distilling essence of rose for her homemade perfume. As the fire blazed, rose vapor dripped out a small tube, and if much told tales are to be believed, the air for a half mile around was perfumed with the fragrance of roses. With Joe gone, Lucretia took to baking delectable wedding cakes and slipping a tiny vial of perfume into every order. Rumor has it that not a bride married in Marblehead whose earlobes did not hint of the wild flowers gathered from the hillsides and graveyards of Barnegat.

The path Aunt 'Crese followed to and from Burial Hill still exists. From Redd's Pond, it passes beyond Black Joe's grave until it bears sharply left at a sod-covered tomb marked CROCKER. Down two stone steps, it meanders left through the boulder-strewn woods until it reaches a dirt road which crosses Norman Street beside a gray clapboard house. Aunt 'Crese may have puffed a little ascending Gingerbread Hill and cast a baleful look at Widow Bowen's inn across the street, before passing through the door crowned with a carved pineapple and finding herself at home.

After more than seventy years in the Brown family, the tavern building was sold in 1867 by the Brown's adopted daughter Lucy, by then Mrs. A.R. Fontaine. It has been privately owned by the Barry family ever since, but though more than one hundred years have passed, the spirits of Black Joe and Aunt 'Crese have refused to budge.

Black Joe's fiddle still hangs in the parlor "dancing room," silent now after so many nights of singing out "Yankee Doodle," the one tune Black Joe played in different tempos to accompany the evening's dances. The floor, now covered with dark pine, is said to have been broken through in several places, worn out by dancing boots and the heavyfooted stomping of men with too much rum under their belts. Over a second fireplace, a Revolutionary War musket rests from its labors, its frizzen missing and its steel bayonet forever sheathed.

Though Aunt 'Crese lives on in the pages of Anya Seton's novel, The Heart and Eagle, there are no pictures, verbal or otherwise, of Black Joe. His passing marked the end of an era, for within three years of his death, a branch of the New England Anti-Slavery Society was organized locally. Before another dozen years had passed, Marblehead, its houses rich in secret tunnels and passageways, had become a major stopover on the Underground Railroad for runaway Southern slaves heading north to freedom.

Still, as long as frogs continue to hatch in Marblehead ponds and the aroma of gingerbread fills Marblehead kitchens, the lives of Black Joe and Aunty 'Crese will be as sweetly remembered as the taste of their warm Joe Frogger. This article was prepared with the help of David F. Barry. legendinc.com | Search | Ask | Archives | Online Store | Contact Us Ad Info | Employment | Courier Pages | Marblehead Magazine Stuff of the Day

Joe Frogger From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia Jump to navigationJump to search Joe Frogger Joe Froggers.jpg Type Cookie Place of origin Marblehead, Massachusetts, U.S. Created by Lucretia Brown Main ingredients Molasses, rum, spices Cookbook: Joe Frogger Media: Joe Frogger The Joe Frogger is a type of cookie that has been popular in New England since the late 18th century. It is flavored with molasses, rum, and spices (ginger, allspice, nutmeg, cloves) and has a soft, chewy center. Because the cookies kept well they could be taken on long sea voyages, and so became popular with fishermen and sailors. The original cookies were the size of pancakes and were cooked in an iron skillet;[1] those made today are typically smaller, and baked in an oven.[2]

Contents 1 History 2 Recipe 3 See also 4 References History[edit]

Black Joe's Tavern (built 1691), home of the Joe Frogger cookie. Joe Froggers are named for Joseph Brown (1750-1834), the keeper of Black Joe's Tavern in Marblehead, Massachusetts. The cookies were invented by Brown's wife, Lucretia Thomas Brown (1772-1857), who worked at the tavern.[3]

Joseph Brown was a freed former slave, born to an African-American mother and a Wampanoag father. He may have been freed as a reward for his military service in the American Revolutionary War; he was a member of Francis Felton's company,[3] Glover's Regiment.[1] Lucretia Brown, nicknamed "Aunt 'Crese," was the daughter of two former slaves of Captain Samuel Tucker.[3] In 1795, Joseph and Lucretia Brown went in with another couple on the purchase of a saltbox house at the top of Gingerbread Hill in Marblehead, next to a mill pond. Eventually they bought out the other couple. The house was both their residence and the site of their tavern. Black Joe's Tavern was known as a racially integrated gathering place for hard-drinking fishermen.[3]

There are many different stories about how the cookies came to be called Froggers. According to some sources, they were named for the froglike shape the batter would form when it hit the hot iron skillet.[1] According to others, they were named for the frogs in the nearby mill pond.[4] The name may be a misspelling or a play on "Joe Floggers," which were a kind of pancake, also used as a ship's provision.[3]

The town of Marblehead erected a memorial to Joseph Brown on Old Burial Hill in 1976 to mark the American Bicentennial.[3] Black Joe's Pond in Marblehead is named for him, and a nearby wooded area was named the Joseph Brown Conservation Area in 1973.[5] The tavern, built in 1691, is still standing; it is currently in use as a private residence.[3]

Recipe[edit] There are many different recipes for Joe Froggers available online and in cookbooks. Lucretia Thomas Brown's original recipe has been lost. A recipe for "Tavern Cookies" published by Mary Randolph in 1824 may be a more expensive version of Brown's creation; it calls for sugar instead of molasses, and wine or brandy instead of rum.[3]

As a tribute to their unique history, Joe Froggers are sold in the cafeteria of the National Museum of African American History and Culture. They are also sold in the Old Sturbridge Village bakeshop.[3]

See also[edit] icon Food portal Gingerbread Ginger snap List of cookies References[edit] ^ Jump up to: a b c Peterson, Pam Matthias (2007). "Black Joe, Aunt Creesy and Love Potions". Marblehead Myths, Legends and Lore. Arcadia Publishing. pp. 20–22. ISBN 9781614232247. ^ Tucker, Aimee (May 1, 2018). "Joe Froggers Cookies". New England Today. ^ Jump up to: a b c d e f g h i Blakely, Julia (November 1, 2016). "Joe Froggers: The Weight of the Past in a Cookie". Smithsonian Libraries Unbound. ^ Lee, James F. (October 4, 2018). "Joe Froggers: A Marblehead taste tradition". The Boston Globe. ^ Knoblock, Glenn A. (2015). African American Historic Burial Grounds and Gravesites of New England. McFarland. pp. 217–218. ISBN 9781476620428.

His Rev War Pension papers mentions his being a slave to Beriah Brown of North Kingston, Rhode Island, and I believe this is the man: https://www.wikitree.com/wiki/Brown-27392

Some Beriah Brown papers often mentioning slaves:

http://www.rihs.org/mssinv/PeopleofColorweb.htm

Slave trade was big business in Rhode Island history...

https://www.africanamerica.org/topic/rhode-island-and-the-slave-trade-buying-and-selling-the-human-species

Buying and Selling the Human Species: Newport and the Slave Trade Sunday, Mar. 12, 2006 BY PAUL DAVIS Journal staff writer

For more than 75 years, Rhode Island ruled the American slave trade. On sloops and ships called Endeavor, Success and Wheel of Fortune, slave captains made more than 1,000 voyages to Africa from 1725 to 1807. They chained their human cargo and forced more than 100,000 men, women and children into slavery in the West Indies, Havana and the American colonies. The traffic was so lucrative that nearly half the ships that sailed to Africa did so after 1787 -- the year Rhode Island outlawed the trade. Rum fueled the business. The colony had nearly 30 distilleries where molasses was boiled into rum. Rhode Island ships carried barrels of it to buy African slaves, who were then traded for more molasses in the West Indies which was returned to Rhode Island. By the mid-18th century, 114 years after Roger Williams founded the tiny Colony of Rhode Island, slaves lived in every port and village. In 1755, 11.5 percent of all Rhode Islanders, or about 4,700 people, were black, nearly all of them slaves. In Newport, Bristol and Providence, the slave economy provided thousands of jobs for captains, seamen, coopers, sail makers, dock workers, and shop owners, and helped merchants build banks, wharves and mansions. But it was only a small part of a much larger international trade, which historians call the first global economy.