The Life and Times of Cuff Trot

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08/08/2009

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Books - Non-fiction

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"In 1783 the American colonies gained their freedom and so did Cuff Trot. The Bell from Lexington clanged over and over, again and again. In W... (More) "In 1783 the American colonies gained their freedom and so did Cuff Trot. The Bell from Lexington clanged over and over, again and again. In Woburn's Old Parish, where there was as yet no steeple and no bell on the meetinghouse, those who heard the clamor from Lexington knew immediately what it meant. Other bells in other towns lifted their voices to the skies in joyful celebration of the end of eight years of desperate armed conflict, just as through the years they had announced victories and tolled for the dead.
From Church Hill, near the meetinghouse, parishioners had watched the fires of war reddening and smoking the skies over Boston. They had awakened from their beds to the sound of cannons during the Siege of Boston, uncertain from which side the cannons were firing, not knowing which of their friends and neighbors stood within cannon range, which shops and docks and markets suffered the crash of iron balls, or whether it was the streets in Boston, or on the heights of Dorchester, or the flats of Charlestown that lay littered with debris and blood.
With the end of the war, bells rang, cannons boomed, and bonfires illuminated the night. Although no bells rang, no cannons boomed, and no bonfires burned specifically for Cuff Trot, he took as great joy in the celebrations as any man. As much as any man, he believed he had earned that joy. And in the same year that the Treaty of Paris granted the colonies their collective freedom, the State of Massachusetts granted Cuff his personal freedom."

So begins THE LIFE AND TIMES OF CUFF TROT. It tells of an 18th century slave who lived on the historic farm where the author was a boy. In the 1930's, a sign at the front of the property read "Here on the morning of the 19th of April 1775, John Hancock and Samuel Adams sought refuge in their flight from Lexington." Their flight was aided by Cuff, by the owner of the farm (a woman), and by the town's minister. Cuff fought in both the French and Indian and Revolutionary War. After the Revolution, he lived out his life as manager of the farm where he had been a slave. When he died, he was buried by the town Selectmen in the Old Burying Ground, where his stone still stands. (Less)