Zickery Prince was enslaved in Longmeadow in the 1730s and 40s, though he did not acquire the surname “Prince” until much later. Sometime after 1747, Zickery was sent from Longmeadow to the household of a family in Simsbury, Connecticut. Over the course of his life, Zickery Prince was enslaved in at least seven different households. Tracing Zickery through Longmeadow, and beyond, requires a journey through varied spellings and misspellings, various wills, probates, online genealogical databases, state and local library and museum archives. 

Zickery first appeared in 1737 in Nathaniel Bliss’s last will and testament, where Bliss states, “I give and bequeath also to my beloved cousin Joshua Field my Negro boy Zichries as also my cart plows, harrows, chains, axes, hoes, scythe, sickles, yay all my husbandry tools or implements. Whatsoever to him and his heirs forever.” When Bliss died, his probate valued “one Negro Called Ziccery  £110  00.” 

Zickery was admitted to Longmeadow’s  First Church of Christ membership on the same day as an enslaved man named Caesar. Zickery took his faith seriously as seen when he appeared at the Reverend Stephen Williams’ door in Longmeadow one July morning soon after his baptism. Rev. Williams recorded in his diary, “poor Zich comes to me this morning giving me an account of the distress he is in. The word touched him yesterday…” Just days earlier, the famous colonial minister, Jonathan Edwards, had preached his famous sermon, Sinners in the Hands of an Angry God, just three miles away in Enfield, Connecticut. Rev. Williams had attended, and other members of the Longmeadow community including Zickery may have as well. The message of the sermon deeply impacted members of the Longmeadow congregation, including Zickery.

The last record of Zickery in Longmeadow is in 1747. However, a curious lead popped up ten miles away in the section of Simsbury, CT known then as Turkey Hills (today East Granby). Thirteen years after disappearing from Longmeadow records, Joseph Phelps of Simsbury stated in his 1760 will, “I do order that my Negro man Servant Zickery, and my Negro Woman Servant Citty that are Husband & Wife, shall not after my Decease be parted asundor, but have liberty to Choose their Master and Mistress among my Children to live with, ….” 

A family connection existed between Phelps’ neighbor, the Holcombs, and the original Bliss household where Zickery lived in the 1730’s. It is likely that sometime in the years between 1747-1760 Zickery’s ownership passed to the Phelps household as such transactions were common between families in colonial New England. Sometime during his life in Simsbury, Zickery married a woman, also enslaved, named Citty. Just as he was in Longmeadow, Zickery was a member of the church in Turkey Hills.

In 1777, Zickery—who now bore the last name “Prince”—enlisted in the Continental Army during the American Revolution. His enslaver, Abel Forward, promised Zickery his freedom in exchange for taking the place of his son. Zickery Prince was likely in his mid-fifties at the time, an advanced age for a soldier. In the winter of 1779, Zickery died in a hospital at the camp at the Fishkill (NY) Supply Depot. Muster Rolls and Pay Rolls over the 20 months of Zickery’s service in Captain Henry Champion’s Company in the 6th Regiment commanded by Colonel Samuel Wyllys show that Zickery Prince spent nearly all of his service time at the hospital in Fishkill. Perhaps his age made him unfit for the demands of service in a more traditional way, or perhaps he truly was sick that entire time. In lieu of a traditional salary, a Continental Army payroll listed Zickery Prince’s salary as, “Received his freedom.”

After a lifetime as appearing as a piece of property on other people’s probate’s, Zickery ultimately had a valuation of his own estate done after his death.  Though modest, it speaks to his humanity. A probate done days before his widow, Citty, remarried another formerly enslaved war veteran named Robert Walpole, a probate of Zickery’s estate showed that he owned a hat, a coat, vests, two pairs of gloves, four pairs of stockings, a small brush, a chest and a bedstead.