Enslaved by Capt. Amos Morris, Tony has been credited with helping to build the East Haven Congregational Church—at least until an accident occurred on the job and he chose the opportunity to escape. In her 1908 History of East Haven, in a chapter entitled “Ecclesiastical Affairs – A Serious Calamity,” Hughes describes how workmen were raising a window cap for the church when “the scaffolding gave way and three men with the stone in their arms fell to the ground. Tony, a negro servant of Capt. Amos Morris, was considerably injured, but in two weeks was so much recovered that he ran away.” Tony apparently did not remain at large forever, however, because his death of “nervous fever” was reported in the appendix on page 91 of Hughes’s book. These records suggest that Tony may have also been enslaved by a Mrs. Smith of East Haven. Both Mrs. Smith and Amos Morris are listed in the death records.