Witness Stones 2026

Last week, on May 21, 2026, Williams Middle School 7th Graders gathered at the First Church on the green in Longmeadow for the 3rd Annual Witness Stones Installation Ceremony. Last year, The Witness Stones Project merged with Historic New England to broaden its ability to bring its unique curriculum into school classrooms and provide students first hand experience with the primary source documents that help illuminate the true story of 18th century slavery in their hometown. The mission of the Witness Stones Project is to honor the memory of and restore humanity to the enslaved people who helped to build our communities. In Longmeadow, the project is a collaborative effort between the Longmeadow Public Schools, the Longmeadow Historical Society, and the First Church of Christ UCC.

This year, the students researched to lives of two men, one named James and one named Zickery Prince. James was enslaved by Reverend Stephen Williams in 1719 before disappearing from available records, and Zickery was enslaved first by Nathaniel Bliss and then the Field brothers after he died before presumably being sold to a related family in Simsbury, CT. Zickery’s life can be traced in records from the 1730’s until his death as a Continental Army soldier in a Fishkill, NY military hospital in 1779. 

Below are brief biographies for each man and some photos from last week’s ceremony.

James

James was a man enslaved by Reverend Stephen Williams in Longmeadow in 1719. Little is known about James beyond the three times he was mentioned in Williams’ diary and a household account record that included the price of £10 that Williams had paid to purchase him. 

In 1719, Reverend Williams was just 25 years old and newly married to Abigail Davenport. Just months before he purchased James, Williams had sold a boy he enslaved named Nicholas (Witness Stone 2025). Five months after selling Nicholas, Williams recorded in his diary, “This day I bought me a Servant Man - some of my neighbours think it may be for the better, others think not. I pray to help me do my Duty towards him." In the next couple of months, Williams wrote about James two more times and complained about his behavior, once for “being out of frame” and once for “being out last night unseasonably” After this, James disappeared from the record.  It is unknown what became of him.

Zickery Prince

Zickery Prince was a man enslaved in Longmeadow in the 1730’s and 1740’s. Tracing Zickery through Longmeadow and beyond was a journey through varied spellings and misspellings, various wills, probates, and military records. Within a ten year period, Zickery would pass from Nathaniel Bliss to Joshua Field, from Joshua Field to his brother Thomas Field, and then from Thomas Field to his son Moses Field, all of Longmeadow.

Sometime after 1747, Zickery was sent from Longmeadow to the household of a family in Simsbury, CT. Over the course of his life, Zickery Prince was enslaved in at least seven different households.

Zickery Prince was likely just a child performing household work for an elderly Longmeadow man named Nathaniel Bliss. Bliss’ 1737 will was the first evidence of Zickery’s presence in the community. In his probate, Zickery was valued at £110. Over the next forty years, Zickery is listed as property in the households of Joshua Field, Thomas Field, Moses Field, Joseph Phelps, Joseph Phelps, Jr, and Abel Forward. Sometime during his life in Simsbury, Zickery married a woman, also enslaved, named Citty.

Like several other enslaved people in Longmeadow, Zickery grew to become a devoted Christian and member of the church. Ultimately, Zickery was listed among the congregation of the church in the Turkey Hills section of Simsbury as well. 

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. A Continental Army payroll listed Zickery Prince’s salary as, “Received his freedom."

Home of Nathaniel Bliss

Home of Thomas Field and his son Moses Field

Care to write a sermon? Or, the tale of the Reverend's Desk

With our computer and cell phone-dominated lives, it may be hard to imagine someone using a piece of furniture like the Reverend Richard Salter Storrs’ cherrywood desk-and-bookcase. An imposing piece of furniture at over 98” tall, Storrs was certainly making a statement of his importance as a minister and the serious business of writing sermons.

The top portion of the piece consists of shelves behind two “tombstone” carved doors.  The doors are decorated with a distinctive serpentine vine carving.  At the top are ball-shaped finials that were originally topped with elegant flame-shaped turnings.  The lower portion is essentially a fall-front desk, commonly known now as a slant-front desk. The four drawers below are block front-carved and finished with bright brass Chippendale drawer pulls. With the writing surface pulled down, you can admire the cubby-holes with decorative valences and a central door with matching pillar drawers.  An added plus is the secret drawer hidden behind the door disguised as a valence!

This vine-carved object was made by an as-yet unknown cabinetmaker. Only a handful of similar pieces are known—one in the collections of Historic Deerfield, a couple in private collections, and at least one of unknown whereabouts. Recently, a highboy with similar vine carving sold at auction. Tantalizingly, it had an almost-illegible inscription. It is likely to be the name of the owner (associated with the provenance that came with the piece), so it does not shed light on the maker.  However, given the ownership of the known pieces, it is likely that the maker was located in the Springfield, MA area.

Although this desk was certainly a very important statement piece to the Storrs family, it gradually was regarded as old-fashioned, and it was relegated to less prominent places in the Storrs home.  At some point it was moved, with disastrous consequences. Gone were the flame finials--lost or discarded, we don't know. We also think that one of the rear feet got broken, and their solution was to cut off the other 3!  Thus, the amputated piece was left, though it was eventually returned to a place of honor in the south parlor.

The desk was unique enough to warrant admiration and study over the years, including a guest appearance at the Wadsworth Atheneum in Hartford for the quintessential exhibit, The Great River, in 1985.  Potential cabinetmakers have been proposed and rejected, though a Springfield/Northampton origin seemed likely. Philip Zea, former President & CEO and Chief Curator of Historic Deerfield, wrote this about the piece: "the desk-and-bookcase represents the best case furniture available in the Springfield area after the Revolution. The secretary boasts documented descent from its first owner, the Reverend Richard Salter Storrs (1763-1819) of Longmeadow in the very house where it was first owned. In fact, it is quite likely that the secretary is among the original furnishings of the Storrs House built in 1786. This level of documented use, through the generations, creates an unusual opportunity to interpret local craftsmanship and evolving taste over time."

The Longmeadow Historical Society has been fortunate to obtain Community Preservation Act funds for the restoration of this piece—work that has recently been completed.  Come see it in its place of honor in the Reverend’s parlor in all its glory.

Dr. Harry Charles Martin

Harry Charles Martin was a prominent physician in Longmeadow in the early twentieth century who lived a fascinating, albeit relatively short life. He was born in Milford, Massachusetts on December 1, 1877 and graduated from Dartmouth Medical College in 1898. Soon after graduation, he opened his general medical practice in Springfield.  Harry married Emma Putnam from Sutton, Massachusetts in April 1899. The couple, who never had children, initially lived in Springfield but moved to a newly constructed home at 20 Woodlawn Place in Longmeadow along with Emma’s mother. 

His early 20th century career was interesting and varied. Dr. Martin cared for the residents of the nearby Doane Orphanage in Longmeadow after it opened in 1902. The orphanage was in very close proximity to his home. Starting in 1906, Dr. Martin was the personal physician for Everett Barney, whose clip-on ice-skate patent earned him the fortune that funded his estate in nearby Forest Park. Eventually, Martin also became the physician for the Hampden County Jail.  

Aside from his professional work, Dr. Martin was an early automobile enthusiast and one of the original members of the Automobile Club of Springfield.

Harry Martin joined the Massachusetts National Guard in 1909 as a Lieutenant and served as a battalion quartermaster. He transferred to the medical corps in 1913 and was influential in inoculating soldiers against Typhoid Fever. He served during the Mexican Border War.

During World War I, Dr. Martin served 19 months in France as a surgeon for the 101st Infantry and earned the rank of Major. He was awarded the French Croix de Guerre for bravery in action July 24, 1918.

In an article in The Springfield Republican on June 26, 1918, Dr. Martin described his position in the field with “shells bursting 300 yards away.” As a regimental surgeon he was at the front far from a base hospital, with intimate knowledge of “what a trench looks like along with a heap of dead Germans, living with rats and cooties.” His quarantining efforts in 1919 while still in France helped to reduce deaths from the dreaded Spanish influenza. 

After WWI, he was instrumental in establishing the Longmeadow branch of the American Legion, the Albert T. Wood Post No. 175. Dr Martin resumed his medical practice at 374 Main Street in Springfield on June 2, 1919.

In 1927, Dr Martin and Congressman Henry Bowles traveled to France to visit the battlefields at Verdun and Belleau Wood. On the voyage back home off of Nantucket their ocean liner Veendam rammed into and sank the freighter Sagaland. He and Congressman Bowles were uninjured. 

It was said that his war service “broke his health” and he subsequently suffered from “heart trouble.” His wife Emma died in January 1927, and later that year Harry C. Martin died suddenly on September 12, 1927 at 51 years old. His death was a shock to the war veterans he served with and the patients he cared for. The Martins are buried in Longmeadow Cemetery.

-Contributed by Lenny Shaker, Longmeadow Historical Society

Sources:

The Springfield Republican

Springfield Union

Ancestry.com