acrylic on board: First Church, Congregational - looking from Venture Smith's headstone

 

First Church, East Haddam CT - looking from Venture and Meg Smith's Gravesites

Venture Smith was a prominent member of the East Haddam and Haddam communities in the early 19th Century. Venture Smith was an African-American farmer and craftsman. Yet, except for his own accounts,  there seems little to document his contributions to Haddam Neck and East Haddam. This painting of First Church, Congregational, is thus symbolic perhaps. His family burial area at the cemetery adjacent to the Church is prominent and overlooks to the sanctuary. 

In his early sixties, he was unjustly charged with the loss of a white man's property and charged for ten pounds while visiting New London. Although being absent from the scene with witnesses, he was still prosecuted. Smith then carried this matter to other courts, claiming his innocence, but the judgment was never reversed. This misleading judgment was made out of discrimination against Black people. Remembering this experience, he said: "Captain Hart was a white gentleman, and I a poor African, therefore it was all right, and good enough for the black dog.^[9] "

It would not be surprising, then, that even though he achieved financial success before he died, that - as an African man - the powers-that-be kept a certain social isolation between the white settlers and Smith.   Just like the stone wall keeps the Smith family gravesites apart from the European area settlers.

Kidnapped when he was six and a half years old in West Africa and taken to Anomabo on the Gold Coast to be sold into slavery. As an adult, he purchased his freedom and that of his family.

Smith experienced multiple personal setbacks. He bought an enslaved Black man for 400 dollars. However, he wanted to return to his old enslaver, so Smith released him. Venture Smith purchased another enslaved Black man for 25 pounds. After his daughter, Hannah was married, she came down with an illness. However, her husband did not pay adequate attention to her health. Although Smith nursed her, she died.  

In 1775, Smith bought a farm at Haddam Neck, on the Salmon River, in Connecticut. By 1778 he had expanded the initial 10 acres to form a farm of at least 130 acres. Additionally, he made a living by fishing, whaling, farming his land, and trading in the Long Island basin.

He lived the remainder of his life at Haddam Neck.^[1] 

(Birth name: Broteer Furro) (c. 1729 – 1805)

Venture Smith (Wikipedia) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Venture_Smith