Even More Reason to Revere Peter and Esther Jackson
In October 1637, the Connecticut colony passed a law in response to Native American's fighting back against the encroachment of English settlers. The law allowed for enslavement of Native Americans if they destroyed the property of English settlers. The law also allowed them to be shipped to the West Indies in trade for an African.
Off the Tunxis River (now the Farmington River), there once was a Native American settlement called Massaco. In 1647, an elder Massaco man named Manahannoose burned the property of a Windsor, CT settler named John Griffin. The Massaco people did not want Manahannoose enslaved or shipped off, so they gave nearly all of their Massaco land to John Griffin in trade for the freedom of Manahannoose.
In 1670, Massaco was renamed Simsbury.
John Griffin was the grandfather of Stephen Griffin… who was the enslaver of Esther Jackson's father, London Wallace. Therefore, Peter & Esther Jackson’s story has a direct tie to the acquisition and original establishment of the town of Simsbury.
On June 19, 2025 at 10am, the Alex Breanne Corporation in Collaboration with Simsbury Historical Society and the Town of Simsbury will be unveiling a new monument at Simsbury Cemetery honoring this historic black couple and their family. The event is being held at historic Eno Memorial Hall in Simsbury. This is a building that Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. visited often during the summer of 1944 while he was here for the summer as a teenager. After the ceremony, we will walk across the street to Simsbury Cemetery to officially dedicate our new monument.
This is a free event! Please join us! Also, please register for the event so that we have a head count. You can register HERE.
Hope to see you then!
John
