Collect Day #18, POMP & CANDACE SPRING
God of all beauty and creator of all wealth, we are grateful for the entrepreneurial spirit of the Springs, for the example of industry and enterprise that they were to the citizens of our region, and for the memory of excellence they have left for us. They were courageous people, who knew their worth in your eyes. As we reflect on their lives, help us to learn persistence and ingenuity and respect for beauty; in the name of Jesus, we pray. Amen
DAY #18, March 6, 2018
Portsmouth
POMP & CANDACE SPRING
(1766-1807)
J Dennis Robinson
Among the most recognized and best loved residents of downtown Portsmouth in its heyday was an African American baker. “Pomp” Spring (he preferred the nickname over “Pompey”) was an entrepreneur, civil rights activist, churchgoer and homeowner. Pomp and his wife Candace lived and worked in the heart of Market Square, in a well-kept home a few yards from the North Church.
“He had a town full of friends, black and white,” a Portsmouth newspaper eulogized at his death in 1807, “and no enemies that he or anybody else ever knew of.”
Born into bondage in nearby Maine, enslaved by the local minister, Pomp Spring stands out — or should stand out — in New Hampshire history as a man of color who lived independently and honorably in a predominantly white world over two centuries ago. Pomp and Candace also remind us that, like most maritime towns, Portsmouth was a more diverse and lively community than the solemn framed portraits of its wealthy upper class imply.
Three times each day, according to 19th century historian Tobias H. Miller, the impeccably-dressed Pomp Spring, driving his perfectly groomed horse, emerged from the narrow Church Street to sell his wares. Pomp was “one of the most genteel, respectable, and highly finished ‘gentleman from Africa’ ever seen among us in the northern states,” Miller wrote in 1852.
In defiance of boilerplate history, Pomp and Candace did not live in an attic or backyard slave quarters. The freed couple owned a comfortable home and operated their once-famous bakery adjacent to the North Church. Pomp’s career as a baker was short lived. He died in 1807 at age 41. Candace died four months later. The Spring home is gone, but a fascinating room-by-room inventory details every item in their home. What stands out is how typical their worldly possessions were to the white community that surrounded, accepted and admired this fashionable, handsome, hardworking couple.
“He was the baker of bread,” Miller wrote. “She was the maker of cakes, for great occasions, grave and gay, among our most genteel people.”
At his death the local newspaper eulogized: “Whilst the people of color and especially the poorer class of them, have abundant cause to regret his death, we have no hesitancy to declare that his loss will be felt by all this town.”
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