Collect Day #11 COIT MOUNTAIN FAMILIES
Almighty and ever-living God; we give you thanks for the diversity of people and races who bless our country and enrich our witness to your love for all people. We particularly raise up the community of African Americans who settled Coit Mountain, New Hampshire in times past. We acknowledge before you the failure of our forebears to chronicle accurately and honestly the quality of their lives and beg that your grace may enlighten your servants today, who rely on your mercy, to seek the truth no matter the cost so that your reign of justice and love may rule our hearts to the glory of your holy Name; through Jesus Christ our Lord, who lives and reigns with you and the Holy Spirit, one God, now and forever. Amen.
DAY #11, March 18, 2019
NEWPORT, NH
COIT MOUNTAIN FAMILIES
Lynn Clark
Coit Mountain, a hill on the Newport and Croydon town line named for a Black man, bears witness to the Black community that once existed near its slopes. Coit, known in various sources as Richard or Vance, migrated to the area sometime between 1775 and 1790. We do not know where he came from, but perhaps he was from Connecticut, as were most settlers in Newport. We know that he had a White wife, but we do not know her name. The Coits left the hill named for them by 1803. We don’t know where they migrated to next.
There are two stories about Coit preserved in the Newport history that reflect White beliefs about Black people’s morals. In one he was whipped in downtown Newport for stealing. His wife was said to have bathed his wounds in rum, which she then drank. The other alleges that he was willing to risk his soul by working for a neighbor on the Sabbath for two pounds of sugar.
The details White historians chose to pass on about Coit were those that would tarnish the reputation of the Black community. Coit’s morals were called into question and his wife was characterized as an alcoholic. The only other detailed story about a community member is that of the faithless husband, Thomas Billings.
Billings is alleged to have deserted his wife and run off to Canada with a White woman. We find a different story in marriage and census records. Billings was married in 1797 to Mary Kempton, a White woman whose family was among the first settlers in Croydon. The Billings were living in Vermont, not Canada, in 1810.
Other Coit Mountain families received scant or no mention in Newport and Croydon histories, but we can learn about them through tax records, land deeds, and Revolutionary War records. Robert Nott at one time owned a 25-acre parcel of land that he farmed.
John Reed owned the lot adjacent to Nott. Reed enlisted for service in the New Hampshire militia from Canterbury and re-enlisted several times during the war. After his service he lived in Warner and then purchased 50 acres of land near Coit Mountain. He married Dinah Hoyt, a Black woman from Croydon, in 1791. The Reeds farmed their parcel and acquired livestock as well. They left the community in 1794. Other community members included Revolutionary War veterans Salem Colby and Scipio Page.
The Black community around Coit Mountain in the late-eighteenth and early-nineteenth centuries consisted of independent, land-owning farmers. Official town histories did not preserve their names or their accomplishments.
