Collect Day #16, VANCE COIT
Bringer of all Life, may your holy and life-giving Spirit move the heart of every person to build paths that tie mountain tops to valleys, and to speak words that dismantle the barriers of culture and ethnicity which divide us. Help us to see in the work of Vance Coit, the establishment of a welcoming community for the weary, the war-torn, the unwelcome–any needing refreshment. Invite us to imagine what a beloved community might look like in which suspicions had crumbled away like old stone walls, and hatreds had disappeared. leaving in their place the scent of roses. But may our imagining see, too, not only skin color only–by the varied and beautiful shades of all the skin colors across the globe. Then, spur us to act for such a day, with the help of Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen
DAY #16, March 3, 2018
Newport
VANCE COIT
Rev. Deborah Knowlton
Near the end of the 1700s, there was a colony of free Blacks who lived on a hill in Newport. The hill was named after Vance Coit, the leader and most prominent man of the colony. A story passed down about Coit:
“A neighbor, having some hay in a condition in which it would spoil unless taken care of on the Sabbath, applied to Vance for help, offering him a pound of sugar if he would assist in getting it. Vance, with much apparent indignation, replied, “Do you think I would have my soul fry in hell to all eternity for a pound of sugar? No!” He then added, “Give me two pounds, and I will risk it.”
Most of the Coit community, or Coit Mountain, residents were freedom fighters who, after escaping enslavement, were simply looking for a place to call home. Among Vance Coit’s neighbors were:
Jesse Sherburn, the son of Pomp Sherburne, of Londonderry, who served in the Revolutionary War. Pomp married Florissa Taggart whose freedom he had bought. Their son Jesse was born in 1781. Jesse’s parents died early in his life and he was raised by Polly Pinkham until he left Londonderry to join the colony with Vance and the others.
Salem Colby was enslaved to Hannah Bowers of Billerica, who sold him to Lot Colby of Rumford (Concord). After his service in the Revolutionary War, Colby lived at Coit Mountain with his wife and later moved to Vermont.
Tom Billings deserted his wife and moved to Canada with a white woman. An Amma Billings, buried in North Newport Cemetery, may have been Tom’s wife.
Charles Hall came from Florida. The story says he secured his freedom by hiding in a sugar barrel on a ship bound for Boston. He was helped by a brother of Deacon Jonathan Cutting. There is a record for a Prudence Hall who died in 1877 and was buried in the same cemetery as Amma Billings. Prudence might have been Charles’ wife.
There is no marked area or cemetery where all of these colony members are buried. Only a cellar hole and a rose bush remain as markers to identify Coit’s once-thriving mountain colony.
