Collect Day #39, FLORA STEWART
O Lord of all the years, we remember today your indomitable child, Flora Stewart who graced New Hampshire with her strength, skill and faithful witness to the Good News of the Gospel. Born into slavery, Flora lived to see America’s freedom realized and its final battle for identity in the Civil War. As a free woman she raised two sons and contributed much to her community. May her spirit be remembered as a true American story and give us all courage to strengthen the ties that bind us as a nation of diversity and giftedness; this we ask in the name of our Lord, Jesus Christ. Amen.
DAY #39, April 19, 2019
LONDONDERRY, NH
FLORA STEWART (17?? – 1868)
Christiane Lee
The legend of Flora Stewart is cherished in her hometown of Londonderry, NH. She may have been the longest living person in New Hampshire history, possibly 118 when she died.
There is not much known about her birth or upbringing, as every story about her has conflicting information. But we know she was born in Londonderry in the mid-1700s, enslaved to a man named Wilson. She later married a man named Stewart. They had two sons, Isaiah and Salone.
Flora Stewart, married and living in Candia, NH, worked as an enslaved person on the farm of William Duncan, a local trader. She was later freed from slavery, most likely in the early 1810s, and returned to Londonderry with her sons around 1835. There is no record of what became of her husband. The Londonderry Historical Society, in its 2004 book, Londonderry, wrote: “She was said to have been freed from slavery by the Windham man who bought her. Gov. Fredrick Smyth invited her to his home in Manchester in 1867 and had her photographed in a studio.”
Her age was the reason for the honor. The caption on this famous photograph states: “Aged 117 years. Taken Nov. 5, 1867.” The New York Times published a short article about Stewart earlier the same year, May 19, 1867:
“In Londonderry, NH, about two miles north-west of Derry Village, near the line of the Manchester and Lawrence Railroad, resides Flora Stewart, a negress, once the slave of the grandfather of Samuel Wilson Simpson, now 80 years of age, whose mother at his birth was nursed by Flora. She is reputed to be 120 years of age. Mr. Simpson has data proving it to be not less than 119. Flora is full of vim, with remarkably retentive memory. She has been for a long time a member of the Methodist Church, and on one of my visits to the lady I learned that she had just completed a rereading of the Testament. Mr. Simpson gave her a bill, and without spectacles she looked at it and said ‘Why, Wilson, this is $5.’ Her memory embraces the incidents of a century.”
We do not have the referenced data Mr. Simpson says proves her age, however, upon closer research, the Londonderry census of 1850 reports her age as 76, along with her son Isaiah, 48, and her son Salone, 36. This would place her birth around the year 1774. If this is truly the case, she would have been only 94 at her death in 1868 – still an amazingly long life for the time period. Whether or not she truly lived to be 118, 119, or 120, there is no doubt that “Old Flora” Stewart’s legacy is one of endurance.
