Collect Day #8 OXFORD TASH
Dear God, steadfast in your care and protection: grant that we may be inspired by the example of Oxford Tash, who faithfully persevered despite illness and injury to carry out his duties in military service, in farming, and in raising his eight children; through Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen.
Gilman House, Exeter NH
DAY #8, March 14, 2019
EXETER, NH
OXFORD TASH (? – 1810)
Deborah Knowlton
Oxford Tash, although enslaved by Colonel Thomas Tash, was remembered as a soldier who served in both the French and Indian Wars and the Revolutionary War. He likely gained his freedom after his service in the Revolutionary War. He first enlisted for New Hampshire in 1775 but contracted smallpox when fighting at Fort Ticonderoga. In 1777, he re-enlisted for Massachusetts and was wounded, perhaps at Monmouth. His pension record indicates that “he carried the musket ball …in his thigh until his death.” He finished his service and was discharged in February of 1781.
By November of 1781, he had married Esther How Freeman of Newburyport, MA. By 1790, they were settled in Exeter, where Oxford farmed a small plot of land on Nathaniel Gilman’s estate, and his wife made some money by telling fortunes. The Tash’s eight children attended Exeter schools.
One son, Robert Tash, in 1827, became the first Black man to be ordained by the General Conference of the Free Will Baptist Church.
Another son, Charles G. Tash, was a successful trader, who bought and sold property, donating some to schools and churches, and served as a private aide to Commodore John C. Long. When Sally Moore, a White servant in the Gilman household, refused his marriage proposal, he shot himself and her. They both survived but Charles was convicted of attempted murder, although the jury withheld sentencing, convinced he was affected by a broken heart.
William Tash, yet another son, worked on the Gilman estate, and married Sally Duce, daughter of Bob “Bombaway” Duce, a seafarer, who was enslaved by Gilman.
Oxford delayed taking his military pension for many years. When he finally did, it was about $2.50 per month. He died about 1810. Esther tried for years to receive her widow’s pension, finally securing it in 1838, six years before she died. The couple is buried in unmarked graves in the Winter Street Cemetery in Exeter.
