New Boston Historical Society
New Boston, New Hampshire

Samantha Plantin, born 1827 in New Boston

The Plantin Family in New Boston

In June of 2023 a historical marker in memory of Samantha Plantin was installed on Elm Street in Manchester by the Manchester Heritage Commission. This marker is one of several researched by commissioner Stan Garrity for the Black History of Manchester Project. It tells the story of a young woman from New Boston who went to the mill town where she worked as a washerwoman and dressmaker, saving her money to become the first Black woman to own property in Manchester.

This New Boston web page was created to complement the Manchester historical marker, adding what we know of the Plantin family in our town. Note: in our records the family name is spelled "Plantin", "Plantain", or "Planting"; we will use the spelling Samantha chose for her gravestone.

The historical marker explains Samantha Plantin's historical significance. Click the image to enlarge it. (Photo by Stan Garrity)


Stan Garrity stands beside the marker at its unveiling. (Photo by Carol Robidoux / Manchester Ink Link)

Carol Robidoux wrote an article in the Manchester Ink Link about Samantha and her plaque. Click here to read the article and see more photos and a video. For more information about the Black History of Manchester Project please visit their Facebook page where Stan thanks the people and organizations who have helped with the project.

U.S. Census for New Boston 1820

The Plantins in New Boston

The first record of Plantins in New Boston is from the U.S. Census of 1820. The census document shown above is complicated; let me explain how to read it. You'll see in the 4th row that "Piola Plantain" was the head of a household in which there were 2 Persons engaged in Agriculture — that's the first number 2 to the right of Piola's name. The other numbers tell us that the "Plantain" household included:
   1 Slave, Male under age 14
   1 Slave, Male, age 26 – 44 (probably Piola)
   2 Free Colored Persons, Female age 14 – 25
   1 Free Colored Person, Female age 26 – 44 (probably Piola's wife Dorcas)
   1 Free Colored Person, Female 45 or older

Listed just below Piola Plantin is his neighbor Harry Robinson, the head of another Black household which also included enslaved and free people. The entries for their other neighbors show numbers in left-hand columns; these are the numbers of Free White Males and Free White Females living in each household.

The Census of 1820 was the first to have a category for "free colored persons" and I'm unable to explain why the Plantin and Robinson households contained both free and enslaved people. While slavery was not formally abolished in New Hampshire until the 1850s or 1860s, multiple sources indicate that there were few people enslaved in New Hampshire after the Revolutionary War. With respect to the Census, a chapter about slavery in the 1903 "History of Bedford" includes a theory proposed by Rev. Nathaniel Bouton, editor of the N. H. State Papers, that some people were "inadvertently reckoned as slaves" by census enumerators after the War. (I welcome corrections or additional information about this subject from knowledgeable readers.)

Pewter cup "given to Etta Woodbury when Etta was about age 14 by Dorcas Plantain, an ex-slave, who with her hsuband lived up the Weare Road." — item description from the Woodbury family who gave us the cup in 1967. Dorcas would have been almost 90 in 1868.

What else do we know about Mr. Plantin? His marriage certificate tells us that "Paoli" Plantin married Dorcas Brewer in 1818 in Weare, N.H. Both were residents of that town and both are described as Black, which is a description that was also used for people of mixed race. The certificate does not identify their parents. A public notice in an 1824 newspaper advertises the sale of a "parcel of land known by the name of the Peola Plantain lot" in Merrimack, which is near New Boston but not a walkable distance. A gravestone purchased by Samantha Plantin for her grandmother(?) bears the inscription "Dorcas wife of Peolia Plantin"; Samantha did not buy a stone for Peolia and we don't know where he's buried. We also don't know which of the many spellings of Plantin's first name is correct.

Mr. Plantin disappears from the Census of 1830; he may have died before that year, perhaps in 1824. His wife Dorcas is listed for New Boston in 1830. Two curiosities: she is listed as Dorcas Brewer, not Plantin, and her household consists of three free colored males (under 10, between 10-24, and 55 or older) but no females. In censuses from 1840-1870 Dorcas is living alone in New Boston, with her last name spelled "Planting" or "Planter."

Plantin gravestones in Valley Cemetery (photo by John Wilby from FindAGrave)

Dorcas Brewer Plantin died in 1872 at age 92 and was buried in the New Boston cemetery. In 1895, Samantha Plantin had Dorcas moved to the Valley Cemetery in Manchester, N.H., along with Mahala B. Plantin. Mahala died in 1837 at age 32 in New Boston. We don't know how she was related to Samantha but the fact that Samantha purchased a gravestone for her suggests that she was a close relation. The women's birth years were Dorcas: c.1780, Mahala: 1805, and Samantha: 1826. Were they grandmother, mother, and daughter? Mahala B. Plantin was born 13 years before Dorcas Brewer married Peolia Plantin; was Dorcas her mother or her step-mother?

Samantha Plantin in a New Boston photo album

The one photo we have of Samantha Plantin is in a New Boston photo album from the 1850s, when she was about 30. The page before Samantha's photo bears the heading "New Boston residents."

The 1892 map shows that Samantha Plantin's house was located on Beard Road.

New Boston's annual Town Reports list taxpayers as Residents or Non-Residents beginning in the 1870s; Samantha is listed as a Resident for most years, although it's likely that she moved to Manchester in the 1840s.

This Baptist church was built in 1832 near the New Boston Town Hall.

Reverend Andrew Twombly Foss was the minister of the New Boston Baptist Church from 1839-1844. Samantha's historical marker says that "she first appears in Manchester records in the city directory in 1844... At the same time, Andrew T. Foss, the pastor of the New Boston Baptist Church who would become a nationally known abolitionist, arrived in the city." Did Samantha follow Foss to Manchester? We don't know. She became a member of the Merrimack Street Baptist Church in Manchester and there she remained, long after Foss disavowed his own Baptist faith.

Samantha Plantin died of pneumonia in 1899 at age 72 years 10 months. She never married and had no children. In the New Boston "Old Folks' Day" report of 1899, Miss Plantin was described as "a truly remarkable woman, and her life was full of good works... In spite of all the disadvantages of race and circumstance that burdened her younger life, she was a woman whom all could love and respect, and has left a record of which any person might well be proud."

— Dan R. 2023

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