Adam Jackson

Adam Jackson. Hempsted Houses. , Adam Jackson was born into slavery c. 1700 and separated from his mother three years later., In 1727, Joshua Hempsted purchased Jackson for eighty-five pounds. Hempsted was nearing fifty; his sons were grown and starting families of their own. Jackson's unpaid forced labor allowed Hempsted to continue farming profitably, to build an addition on his house and to serve as justice of the peace. Hempsted also bartered Jackson's labor for goods and services from at least seventy local men and women. Jackson plowed, threshed hay, carted goods, made cider, and was a skilled animal handler., At Hempsted's death in 1758, his estate inventory included an "old Negro man named Adam." The next year, after nearly sixty years of enslavement, Jackson shows up on tax rolls as a free man owning a small amount of property. He disappears from the historical record in 1765.