Rye 400 Committee - As published in Stroll magazine, March 2023
The African-American community has been a visible presence on the seacoast since the first Europeans landed on the shores of what is now Odiorne State Park. What do we know of their story?
There are several resources available, among them are Black Portsmouth: Three Centuries of African-American Heritage, Mark J. Sammons and Valerie Cunningham (2004); Color Me Included: The African Americans of Hampton’s First Church and its Descendant Parishes, 1670-1826, Deborah Knowlton (2016); History of the Town of Rye, New Hampshire, 1623 - 1903, Langdon B. Parsons (1905); the online Slavery in the North, http://slavenorth.com/newhampshire.htm by Douglas Harper (2003); and the Portsmouth Herald archives.
In Black Portsmouth and Color Me Included, we learn the earliest known Africans were brought to Portsmouth in 1645, but not when they were brought to Rye. We do know that in the years between the establishment of the “Parish of Rye at Newcastle,” in 1726, and the incorporation of the town of Rye in 1785, there were enslaved men, women and children in the households of Seavey, Libby, Jenness, Parsons, Berry and Wallis. In Parson’s History of Rye, we learn there were 12 male and seven female enslaved adults in 1773. Two years later, the number increased to 14.
By 1783, the New Hampshire (NH) Constitution declared "all men are born equal and independent…” In the 1790 federal census, the number of enslaved persons in Rye was reduced to three. The last slave reported in the state of NH was in 1840. According to Douglas Harper’s Slavery in the North, enslavement was legally abolished in New Hampshire in 1857 and, in 1860, the state was one of only five that allowed African Americans to vote.
In the years that followed, many African Americans in the area worked in the growing tourist industry. In fact, during the end of the 19th and beginning of the 20th centuries, Rye photographers A.R.H. Foss and Clarence Trefry captured some images of Black people around town. Although their personal identities are not known, they are among the musicians, athletes and others who would dress fashionably for a visit to the seacoast. Today, these photographs are in the Rye Historical Society archives.
The Klu Klux Klan presence in northern New England in the 1920s did not bypass the small town of Rye. In 1924, the Portsmouth Herald carried an ad inviting people to come to Rye Town Hall to listen to Rev. A. O. Henry, a national Klan speaker. In 1926, at least two Klan meetings were held in town, one in June and the other in July in an open field on Wallis Road. It is unclear if the targets of these meetings were Catholics, Jews, or the Black presence in the area.
It was not until 1979, 200 years after documentation of enslaved people in Rye, that Aldrich Mitchell was elected to the Rye Select Board as the first known person of color to hold a seat.
Whether as enslaved people, domestics and service workers in the local hotel industry, or residents serving in town government, African Americans have been present in the area, now known as Rye and the surrounding communities. We look to historians and organizations like the Black Heritage Trail of New Hampshire (BHTNH) and the Seacoast African American Cultural Center to continue to research and document that history. One opportunity to learn more will take place at the Rye Congregational Church on October 8, 2023, 1:00-3:00pm, when Valerie Fagin, a tour guide at BHTNH, will present to the public as part of Rye400’s year-long lecture series. Keep updated on all events @ https://www.ryenh400.org/
