Spotlight #1: The Heroic Jeffrey Brace

This photo and the accompanying caption were originally posted to our Facebook page (link to external site) on July 4, 2022.

Happy 4th of July! Today we celebrate the 246th anniversary of our nation's independence and honor the lives of the many soldiers who fought for our freedom. One of those soldiers was Private Jeffrey Brace, whose incredible story is featured as part of our newest exhibit "Untold Stories, Unheard Voices."

Brace was born Boyrereau Brinch in 1742, in the Niger River basin. He was kidnapped by English slave traders in 1758 and taken to Barbados to be sold. He would later fight in the Seven Years' War as an "enslaved sailor" before being taken to Connecticut. He passed through a series of owners, most of whom treated him with extreme cruelty, before being sold to Mary Stiles, a widow who taught him to read, write, and speak proper English. After Mary's passing, Brace enlisted in the Sixth Regiment of the Connecticut Continental Line in 1777 with the permission of her son Benjamin.

Brace was soon assigned to the regiment's light infantry company, where he would remain for the rest of the war. While records are often muddy, it is known that he fought in the Battle of Stony Point, endured the "Hard Winter" of 1779-1780 at Morristown, New Jersey, and engaged in numerous skirmishes with British foraging parties. Upon being discharged in 1783, he was awarded the badge of merit.

After returning from the Revolutionary War, Brace was granted his freedom and soon moved to Vermont, where he became a farmer. He initially settled in Poultney with his wife Susannah and their children, but the family faced harassment from their neighbors that forced them to relocate. The Brace family then spent a brief time in Sheldon before settling on sixty acres in Georgia, Vermont.

In 1810, Brace, now legally blind, published "The Blind African Slave, or Memoirs of Boyrereau Brinch, Nicknamed Jeffrey Brace," with the help of Benjamin Prentiss, an anti-slavery lawyer, and Harry Whitney of St. Albans. It is an extraordinary read and a truly one-of-a kind account of what it was like to be enslaved. Jeffrey Brace died in 1827 as a well-respected abolitionist, and it is believed that many of his descendants have remained in the St. Albans area.

More information on Brace is available as part of our exhibit, "Untold Stories, Unheard Voices." A complete transcript of "The Blind African Slave" is also available online from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill at https://docsouth.unc.edu/neh/brinch/brinch.html (link to external site).