Dad's Memories - VENTURE SMITH
- 18 November 98 
-
22 November 98
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VENTURE Smith - A Real Haddam Neck Legend
and Author of
A NARRATIVE -of the- LIFE AND ADVENTURES -of- VENTURE A NATIVE OF AFRICA,
But Resident Above Sixty Years in the United States of America RELATED
BY HIMSELF
Originally Printed in 1798
VENTURE'S Story is presented here with commentary from many sources
- both print and "web"
Compiled by R.E. Langdon
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FROM: 5 BLACK LIVES - Documents of Black Connecticut,
...c 1971, by Wesleyan University Press
From 1896 printing - VENTURE - Title Page
With a Publishers Note (Wesleyan University Press)
and
an 1896 note by H.M. Selden concerning a portion of
the final paragraph of Chapter 3 being omitted from the 1835 reprinting
published by a decendant of Venture.
PUBLISHERS NOTE (Wesleyan University Press):
As is apparent from the ... title page, the text
of Venture Smith's autobiography is reproduced here not from the edition
of 1798 (or 1835), but from the (revision
and) reprinting of 1896. The special value of this
later edition lies in its additional materials ... (Link
- 10 - herein) ... which sets forth further facts
about and impressions of Venture and his family, drawn from the memories
of neighbors who had known him in his old age and from a still lively oral
tradition.
EDITORS NOTE: An 1896 note by H.M. Selden - concerning
a portion of the final paragraph of Chapter 3 being omitted from the 1835
reprinting published by a decendant of Venture.
*(While I am now looking to the grave as my home,
my joy for this world would be full - IF my children, Cuff for whom I paid
two hundred dollars when a boy, and Solomon who was born soon after I purchased
his mother - If Cuff and Solomon - Oh! that they had walked in the way
of their father. But a fathers's lips are closed in silence and in grief!
- Vanity of vanities, all is vanity.)
* Note, the closing words in parenthesis were omited
in later editions. It is probable that both improved later, especially
so in the case of Solomon, who is well spoken of by elderly men now living,
as having maintained a good character.
Rick's NOTE: The Solomon referred to above, must be
to Solomon 2d, VENTURE'S forth and last child - born shortly after VENTURE
bought his wife MEG out of slavery.
Venture had 4 children in all -
HANNAH - born about 1752, bought out of slavery by
Venture for £44
SOLOMON - born about 1756, bought out of slavery by
Venture for $200, died at age 17
CUFF - born about 1758, bought out of slavery by Venture
for $200
SOLOMON 2d - Born -FREE- in 1773 OR 1774
VENTURES STORY (Index Page
- 10 Links)
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