There were at least three men named Pomp living in Waterbury
and Watertown in the 18th and 19th centuries. The 1790
census lists a free African American named Pomp as the
head of a household of 3 other people in Waterbury; this
may have been one of the men named Pomp known to have
lived in Watertown.
In Watertown, there were two men named Pomp Freeman. The
first one was born in 1723 and died in 1804; the second
was born in 1756 and died in 1834. The elder Pomp was
baptized as an adult in Waterbury's Episcopal church on
June 14, 1752 and was at that point enslaved by Watertown's
Jonathan Prindle. He appears to have still been enslaved
in 1790; the census for that year does not show him as
free. By the 1800 census, however, he was free, and the
head of a household that included one other free African
American.
The younger Pomp Freeman married a woman named Lilly or
Lilla. She died on November 12, 1792 at the age of 27. Pomp
married a second time, to a woman named Cate. The 1810 census
shows Pomp, his wife and three children living in Watertown.
Cate died January 7, 1816 at the age of 55. Pomp outlived
four of his children as well as his two wives: three children
died in infancy in the 1790s and a son named Abel died in
1818 at the age of 15. Pomp seems to have married a third
time: the census records of 1820 and 1830 show him living
with a woman roughly his age.
Pomp Freeman was a farmer. He appears in the probate records
of George Nichols for having sold Indian corn to Nichols
in June of 1790; Nichols' debt to Pomp was settled by
his estate. In addition, Pomp was paid by the Nichols
estate for "his evidence" in August of 1793.
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to Waterbury's African Americans List
