America 250 in Color: Agrippa Hull (March 7, 1759-May 21, 1848)
By Charles Ray and Dr. Carlton McLellan - February 26, 2026
Agrippa Hull was a free Black man, born March 7, 1759, in Northampton, Massachusetts, to landholding parents. When his father died in 1761, his mother, unable to support him, eventually sent him, when he was seven, to live with a free Black couple, Joab and Rose Binney, in Stockbridge, Massachusetts, in a predominantly white community.
In May 1777, when he was 18, Hull enlisted in the Continental Army. He initially served as an orderly to Major General John Paterson and was with him for the British surrender at Saratoga, the long winter at Valley Forge, and the Battle of Monmouth Courthouse. In the spring of 1778, he was reassigned to serve as an orderly to Tadeuz Kosciuszko, a Polish military engineer who was helping the Continental Army.
During the 30 months that he served with Kosciuszko, he was in virtually every major battle of the Southern campaign, including the Battles of Cowpens, Eutaw Springs, Guilford Courthouse, and the Siege of Charleston. After the war, Kosciuszko invited Hull to return to Poland with him, but he wanted to go home to Stockbridge.
In Stockbridge, he eventually became a landowner and family man, but his first position was as a servant in the household of Theodore Sedgwick, a lawyer. Sedwick helped Hull’s future wife, Jane Darby, gain her freedom, and after they married, the Hulls settled on a small plot of land that Hull purchased in 1785. He spent the rest of his life working with Sedgwick to seek freedom for enslaved Blacks in Stockbridge.
Hull and his first wife had four children, and when she died, he married Margaret Timbrooks. During all this time, he worked as a household servant, using what money he could save to buy land, eventually becoming the largest Black landowner in Stockbridge.
In 1818, when Revolutionary War veterans were authorized pensions, they were required to submit their discharge certificates as proof of service. Because it was signed personally by George Washington, Hull was loath to part with it. Sedgwick, who was also Speaker of the Massachusetts House of Representatives at the time, wrote a letter of support for him, asking that he be awarded the pension without the signed documents because ‘he had rather forego the pension than lose the discharge,’ which had been signed by George Washington, a man he greatly admired. The petition was approved, and he received his pension and kept the discharge papers, which are currently at the Museum & Archives of the Stockbridge Library Association.
While many Black soldiers who enlisted in the Continental Army did so to gain their freedom or to advance the cause of freedom for others, despite his prominent position in Massachusetts society after the war, little is known about Hull’s motivation to enlist. What is known is that he represents the courage and resilience of Black soldiers of the period who fought for liberty and justice even when it was not accorded to them.
This is story number 4 of the 25 in this series
