Venture Smith was born in 1729, the son of a king of Guinea in Africa. Originally named Broteer, he was kidnapped by a rival tribe when he was six or seven years old and sold to slavers. He was sent in a slave ship to America, and during the trip, the ship's steward bought him and renamed Venture.
Venture married another slave, Meg, when they were both about 22, and together they had four children. Shortly after his marriage, he was sold to Thomas Stanton while his wife and newborn daughter stayed with his first owner. "He brought his own money with him, twenty-one pounds, and loaned it to his new master's brother, Robert Stanton, accepting his note. A year and a half later, his new master bought Venture's wife and child for seven hundred pounds." He was able to convince his new owner to purchase Meg and his oldest child, a daughter.
The "Venture Stone" at the Stanton-
Davis Homestead, which Venture
Smith is said to have moved from
the fields while a slave with Thomas
Stanton.
Venture was known for being a large man. He stood at 6' 1" and weighed over three 300 pounds. He was famous also for his feats of strength. While with Thomas Stanton, he once "carried a barrel of molasses two miles to his home in Stonington."
Stanton eventually sold Venture to Hempstead Minor of Stonington. Minor in turn sold him to Daniel Edwards in Hartford. Edwards then sold him to Col. Oliver Smith, when Venture was 31 years old. By the time he was 36, he had made several payments to Smith and finally paid enough to earn his freedom. Even though Smith charged him an enormous sum in total, Venture took Smith's name for his own in recognition of his kindness. He continued to work diligently and eventually paid Thomas Stanton for the freedom of his two sons, Solomon and Cuff, for two hundred dollars each. He also paid forty pounds for his daughter Hannah and forty pounds for his wife Meg. It has been noted that he was able to buy Meg while she was pregnant and thereby avoided having to pay for another child's freedom.
Venture Smith was involved in a number of entrepreneurial businesses, including farming, fishing, timbering, quarrying, and ship-building. He bought and sold land to finance his other enterprises and finally acquired a 128-acre tract of land in Haddam Neck. He eventually owned more than 20 sailing vessels and barges.
He died a weathly, free man in 1805. He is buried in the cemetery in East Haddam. Late in life, he narrated his story to a local school teacher and the story was published in 1798. You might want to click here to read Venture Smith's narrative.
1 Yankee Township, Carl F. Price. Citizens’ Welfare Club: East Hampton, CT, 1941; p. 49.
2 Ibid.
