Rebecca Courser, for The Black Heritage Trail of NH

Prince Hastings is recorded as living in Warner by the 1820 census. His small home was high in the Mink Hills next to a small wetland now known as “Chocolate Swamp.” Prince probably worked as a laborer for local farms. It is not known what brought him to Warner or where he came from but the 1820 census indicates several other African-American families in Warner (Clark, Haskell, Cary, and Jackson). Perhaps Prince traveled to Warner with them.

Prince used to play the “bones” at musters and musical events. He would have known the local African-American fiddlers, Anthony Clark and Sampson Battis. He loved purchasing the sheets of gingerbread at musters and eating hulled corn and milk.

Prince also was described in stories found in the Warner Historical Society collection
as being “simple” or “gullible.” But some suspect he was just playing the role of the “jokester” to get by. The Flanders boys, from a longtime Warner White family, reportedly would often play jokes on Prince. One day they told him President Jackson was coming to visit him. Prince worked day and night to clear a road to his cabin, enlisting the help of boys from another longtime White family, the Harrimans.

He promised them a little brass cannon on wheels if they helped him build the road. Delighted at the prospect of owning a real cannon, they willingly helped. When they finished, Prince took from his pocket a brass button with a raised picture of a little brass cannon on wheels. It seems that not all the jokes were on Prince, although, of course, Andrew Jackson never visited.

When his health failed, Prince moved to the poor house. An 1842 petition to the Merrimack County Court of Common Pleas to reimburse the town for his expenses stated:

Prince Hastings, a man of color, came into this town more than 30 years ago, built him a little hut in an out of the way place on the Mink Hills in Warner, where he resided entirely alone until the 14th day of October 1841, when he was found to be sick and standing in need of immediate relief. He was on that day conveyed to the poor house in this town where medical and other relief was afforded and where he stayed until he died, which was on January 29, 1842 and was buried the next day, January 30.

Prince was buried in the Poor Farm cemetery on Burnt Hill in an unmarked grave next to seven other unmarked graves.

–Rebecca Courser is a graduate of the University of New Hampshire and took graduate courses in the Heritage Studies Program at Plymouth State University. She has spent the last decades continuing to research the lives of families who lived in western Merrimack County.

This article is part of an ongoing series aimed at highlighting and honoring the stories of notable Black historical figures and families who helped shape New Hampshire and Maine. These stories were originally collected by the Black Heritage Trail of New Hampshire for a project with the Episcopal Church of New Hampshire. Stories are being shared with the partners in The Granite State News Collaborative."