Interesting that he was a sailor : there was a very extensive (though not much studied, yet) coastal trade and contact in the mid 17th century between the Eastern Shore and New York and Boston. Eastern Shore Virginia merchant-planters are much in evidence for example in the Aspinwall Notarial Records. Jon Kukla >> As it happens, there was at least one free black in early Boston >> (1640s-50s) who decided, for reasons we'll never know (unless more >> records turn up), to move down to the Eastern Shore of Virginia. He >> lived there for the rest of his life (he died in 1670). In Boston, >> he'd >> been a sailor, and we do have one record of a voyage he made to >> Virginia >> years before he moved. His name in Boston was Bastian Ken (with many >> variations). His life there is described in the old Robert Twombly and >> Robert Moore piece on the Black Puritan." On the Shore, he was >> known as >> Sebastian Kane. I have written a few pages about him in my /Race and >> Class in Colonial Virginia. / >> >> Doug Deal Dr. Jon Kukla, Executive Vice-President Red Hill - The Patrick Henry National Memorial 1250 Red Hill Road Brookneal, Virginia 24528 www.redhill.org To subscribe, change options, or unsubscribe, please see the instructions at http://listlva.lib.va.us/archives/va-hist.html