“He was much annoyed by the British troops quartered near the farm on the island,” wrote Weeden’s great-granddaughter, Mary Louise, in her 1893 family history that captures the stories she heard as a child. “Though a very old man,” when he was urged to leave his home and seek “a less exposed place to live,” he said “no” with “some energetic expressions.”

“They might shoot him on his own doorsteps — as they did his cattle before his eyes — but he would never leave his house to please the British or their allies the Tories, whom he heartily de­spised, and knew some of his old neighbors to be.”

Although Weeden might have been annoyed at the British oc­cupation troops, some of whom were quartered practically next door at the hospital in the Quak­er meetinghouse, he still pursued payment for the provisions they took from his farm.

A 1784 record in the National Archives of the U.K. documents requests for payment from both Weeden and his son, Daniel Jr. The claim includes the explana­tion “that the garrison of Rhode Island being in great want of fuel, public officers were sent to the Island of Conanicut to pro­cure it, and the following quanti­ties were cut and receipts given for it.” Weeden sought payment for 330 cords of wood.

The British record includes the following statement: “The several persons above mentioned for whom your memorialist is at­torney were proprietors of farms on the Island of Conanicut and in the year 1778, when His Maj­esty’s Troops took possession of the said Island, voluntarily appeared before Earl Percy and took the Oath of Allegiance to His Majesty’s Government.”

Since at the time the oath was taken, Jamestown had been un­der British direct control for more than a year and the issu­ance of a receipt for payment seems to have been contingent on loyalty to the crown, the oath should perhaps be understood as an acceptance of the legal authority of the crown rather than a personal commitment to Brit­ish rule.

The oath seems to have had no nega­tive post-war impact on the families or people in­volved.

Mary Louise Weeden’s narra­tive contains many other stories of British harassment of Daniel and his son, John, and daughter- in-law, Mercy Chase, who were living with him.

John was imprisoned on a British ship in Newport harbor. Mercy, pregnant with their sec­ond child, fled to her father’s house in Warwick. Through it all, she records, “the old gentle­man preferred to remain and was cared for during the absence of his children by a faithful slave Betty by name.”

Webster died in 1785 only three months shy of his 90th birthday. He had six slaves when he died. From his will, he freed four of them: “three Negro men named Ben, Tom, and Tobey & Negro woman named Betty.”

His will also contained the fol­lowing provision: “If either or all of my Negros shall refuse to take their freedom my mind & will is that he, she or they so refusing shall be taken care of and sup­ported by my executors hereafter named.”

This provision recognized the reality that freed slaves, espe­cially if they were elderly, could be without a home or sustenance and could lack the ability to ob­tain them.

The two other slaves, evident­ly both minors, were to be manu­mitted at the age of 23.