Mon, 02/15/2021 - 10:00am
February being Black History Month brings to mind the story of Pendy Gustus and Kezia Shiney, two Black women who over 200 years ago called Wiscasset home.
The women were servants to Moses and Abigail Carlton, two leading citizens of Wiscasset village, then a part of Pownalborough and a prospering seaport. Moses Carlton was a wealthy ship owner and for a time the richest man in town, living in a fine mansion overlooking Wiscasset village.
During one of his business trips to Boston, Moses Carlton found Pendy residing in the city’s almshouse. How Kezia found her way into the Carlton family is uncertain, although it’s possible she too may have once lived in a similar circumstance. An almshouse was where poor people went when they had no other place to go. Research compiled by the Colonial Society of Massachusetts reveals Boston’s Overseers of the Poor recorded 1,926 admissions to its almshouse from September 1795 to early 1801. Among the residents were 49 Black females during a period when Blacks constituted some 7 percent of the city’s almshouse admissions.