Northshore magazine showcases the best that the North Shore of Boston, MA has to offer.
Issue link: http://read.uberflip.com/i/1162395
NORTHSHOREMAG.COM 76 SEPTEMBER 2019 I N - D E P T H PHOTOGRAPH BY SARAH JORDAN MCCAFFERY I N - D E P T H Last fall, students at The Academy at Penguin Hall in Wenham who took my elective course "Out of the Shadows" were asked to identify an area woman who was held as a slave in the eighteenth century The Academy at Penguin Hall students take a journey into the past to honor an 18th-century women held in captivity in Boston. BY LINDA MEDITZ THE STORY OF LUCY FOSTER and who was buried in an unmarked grave. If they could find such a woman, I asked, would they be willing to give her a proper gravestone? Were they up to the challenge? Elise Welch remembers thinking that "huge, seemingly impossible ideas usually come from students, but this one came from the teacher." Classmate Caroline Buck of Andover answered the call and made swift work of locating such a woman. Within days, Buck announced to the class, "We have a name!" That name was Lucy Foster. From finding a name, the class moved quickly to uncovering a remarkable story. Born into slavery in Boston, Lucy Foster was given as a "wedding gift" to Hannah and Job Foster of Andover in 1771. She was freed at the age of 16, and in time returned to care for her aging former mistress. When Hannah Foster died, she left Lucy an acre of land, a Students honor freed slave Lucy Foster.