Darby Vassall was an American anti-slavery activist and former enslaved person who is also known for a supposed encounter with George Washington when he was a child. In July of 1775, George Washington established his headquarters for the Continental Army at the former home of loyalist John Vassall in Cambridge, Massachusetts. Many of those enslaved by the Vassall family remained at the property through the Siege of Boston, including young Darby Vassall. Vassall’s connection to the Washington Headquarters location and his experiences during the Revolutionary war were acknowledged and discussed during his life. Well after his death, a story began to circulate about an encounter between him and Washington when he was six years old.
Early Life of Darby Vassall
Darby Vassall was born in May of 1769. He and his mother Cuba were enslaved by John Vassall in Cambridge, Massachusetts. His father, Anthony (Tony), was enslaved by John Vassall’s aunt and uncle. However, at a young age Darby was sold or given to George Reed. Decades later, Darby Vassall recalled the ringing of the bells marking the Battle of Lexington in April of 1775.1 When Reed died in the Battle of Bunker Hill in June 1775, Darby Vassall returned to Cambridge to reunite with his family. When he returned to the home of John Vassall, it was abandoned by its owners. A loyalist, John Vassall and his family fled to Boston for British protection a year prior. However, many of those legally enslaved by the Vassall family remained at the home.
Washington’s Headquarters at Cambridge
When the Continental Army established a headquarters in Cambridge Massachusetts, they selected the abandoned home of John Vassall as a more permanent headquarters to accommodate Washington’s staff. It had previously been used as a temporary hospital after the Battles of Lexington and Concord. The house served as the headquarters from July 16, 1775, to April 4, 1776. Those who remained at the property, nominally free, but legally enslaved, continued to live on the estate engaging in subsistence agriculture and seeking additional work, often for the Continental Army.
Claimed Encounter with George Washington
While it is likely that Vassall or one of his family members interacted with Washington while living on the same property, it was later alleged that Washington tried to have him work without pay. Originally, this story was attributed to Darby’s father Anthony, as part of a romanticized antiquarian history of one of the Vassall properties published ten years after Darby Vassall’s death. Later authors described it as an encounter between young Darby and Washington. In their reported meeting, Washington offered to let six-year-old Vassall work for him. However, when Vassall asked what the wage would be, it was alleged that Washington said compensation would be unreasonable. Vassall supposedly remarked later in life that Washington was “no gentleman, [wanting a] boy to work without wage.”2
Darby Vassall’s Later Life
After Washington and the Continental Army left their Cambridge headquarters, Darby Vassall remained with his parents on the property. In 1781, the Massachusetts legislature took ownership of the estate but resolved to pay Vassall’s father Anthony twelve pounds annually as compensation. When Anthony died in 1811, the legislature pledged to pay Vassall’s mother Cuba forty dollars annually. She passed away the next year.3 When the Massachusetts state government abolished slavery in 1783, people still under legal enslavement like the Vassall family were free.
As an adult Vassall worked as a caterer for wealthy families in Boston. Vassall was active in promoting rights for free people of color in his community. With his brother Cyrus and forty-two others, they founded the Boston’s African Society in 1796. In 1844, Vassall attended the New England Anti-Slavery Convention in Boston, voting to advocate for the dissolution of the Union, arguing that the United States Constitution allowed slaveholders to “control the policy and character of this nation.”4 Vassall passed away at the age of 92 on October 12, 1861, was eulogized by the abolitionist newspaper The Liberator.5
Originally researched by Claire Vanderwood, George Washington University, Substantially revised by the Center for Digital History, 7 August 2025
Notes:
1. “Remarks of Rev. Theodore Parker,” The Liberator, 12 March 1858. Parker recognized Vassall’s experience in the American Revolution as a an “old gentleman,” using Vassall’s connection to the Revolutionary era to highlight the limits of an American freedom that did not abolish slavery. He does not mention any encounters with George Washington. In this account, Vassall is mistakenly reported as eleven years old when he was likely closer to the age of six at the time of the Battle of Lexington.
2. Thomas C. Amory, “A Home of the Olden Time,” The New England Historical and Genealogical Register and Antiquarian Journal, Published Quarterly, Under the Direction of this New England Historic, Genealogical Society, for the Year 1871, ed. Albert Harrison Hoyt (Boston: New England Historic Genealogical Society, 1871) 25: 44-5. Initially, this encounter was documented as happening between Anthony (here “Tonie”) and Washington. This story was later attributed to Darby, most popularly by Samuel Francis Batchelder, who argued that Anthony was too old to be described as a “boy” swinging on a gate. Notes on Colonel Henry Vassall (1721-1769): His Wife Penelope Royall His House at Cambridge and His Slaves Tony and Darby (Cambridge, Ma., 1917).
3. “Senate Unpassed Legislation 1812, Docket 4522, SC1/series 231, Petition of Primus Hall,” Digital Archive of Massachusetts Anti-Slavery and Anti-Segregation Petitions, Massachusetts Archives, Boston, Massachusetts, 2015, https://doi.org/10.7910/DVN/RI3NT, Harvard Dataverse, V4; Massachusetts Anti-Slavery and Anti-Segregation Petitions; Massachusetts Archives Collection. v.231-Revolution Resolves, 1781. SC1/series 45X. Massachusetts Archives. Boston, Mass.
4. “No Union with Slaveholders!” The Liberator, June 14, 1844.
5. W.C.N., “Darby Vassall,” The Liberator, November 22, 1861. His meeting with Washington was not documented in his eulogy.
Bibliography:
Atkinson, Rick. The British Are Coming: The War for America, Lexington to Princeton, 1775-1777. Harper Collins Publishers, 2019.
Araujo, Ana Lucia. Politics of Memory: Making Slavery Visible in the Public Space. Taylor & Francis, 2012.
Batchelder, Samuel Francis. Bits of Cambridge History. Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1930.
Batchelder, Samuel Francis. Notes on Colonel Henry Vassall (1721-1769): His Wife Penelope Royall His House at Cambridge and His Slaves Tony and Darby. Cambridge, Ma., 1917.
Bell, J.L. “George Washington’s Headquarters and Home – Cambridge, Massachusetts.” Longfellow House-Washington’s Headquarters National Historic Site. National Park Service. Last modified February 29, 2012. https://www.nps.gov/long/learn/news/upload/George-Washington-s-Headquar….
Friend, Craig Thompson. Becoming Lunsford Lane: The Lives of an American Aeneas. University of North Carolina Press, 2025.
Nell, William Cooper. “Darby Vassall.” In Selected Writings 1832-1878, edited by Dorothy Porter Wesley and Constance Porter Uzelac. Baltimore: Black Classic Press, 2002.
The New England Historical and Genealogical Register and Antiquarian Journal, Published Quarterly, Under the Direction of this New England Historic, Genealogical Society, for the Year 1871, vol. 25, edited by Albert Harrison Hoyt. Boston: New England Historic Genealogical Society, 1871.
