The Framingham History Center Presents:
Abel Benson and His Trumpet Alarm...
Framingham's Paul Revere
Sunday, April 13, 2014
2:00 pm
Edgell Memorial Library
3 Oak St, Framingham
Featured Speaker: Libby Franck, Storyteller
Music By: Laura Asson, Fiddler
and others....
Who knew that a nine year old descendant of slavery from Framingham was chosen to help alert colonists from Needham to Dedham on the evening of April 18, 1775 with blasts from his trumpet? Abel Benson's trumpet was most likely passed down from his grandfather, Nero Benson, the head of a slave family owned by Framingham's first minister.
Upon learning of Abel's not-so-well-known midnight ride, Libby Franck has researched this family from their roots in Africa to Abel's grandson Charles whose journal is featured in Mariner of Color in the Age of Sail. Abel was also a fiddler and he most likely played with Thomas Nixon, Jr. whose tune book is a treasured item in the FHC's collection. As a music major at Framingham State University, Laura Asson has studied this book for her thesis and will entertain us with her own fiddle playing. She is an expert on the role of this period music as both a battlefield command and as a ballroom accompaniment.
Suggested donation: $5.00
Image: "Negro Coachboy" an 18th century image of the slave trade from Erddig Hall England. With no image of Abel Benson, this is as close as we could come to the spirit of the program.
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