Thomas and Jennie Dugan
Posted on | August 14, 2009 | Comments Off
Thomas Dugan was a self-emancipated slave from Virginia. He was the third former enslaved person to own land in Concord. He and his first wife Catherine had five children. When Catherine died, Thomas married Jennie Parker of Acton, who may have been born in Africa, and after whom Nut Meadow Brook was renamed Jennie Dugan’s Brook, due to her and her husband’s contributions to the community. Thomas and Jennie Dugan had three children. One of them, Elisha Dugan, lost his father’s land and subsequently lived in the woods. He was memorialized by Thoreau in his poem The Old Marlborough Road. Thomas Dugan introduced the rye cradle to Concord and taught local farmers to graft apple trees.Category: Historical Figures