A new permanent exhibit opening June 1 at the Marblehead Museum’s Brick Kitchen seeks to tell a difficult but deeply human story about the lives of enslaved people who lived and worked in Marblehead.
Housed inside the museum’s newly restored Brick Kitchen building on Washington Street, the exhibit features 10 striking portraits by Peabody artist Yamanda Wright representing enslaved individuals whose stories were uncovered through years of archival research.
The exhibit uses the portraits throughout the space to emphasize the individuality and humanity of the people whose lives are documented there.
“We wanted to use the space to talk about each person as a unique individual and how, despite the things that were forced on them, they were able to maintain their humanity,” said Marblehead Museum Executive Director Lauren McCormack.
The exhibit begins with four enslaved people known to have lived and worked on the property owned by merchant Jeremiah Lee in the late 1700s: Diamond, Jemmy, Cupid and a young girl whose name has been lost to history. She is called, “Girl whose name was once known.”
The museum believes the Brick Kitchen building may have served in part as slave quarters. Research indicates Lee enslaved at least four people while living on the property between 1768 and his death in 1775.
The remaining six portraits highlight stories museum staff felt illustrated the breadth of enslaved people’s experiences in Marblehead.
One of those stories belongs to Pompey, an enslaved sailor who escaped while traveling in Europe.
“He runs away in England,” McCormack said.
Pompey’s freedom was short-lived. He was recognized abroad by someone who knew his enslaver and was eventually brought back to Marblehead.
“It’s heart-wrenching,” McCormack added. “He just tried so hard to escape.”
Another featured story is that of Flora Leigh, who was separated from her daughter during the Revolutionary War after loyalists fled Marblehead for Nova Scotia.
“It’s just this repeated struggle to maintain these familial ties, whether they’re blood family or chosen family,” McCormack said. “It’s horrible.”
The exhibit also explores the experiences of free and enslaved Black people who served during the Revolutionary War, including members of Col. John Glover’s regiment.
Among them is Cato Prince, a formerly enslaved man born in Africa who later became free and chose to serve during the war, and Joseph Brown, who was promised freedom in exchange for military service before eventually settling in Marblehead with his wife, Lucretia Brown.
The museum purchased the Brick Kitchen property in April 2021 after years of hoping to acquire it.
“We knew that it was tied to Lee,” McCormack said. “The building offered such a unique opportunity to tell that story in a place where it happened.”
Since then, the project has grown into a major undertaking involving archaeological study, restoration work and exhibit development.
Funding for the project totaled roughly $1.4 million through a combination of grants and private donations, not including the approximately $675,000 purchase price for the building itself.
The museum received federal and state grants for renovations and secured a National Endowment for the Humanities planning grant in 2023 to begin developing the exhibit. When the museum did not receive a second NEH grant, exhibit designers donated approximately $40,000 in services to complete the project.
Beginning June 1, the exhibit will be open free to the public year-round, except during January and February.
The museum is also partnering with local educators to develop curriculum materials based on the exhibit’s primary sources. Supported through a grant from Mass Humanities, the curriculum will be tested in classrooms this fall before becoming publicly available online.
MCCormack hopes visitors leave with a deeper understanding not only of slavery’s presence in Marblehead but also of the resilience of those who endured it.
“These were individuals, human beings, and they each had their own story,” officials said. “Despite what was done to them, they strove constantly in many different ways to maintain their humanity.”
