Recommended Reading

NOTE: this list includes several well-known people from outside Brookline who were in town in significant, if temporary, ways. Among them were Ellen Craft, Henry "Box" Brown, John Brown and one of his sons.

Hover mouse for title and notes; highly recommended books are marked with an asterisk (*).

Some Additional Useful Sources:

• History of the Town of Brookline, Massachusetts John Gould Curtis
• Brookline Mass: Vital Records to 1850 whose source is chiefly First Parish, Brookline records
• H. Cummings, Walnut Street Cemetery Records, 1922. (http://www.cemetery.highstreethill.org/history.html)
• Muddy River & Brookline Records, 1634-1838 (the record of town meetings)
• MA Tax Valuation List of 1771. A List or Return on Oath of the Names of the Householders in the Town of Brookline, in the County of Suffolk, in the Colony of Massachusetts Bay; and of the Number of the souls in Each Family, Feb 16, 1776 (includes a column for number of "Negroes & Molattoes in each family"), 
• Brookline Historical Publication Society and Brookline Historical Society Proceedings

* Two Tickets to Freedom (on Ellen & William Craft) by Florence Freedom and Ezra Jack Keats

* The Daring Escape of Ellen Craft by Cathy Moore

* 5000 Miles to Freedom by Dennis Fradin for National Geographic (on Ellen & William Craft)

* Henry's Freedom Box by Ellen Levine (Henry "Box" Brown spoke in Brookline about his escape)

Profiles in Black & White: Men and Women Who Fought against Slavery by E. Chittenden (includes Ellen & William Craft) Children and Young Adult Books on Slavery in Massachusetts (not Brookline)

Mumbet: The Life & Times of Elizabeth Freeman by Mary Wilds

* Slavery in the Age of Reason by Alexandra Chan [about the Royall family of Medford, the largest slave owners in MA; the house which is a public property - and the slave quarters - the only existing slave quarters north of the Mason-Dixon line open for visitors.]

* The Negro in Colonial New England by Lorenzo Greene

* Black Yankees by William Piersen

* Running a Thousand Miles for Freedom; or, the Escape of William and Ellen Craft from Slavery by William Craft

* The Astonishing Life of Octavian Nothing: Traitor to the Nation (v. 1: The Pox Party) by M.T. Anderson

Black Bostonians: Family Life and Community Struggle in the Antebellum North by J. O. Horton and L. E. Horton

* The Astonishing Life of Octavian Nothing: Traitor to the Nation (v. 2: The Kingdom on the Waves) ibid.

* Ten Hills Farm, The Forgotten History of Slavery in the North by C. S. Manegold

* Bound for the North Star: True Stories [incl. Ellen Craft & Henry "Box" Brown] by D. Fradin

Angel Mo' and Her Son Roland Hayes by MacKinley Helm, Boston: Little Brown, 1942. [a biography of Roland Hayes, the great African-American tenor of the early 20th c. who broke the color bar and made Brookline his home.]

* Mr. And Mrs. Prince by Gretchen Holbrook Gerzina

Zabdiel Boylston, An Historical Account of the Small-pox Inoculated in New England: upon All Sorts of Persons, Whites, Blacks and of All Ages and Constitutions; with Some Account of the Nature of the Infection in the Natural and Inoculated Way, and Their Different Effects on Human Bodies. Printed for S. Chandler, at the Cross-Keys in the Poultry, London, 1726 (at Mass. Historical Society)

* Anthony Burns: the defeat & triumph of a fugitive slave by V. Hamilton

* Great Slave Narratives ed. by Arna Bontemps (incl. excerpt from William Craft's memoir)

Black Foremothers (incl. chap on Ellen Craft) by Dorothy Sterling

* Disowning Slavery: gradual emancipation and "race" in New England, 1780-1860 by Joanne Pope Melish

* Prince Estabrook, Slave and Soldier by Alice Hinkle [biography of enslaved Lexington resident who fought at Lexington & won his freedom, NCSS selection

* Complicity: How the North Promoted, Prolonged and Profited from Slavery by A. Farrow et al

* The Brookline Trunk by Louise Andrew Kent (includes some information on slavery).

Escape from Slavery: Five Journeys to Freedom (includes Ellen Craft & Henry "Box" Brown)

* One Minute a Free Woman: Elizabeth Freeman & the Struggle for Freedom by E. Piper & D. Levinson.

* Singing for All People: Roland Hayes - a Biography by Robert Hayden, 1995 [a biography of the great African-American tenor who made Brookline his home in the early 20th c.]

* Black Walden by Elise Lemire

Historical Sketches of Brookline Massachusetts by Harriet F Woods

* A Free Woman on God's Earth: The True Story of Elizabeth"Mumbet" Freeman, the Slave Who Won Her Freedom by Jana Laiz and Ann-Elizabeth Barnes.

Mumbet: The Story of Elizabeth Freeman, by Harold Felton

"Brookline in the Anti-Slavery Movement," Harold Parker Williams in Brookline Historical Publication Society, Publication No.10, 1899.

* Mother of Freedom: Mum Bett and the Roots of Abolition by Ben Rose.