Jack Briant (Thare)

Quick Facts

Significance:

Patriot of Color at the Battle of Bunker Hill

Place of Birth:

Stoneham, Massachusetts(?)

Date of Birth:

Circa 1735

The following is from the 2004 National Park Service study Patriots of Color researched and prepared by George Quintal:

Jack, a servant to Joseph Briant Jr. of Stoneham, was born circa 1735 and was also called Jack Thare.^I

A Jack Briant of Stoneham, most probably the same man, enlisted on 1 June 1775 in the company of Capt. Samuel Sprague, in Col. Samuel Gerrish’s regiment.^II On 13 June 1775 he, with others at the Camp at Cambridge, took an oath required by Congress.^III His Colonel was cashiered because of behavior at the Battle scene and Lt. Col. Loammi Baldwin took over. Briant was at Chelsea on 2 October 1775^IV and still there on 30 December 1775 when he received an ‘order for county coat or its equivalent in money.’ He was one of a group of men who agreed to serve one extra month in January 1776.^V

On 14 March 1776, his name appears in a run-away slave ad:^VI

Ran away from the subscriber, on the 24^th of February, a Negro fellow, named Jack, of a [--] stature, has lost his upper teeth; had on when he went away, a blue coat, with large white buttons. Whoever will take up said Negro, and convey him to the subscriber in Stoneham, shall have three dollars reward.
Joseph Briant, jun.

Jack (Thare) married (‘with his masters consent’^VII) Mary Oliver, free mulatto of Lincoln (MA), at Concord (MA) on 3 September 1761.^VIII There is no known record of any children.

Footnotes:

1. Birth date backwardly-computed, based on average age of marriage of 26 (per study of compiler); see first Vital Records to 1850. Births, Marriages and Deaths. Vols for most Massachusetts towns footnote.
2. Secretary of the Commonwealth. Massachusetts Soldiers and Sailors of the Revolutionary War (1896-1908) 2:495, listed as ‘Brient.’ Also 2-CD Family Tree Maker^TM set “Military Records: Revolutionary War.”
3. Ibid 2:728, listed as ‘Bryant.’
4. Ibid 2:495.
5. Ibid 2:278.
6. Essex Gazette. Salem, MA, 14 March 1776, page 3.
7. Vital Records to 1850. Births, Marriages and Deaths. Vols for most Massachusetts towns, Concord, Marriages, 204; he is listed as ‘a Negro Man,’ the servant of Joseph Bryant (‘Brient’) Jr.
8. Vital Records to 1850. Births, Marriages and Deaths. Vols for most Massachusetts towns, Stoneham, 157.

Learn more about Quintal's study.