The memoir intends to provide "a Christian testimony, chronicling Spear's spiritual evolution by framing her life story with her religious development.
Although Chloe Spear's enslaver was grateful for her service to his family and gave her some freedom while living with them, when he caught her learning how to read, he "threatened to suspend her by her two thumbs and severely whip her if he found her doing so again.
"[3] After the American Revolutionary War, Spear and the Bradfords traveled to Andover, Massachusetts, approximately twenty miles north of Boston.
Spear died from severe arthritis and "rheumatic affections" in 1815; she was buried in the Bradford family's vault, located in Boston's Granary Burial-Place.
"[4] The first biographical account of her life was in 1832 by Dr. Thomas Baldwin, a minister of the Second Baptist Church, who published the Memoir of Mrs. Chloe Spear.
[5] Items listed in Spear's estate included: "utilitarian household items (such as a 'Bake Kettle Spider & old Skillett'); the tools of a laundress ('1 Pair Flat Irons,' '1 Folding Board & Bench'); and several luxury goods and furnishings ('1 Ebony Tea Table,' '2 Small Looking Glasses,' '5 Pictures,' and a seven-dollar 'Brass Fire Sett')."
Although Spear economized, Minardi concluded, "she also allowed herself some of the household goods that served as markers of refinement in the early nineteenth century.