[1] Born in slavery in Hanover County, Virginia in 1844 to Washington Fields and his wife Martha Ann (her surname given as Berkley or Thornton).

[1] Following a brutal beating, Fields escaped during the Civil War and by 1863 joined other family members who had resettled in the Hampton Roads area.

He attended a school run by missionaries for African Americans, and by 1864 worked for the army’s Quartermaster Department at Fort Monroe.

He became active in Republican Party politics and was a captain in the Libby Guards, a local militia unit in Hampton.

[3] By 1900, Fields owned (and paid taxes on) at least twenty-five properties in Newport News and Elizabeth City County.