William B. Gould

William Benjamin Gould Sr. (November 18, 1837 – May 25, 1923) was a former enslaved person and veteran of the American Civil War, serving in the U.S. Navy.

[1]The story of his life has been chronicled by his great-grandson, William B.Gould IV, Charles A. Beardsley Professor of Law, Emeritus at Stanford Law School in his book, Diary of a Contraband:The Civil War Passage of a Black Sailor (2002) which annotates the diary and includes 5 additional chapters on the life and accomplishments of William B.Gould.

[4] He was enslaved by Nicholas Nixon, a peanut planter[5][6] who owned a large plantation on Porters Neck[7] and at Rocky Point.

[5] The outbreak of the Civil War brought danger to Wilmington in the form of crime, disease, threat of invasion, and "downright bawdiness.

[8] During a rainy night on September 21, 1862, Gould escaped with seven other enslaved men[b] by rowing a small boat 28 nautical miles (52 km) down the Cape Fear River.

[5][10][11][12] They embarked on Orange Street, just four blocks from where Gould lived on Chestnut St.[c][11][12] Sentries were posted along the river, adding additional danger.

[14][8][15][d] Though Gould had no way of knowing it, within an hour and a half of his rescue President Abraham Lincoln convened a meeting of his cabinet to finalize plans to issue the Emancipation Proclamation.

[16] William A. Parker, the captain of the Cambridge, however, had written to Acting Rear Admiral Samuel Phillips Lee just five days before picking up Gould that his ship was short 18 men due to desertions and sickness.

[16] During this time he was visited by one of his maternal cousins, a Jones, who was the child of emancipated slaves who moved north for fear of being re-enslaved.

[5][27] "I heard the Glad Tidings that the Stars and Stripes had been planted over the Capital of the D--nd Confederacy by the invincible Grant," Gould committed to his diary.

[5] Not knowing that it signaled the end of the war, the Niagara set sail again, this time searching for Confederate ships in Queenstown, Ireland.

[27] Leaving Ireland, the Niagara sailed to Charlestown, Massachusetts, where Gould received an honorable discharge after three years of service in the United States Navy.

[27] During his first leave from the ship in the spring of 1863, Gould visited Mary Moore Jones, his maternal aunt, in Boston and then his eventual wife, Cornelia Read, on Nantucket.

[29] Black soldiers from a Maryland regiment who had been taken aboard temporarily were "treated shamefully," Gould said, when they were not allowed to eat out of mess pans and were called disparaging names.

[41] Shortly before he got sick with the measles, Gould met John Robert Bond, another black sailor serving on the Ohio.

[5][35] Gould and his family were more likely to experience subtle slights on account of their race as opposed to outright racism while living in Dedham.

[46][5][47][12][15] He "held virtually every position that it was possible to hold in the GAR from the time he joined [in 1882] until his death in 1923, including the highest post, commander, in 1900 and 1901.

[24] By 1886, Gould would earn enough esteem in the community to be appointed to the General Staff and to lead the parade held in honor of Dedham's 250th anniversary.

[56] Gould was driven through town on parade days into the 1920s in cars adorned with red, white, and blue decorations.

[38][58] He adamantly opposed the notion that newly emancipated blacks should be repatriated to Africa or Haiti, saying they had been born under the American flag and would know no other.

[49] The rest, Fredrick Crawford, Luetta Ball, Lawrence Wheeler, Herbert Richardson, and twins James Edward and Ernest Moore, were all born in Dedham.

[27] He corresponds frequently with George W. Price who escaped with him, and with Abraham Galloway, both of whom served in the North Carolina General Assembly after the war.

[74] In the diary, Gould chronicles his trips to the northeastern United States, the Netherlands, Belgium, Spain, Portugal, and England.

[78] On July 13, 2023, 30 members of Congress wrote a letter to Secretary of the Navy Carlos Del Toro, requesting that a ship be named in Gould's honor.

[79] On June 14, 2024, the House of Representatives as a whole voted to direct the Secretary to name a ship for Gould as part of the National Defense Authorization Act.

[85][36][37] At the dedication, a sign with Gould's name and image was unveiled by his great-great-great-grandchildren and then blessed by the former rector of the Church of the Good Shepherd.

[92] The ceremony included the 54th Massachusetts Infantry Regiment reenactors who posted the colors before the national anthem was performed by students from the Dedham Public Schools.

[92][78] Tera Hunter of Princeton University gave the keynote address in which she put Gould's service in the Navy and his time in Dedham in the context of the Civil War and the political and social changes in the United States during this period.

[78][88] It includes the coat he wore as Commander of the Carrol Post of the Grand Army of the Republic, and a toolbox with symbolic tools he used in his life such as a compass, a trowel, and a pen.

[88] Inside the statue is a time capsule built by students at Blue Hills Regional Technical School that holds more than 30 items, including a COVID-19 pandemic-era face mask, a list of slang words, and a copy of the Town charter.