William Black

William Black ( - 1762) Was an African American man who was the first settler of Bailey Island in the Province of Massachusetts Bay in an area that would later become part of the states of Maine.

Biography William Black was born near Kittery was the son of a former enslaved man born in Africa (possibly present-day Senegambia or Ghana) named Black Will and a white woman named Alice Hanscom, his birth was a scandal between the two because of segregation laws around the time. William's father was an African born child who was brought over to America by a man named Nicholas Shapleigh, a wealthy English trader and shipbuilder who would later become his master and caretaker, the Shapleigh family appreciated him so much that they gave him his own house and paid him for his labor, however a tragedy would soon take place where Nicholas would die from a blow to the back of the head from a small ship mast on April 29, 1682. This opportunity granted Black Will his freedom by Nicholas's nephew John who had taken ownership of Black Will and his assets after he had perished and was freed in the year 1700 after several more years of labor, this is probably because his master, John did not want to financially support Black Will's son, Black Will Jr. (later known as William Black)

Bailey Island William went on to buy land in Berwick and in 1714 and proceed to fall in love with his future wife, a white woman named Elizabeth Turbet (Varies between Turbot) however, like before intermarriage among the whites and blacks back then was prohibited due to puritan laws. However this wouldn't stop them as they continued to have a relationship with one another before word spread of it and were both punished, however William's punishment is unknown while Elizabeth seems to have been whipped a total of 20 times. Soon after that William eventually moved his family up the coast to the island then known as Capenawagen. William then proceeded to build his cabin on Water Cove, near the strait that now bears his name. By the time English authorities got around to assigning boundaries and land rights, Capenawagen was generally known as Will’s Island.

Legacy There's a bridge that exists between Orr's Island and Bailey Island named after him known as "Will's Gut."