Portrait of Solomon Freeman
For Black History Month the Middleton Area Historical Society presents a portrait of Solomon Freeman, a former slave and who lived in our city for fifty years. The photograph, which was taken about 1875-1880, strongly suggests the remarkable man Freeman became, as well as showing him as a gentleman well aware of fashions in men’s clothing, accessories, and beards.
Solomon Freeman was born in Virginia in 1815, and taken to Missouri by his owner Abraham Bush. In 1847 the Bush family freed their two slaves by migrating to Wisconsin, and to celebrate his emancipation Solomon adopted his appropriate surname.
For the next three decades he continued to live with the Bush family on their farm in Pheasant Branch. Eventually members of the family died or moved west, but Freeman chose to remain in Middleton. During these years he worked for grain dealer John W. Green. Green’s autobiography in a 1893 Dane County history acknowledged Freeman’s assistance to his business and praised his intelligence. Freeman’s intelligence was also noted by Madison papers in 1870 after he became the first African-American to serve on a jury in Dane County (and quite possibly in the state as a whole!)
Freeman also left a mark on local religious history. In 1853 he was a founding member of the Middleton Baptist church, a fact that speaks well for the congregation because at the time most Northern churches barred African Americans. The congregation later selected him as a delegate to several district conventions. When the regular minister was absent, Freeman sometimes delivered the sermon to the Middleton Baptists. These sermons are said to have been powerful.
After his death in 1900 Freeman gradually passed from local memory. Then fifty years ago during an earlier Black History month the Capital Times published a column about Freeman. The article noticed that his grave in the Middleton Junction Cemetery was unmarked. The following year the newly-formed Middleton Historical Society commissioned an appropriate marker. You can see it by goggling Freeman on the Find-a-Grave website.