Palisado Cemetery

Nancy Toney & Virgil Simmons: Final Resting Place

According to records from Nancy Toney’s earlier years, she was born into enslavement in 1774 in a Fairfield neighborhood called Greenfield Hill. In 1785 Nancy, originally named Anna, was separated from her parents at the young age of 11 and given away by her enslaver, a wealthy Greenfield Hill resident, as a wedding present to his daughter Charlotte who married Dr. Hezekiah Chaffee Jr. of Windsor. This marks the beginning of young Nancy’s many years as an enslaved household servant to the Chaffee and Loomis families. While it is noted that Dr. Hezekiah Chaffee Sr. who lived next door to his son, freed three of his enslaved servants by the year of 1810, Nancy continued to appear on federal census records as the only known enslaved person listed in Windsor in the 1810 and 1820 census. In 1821 Nancy was bequeathed to Dr. Hezekiah Chaffee Jr’s daughter, Abigail Sherwood Chaffee Loomis as specified in his will. She continued serving the Loomis family well into her senior years. Although Nancy was listed as a “freed colored female” in the 1830 federal census, there were no Windsor Town records indicating that Nancy was

granted her freedom by the Loomis family. There were a few enslaved people remaining in Connecticut at the time the State passed its full emancipation law in 1848. Nancy was believed to have been the last survivor of this group of African Americans in Connecticut. Nancy Toney remained living in the Loomis home until she died in 1857 at the age of 82 and was buried in the Palisado Cemetery in Windsor.

Also buried in the Palisado Cemetery is Civil War veteran, Virgil Simmons of the Connecticut 29th regiment.

This site is open to the public.

This is one of six Freedom Trail sites in Windsor.