Private Jacob Speen*

Private Jacob Speen (1754-unknown), of Indigenous and possibly African heritage, was 21 years old when he enlisted in the Massachusetts Militia and fought at the Battle of Bunker Hill on June 17, 1775. In October 1775, a record lists his name on an “order for bounty coat or its equivalent in money” out of Cambridge Camp. That order places Speen in close proximiy to General George Washington’s military headquarters during the Siege of Boston.

In January 1776, Speen enlisted in Captain Daniel Whiting’s Company in Colonel Asa Whitcomb’s Regiment of the Continental Army; they were slated to provide reinforcements up North. Later that year, Speen is listed as deserted.

Speen returned to the Continental Army for short stretches of time between 1777 and 1780. Records show his presence in campaigns throughout Rhode Island, New York, and New Jersey. In 1782, he received a bounty to serve in the Continental Army for three years. The war ended in 1783 before he would finish that enlistment.

Speen married Dinah Pero of Cambridge, MA, in Natick on February 2, 1776. He likely met Dinah while stationed in Cambridge Camp. There is no record of any children.

In some military records, Speen is “reported a Negro,” but his surname attaches him to Qualalanset John Speen whose band of Nipmucs lived on the land that became Natick, for many generations before it was a mission or “Praying” town, in 1651. His name is memorialized on a tablet at the Indian Burial Ground on Pond Street in Natick.

Note: More often than not, service, vital, and/or other historical records were created and kept by men of English and European backgrounds. They employed a wide range of descriptive terms, such as "mulatto," “negro," and "dark complexion." These terms cannot fully capture any soldier's identity, but they do offer clues. In some cases, the surname of a soldier of color connects him to a Natick family that is well documented. Often, these soldiers are Indigenous men. The biographies in this project make it possible to say more not only about a soldier's identity or background, but also about the life he led in Natick and beyond.