Alexander Twilight was born September 23, 1795 in East Corinth, Vermont to Ichabod and Mary Twilight, both African American. When he was younger, there was no record that Ichabod had a last name or a family, so Ichabod's friends called him Ichabod Twilight. Our reasoning for that last name was because his skin color was between black and white. When he was older, Alexander, too, was described as “bronzed" or "swarthy”, which was not how you usually described a white man.
Alexander went to school when he was younger but dropped out because he was old enough to work. At age eight he was indentured to his neighbor, William Bowen, due to his family's financial situation and the fact that his father, Ichabod, had recently gone missing. The census records listed them as “Other” which meant they were not white. Soon after Ichabod left, censuses started listing Alexander and his family as white which, when we dug deeper, led us to believe that Alexander wanted to hide his African American ethnicity to chase his dream job as an educator.
1 Comment
Jennifer
10/3/2018 06:01:47 pm
Thanks for sharing information about Alexander Twilight! What can you tell us about Alexander Twilight's family? Is there any evidence of their activities in Corinth - maybe in church or school records?
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AuthorsGabrielle and Esme have been researching Twilight thoroughly for three years. They started off working on their Vermont History presentation and eventually ended up, more recently, presenting at Boston History Camp in Boston, Mass. Archives
December 2019
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