Judith Granger — Searching for Pomp Russell and Discovering Some ‘Mighty Feisty Mainers’

Judith Granger

Upon finding the first American Anti-Slavery Almanac (1836), Granger learned a sorrowful family story — a white mother so bereft that her husband bought her a black baby, to be named Pomp Russell. Granger was inspired to learn more about Pomp’s life and family tree by a friend who could trace their lineage back to the Russells. All Granger knew to start was that Pomp is buried under a NH Revolutionary War stone in the wilderness of Weld, Maine. Discovering how Pomp got there, and finding his family connections, has led to new discoveries of how his family influenced rural Maine’s early 1830s anti-slavery activism.