James Mars

Deacon James Mars (1790-1880), born enslaved in Connecticut along with his family, refused to follow his master, a minister named Thompson, to the state of Virginia, where he would have been denied the emancipation guaranteed him at age 25 under Connecticut law. In his later life, he enjoyed a prominent place in New Englands black community. He also played an important part in the African American enfranchisement and temperance movements. James Mars was a principal in the 1837 landmark case Jackson v. Bulloch, in which the Connecticut Supreme Court granted an enslaved woman, Nancy Jackson her freedom after two years of residency in the state with her Georgia master, James Bulloch. RailSplitter