Capt. Samson Legal and Military Records Collection

Overview

The Capt. Samson Legal and Military Records Collection is a digitized assemblage of court‑related documents from the New Haven County Superior Court (NHSC) that chronicle the legal and military experiences of Capt. Samson, a Black man active in early 18th‑century Connecticut. The collection, held by the Connecticut State Library, spans the period 1700‑1724 and is part of the library’s “Black, African American, and Indigenous History” (BAAI) retrospective series. It is organized into two principal sub‑collections: the Samson Costs Documents Collection (legal cost ledger) and the Samson Post Enlistment Records, 1724 (military enlistment facsimiles).

Background

The BAAI initiative seeks to identify, describe, and digitize court records that involve African American and Indigenous individuals. Capt. Samson’s case exemplifies the era’s legal documentation for a Black defendant, while the enlistment record illustrates early colonial militia participation by Black men. The Connecticut State Library’s NHSC project assigns controlled subject headings—“Legal Costs,” “Court Fees,” “Grand Jury,” “Enlistment,” and “Military Records”—to each item, situating the collection within broader legal‑historical research.

Contents

• Samson Costs Documents Collection – A single bill of costs (RG003NHSCBAAIPSCostsSamson001) detailing fees for justice‑master examination, clerk, sheriff, grand jury, constable, court, attorney, and additional taxes. The ledger is available as high‑resolution TIFF/JPEG images, OCR‑extracted text, and structured JSON metadata linking each fee to its conceptual label.
• Samson Post Enlistment Records, 1724 – Two facsimiles (RG003NHSCBAAIPSCostsSamson002) of the enlistment document issued by Samson C. & Co. in 1724, presented as a TIFF and a JPEG with OCR text. The record confirms Samson Post’s enlistment in the New Haven militia.
• Associated metadata – Includes creator, place, language, and subject headings, and links to the broader NHSC BAAI database.

Scope

The collection focuses on the financial and administrative aspects of Capt. Samson’s legal case and his military enlistment, covering 1700‑1724 in New Haven County, Connecticut. It does not contain trial transcripts, evidence, sentencing records, or subsequent military service documents. The material is valuable for legal historians, scholars of Black and Indigenous history, and researchers studying the economic burdens placed on African American defendants and the participation of Black men in colonial militias.