[Pp. 11-12]

I Jesse Harvy of Lebanon County of New London state of Connecticut aged seventy two years 10th day of Sept last testify & say on oath, that in the year 1783 and for several years previous I lived with John Brown of said Lebanon that the said Brown being a near neighbor to Charles & Elizabeth Hinckley were by then enlisted to attend the wedding of Cuff Wells, alias Cuff Saunders, to their colored woman Phillis, and the said Mr. Brown being then an aged person invited me to accompany him, which I did, and saw the said Cuff & the said Phillis joined in marriage by the Revt Timothy Stone then minister over the Society of Goshen in said Lebanon, that the said Cuff was dressed in uniform with red farings, that I had been acquainted with the said Cuff from the time he came to live with Deacon Israel Wells of Colchester, having seen him a number of times at the said Mr. Hinckleys. That I well remember the time when it was said that he the said Cuff had enlisted into the army of the United States, which he said he had done in order to obtain his freedom. At the time he was married it was the general talk that he then belonged to the Continental Army & was stationed at Danbury Hospital to the surgeon of the hospital. That he was home on furlough and said he should soon return back, and it was said that he did. I did not see him again until late in the fall after and I have always understood & believed that the said Cuff served his time out, and was regularly discharged at the close of the War. And I further testify that I know the said Phillis now Phillis Tatton before she was married to the said Cuff, and was well acquainted with both of her husbands until their death, having always resided near them, they both died in a small house near the town of Colchester in said Lebanon, and I verily believe that the said Cuff served to the close of the War in 1783. 

Jesse Harvy 

Sworn and subscribed to the day and year aforesaid. 

Benj. Trumbull Judge

[Note: To see digital copies of Sauders’ freedom oaths at the end of the war, visit Cuffee Saunders | Gilder Lehrman Institute of American History.]