MANCHESTER, NH — Samantha Plantin, believed to be the first Black woman to own property in the city of Manchester, was recognized Friday with a street named in her honor.
Grove Street, from Elm Street to Willow Street, was one of two last cobblestone streets in the city. In disrepair, the city recently repaved it, removing what was left of the cobblestone and asphalt. On Friday, it was officially renamed iSamatha Plantin Lane. Since no residences or businesses carried an address on that part of Grove Street, local historian Stan Garrity felt it was the appropriate site to honor Plantin, who is buried in nearby Valley Cemetery.
“That’s probably the biggest street sign in the city,” said Garrity after the street signed was unveiled. He was the one who in his research of city records discovered the story of Plantin.
Garrity, a member of the city’s Heritage Commission, said Plantin through a lifetime of hard work, went from poverty to property owner. She was born about 1827 to a mother who had been enslaved but was freed and came to New Hampshire to build a new life.
Her family first settled in New Boston but in 1844, when Plantin was 17, she moved to Manchester, lived in accommodations of the Stark Corp. and worked in their Stark Mills. At night, after a full day of work in the mill, she worked as a washerwoman, doing the laundry for people far wealthier than herself. She never married or had children, but by working hard she eventually bought two properties. She first purchased a home for $200 on Ash Street, from the Amoskeag Corp., her employer, Garrity said. She later sold it for $1,200. She then lived for a time in Goffstown but returned to Manchester to work as a seamstress.
By 1889, she owned another property on Concord Street, which Garrity said, still stands today. She died of pneumonia in 1899 at age 72 years 10 months. In the New Boston “Old Folks’ Day” report of 1899, Miss Plantin was described as “a truly remarkable woman, and her life was full of good works… In spite of all the disadvantages of race and circumstance that burdened her younger life, she was a woman whom all could love and respect, and has left a record of which any person might well be proud.”
According to his research, Garrity says Plantin’s permanent record coincides with the arrival to Manchester of Andrew T. Foss, a member of the Massachusetts Anti-Slavery Society (MASS) Business Committee, and pastor of New Boston Baptist Church. He would eventually become a nationally-known abolitionist. Plantin was devoted to the church and made generous donations to it during her lifetime. But feeling the church did not recognize her contributions over the years, in her hand-written will, she left what was left of her assets – including her salt and pepper shakers, according to Garrity — toward Black education.
Garrity said the majority of her assets went to the Tuskegee Institute in Alabama, and the Haines Institute in Georgia. Money also went to two woman’s missions in Manchester.
Plantin, in preparing for her death, purchased a “good strong” headstone for her burial at Valley Cemetery, and then paid to have the remains of her mother and grandmother moved and reinterred to be with her there.
The street that nows bears her name is a short walk from her final resting place.