David Bush (1733-97) was one of the wealthiest residents of Greenwich, and the town's largest slave owner, in the late eighteenth century. In 1790, the Bush household included eight slaves and one free black among its members; in 1797 (the year of this will), a household inventory counted ten African Americans. In this excerpt from David Bush's will, he designates which family members should receive articles of his property--property which includes his slaves Patience, Phillis, Cull, Candice, Mille and Rose.

The Bush family continued to own slaves through the early nineteenth century. The 1825 manumission of Candice (Candis), by David Bush's daughter Fanny, marks the latest freeing of any slave in Greenwich. See Candis's manumission statement on the Greenwich Historical Society's website "Slavery & Freedom in the North": http://www.hstg.org/index.cgi/1622