We don’t know how many people the Livingstons enslaved at Clermont. We will probably never know. We have snapshots of certain times, wills, census records, doctors’ visits but these don’t tell us about the people who were here in between those times. People who were forced to be here in between the snapshots, so it is exciting when the scant records can be brought together to get a glimpse of the story of one of these people.
Jupiter was born around 1770. He was either born at Clermont or purchased at a very young age. According to a letter, he was lodged in the house of a tenant, Christian Van Valkenberg until he was “of age.” What that age was, we don’t know exactly but a visitor to New Clermont in the 1790’s observed boys approximately 6-8 years old being used as footmen or waiters around the Chancellor’s dining room table.
Jupiter was seen by William Wilson, the Chancellor’s personal physician and later business agent, on at least three occasions; once to have a tooth pulled, once to have a “tumor” opened, and he was bled once.
In 1800 though Jupiter came into his own. He renamed himself Kilsby. He married an enslaved woman from an estate in Red Hook. Its unclear how he and Matsy met but the fact that they did meet would seem to indicate that their enslavers gave them some small bit of autonomy. Although Kilsby was 30 in 1800 and Matsy was 16, they considered themselves married. Neither of their enslavers acknowledged the marriage though.
In July 1800 the pair ran away together. An ad was published in at least two newspapers that described Kilsby as a stout, thickset man who walked with a limp because his left leg was shorter than his right. Matsy was described as “yellow’ indicating a multiracial background. She also had a “remarkable” spot on one of her front teeth.
Nothing available indicates the couple was ever caught. It seems that they set themselves free and started a life for themselves somewhere else as free people.
Clermont State Historic Site 
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