RE-COLLECTING JIM -

This talk traces the life and afterlife of an enslaved man whose voice survives in an anonymously published slave narrative first printed in Maine in 1838.
Long dismissed or left unexplored, Professor Susanna Ashton discovered his true identity first by discovering the name Jim and then as James Matthews. 
His testimony can be reassembled through careful attention to detail, place, and archival context. Beginning with Jim’s harrowing account of enslavement in South Carolina and his escape north, the presentation follows his arrival in Maine and argues that Hallowell became the final and most consequential site of his life. Drawing on abolitionist newspapers published in Hallowell, census records, poor farm records, cemetery evidence and his own testimony, Ashton demonstrates that Jim can be confidently identified with James Matthews, a Black man who lived his final decades in Hallowell and is buried there. Rather than offering a seamless biography, the talk reflects on the ethical work of historical recovery when lives are recorded unevenly. Centering Hallowell as both an abolitionist publishing hub and a place of refuge, this program invites the community to consider how local records preserve Black presence, suffering, endurance, and belonging, and why these fragments matter to
history today.

KHS presenter, Susanna Ashton is a Professor of English at Clemson University and a scholar of nineteenth-century American literature and slavery. She is the author of A Plausible Man. The True Story of the Enslaved Man who Inspired Uncle Tom’s Cabin and a specialist in authorship, and the testimony
of witness. She regularly writes and speaks for both academic and public audiences, with research focused on recovering the lives of formerly enslaved people through archives, newspapers, and local history.

Ashton’s presentation will be posted on the society’s Facebook page on February 18, 2026. For more information, call Scott Wood, the society’s executive director, at 622-7718.