Discovering Amos Watrous: The Little-Known Resident of Brookside Farm

WHAT WE THINK WE KNOW - In the 1850 United States Census, an eight-year-old Black child named Amos Watrous appears living in the household of the Thomas Avery family at what is now known as the Brookside Farm Museum in East Lyme, Connecticut. He was free. He was alone. And for many decades, that is all we knew.

His presence in a white home in a small, overwhelmingly white New England town during the pre-Civil War period raised a quiet mystery. Who was this child? Why was he there? And what happened to him?

A Case of Mistaken Identity

This past year, through the dedicated local historical research by Tom Schuch, it has been discovered that "Amos Watrous" was not his real name. The child was actually Amos W. Costin, the youngest son of Isaac and Sarah Costin, a Black couple who lived in East Lyme and were members of the Niantic Baptist Church.

Amos was one of six siblings in the Costin family. His parents died within months of each other in 1847, both at the age of 37—likely victims of consumption (tuberculosis), which was widespread in the region at the time. Amos’s sister Catherine also died that same year. With the family shattered, the children were dispersed to live with different households across East Lyme and beyond:

• Henry, the eldest, became a 17-year-old mechanic with the David Gates family.

• John died in 1850 at age 14.

• Marcus lived with the David Otis household.

• Austin, whose name was often misspelled as Orton, Crossley, or Crosby, ended up in Cromwell and died in 1856.

• And Amos, the youngest, came to live at Brookside with the Avery family.
  

Lost in the Records

Amos’s last name—Costin—disappeared from the record. Why he was listed as “Watrous” in the 1850 census is not entirely known, but researchers believe it may relate to a popular Baptist elder or preacher named Watrous, who performed dozens of baptisms in East Lyme in the early 1840s. Though Baptists do not baptize children, Amos may have been named in honor of the elder around the time of his birth in 1841–42. Census-takers likely mistook this middle name for a surname, compounding a case of mistaken identity that lasted more than 170 years.

A Tapestry of Black and Native American History

Further genealogical research reveals that Isaac Costin, Amos’s father, lived near members of the Congdon family, who belonged to a longstanding community of Black and Native American families in the hills near the East Lyme–Lyme border. This enclave, rooted in the 1700s, included freed people, formerly enslaved individuals, and intermarried families who maintained deep connections across East Lyme, New London, and even into Milltown and Middletown. The Costins were very much a part of this under-documented but vibrant regional history.

Religion, Race, and Politics in East Lyme

Amos’s life also intersected with broader social tensions. The Niantic Baptist Church, where his parents were members, was embroiled in the national schism within the Baptist denomination over the issue of slavery. In 1843, the church formally banned any discussion of abolition during meetings—a vote that was reversed months later but speaks volumes about the contentious nature of race and politics in antebellum New England.

That this debate occurred precisely when the Costin family joined the church suggests that their lives were shaped by not only personal tragedy but also the religious and racial divisions of their time. Ironically, while Isaac and Sarah Costin were Baptists, their son Amos was placed with a Congregationalist family, highlighting the fluid (and sometimes pragmatic) nature of community caregiving.

A Hidden Legacy, Brought to Light

Until recently, Amos Costin was just a name in the census. But that is changing. Local researchers and curators have begun to piece together Amos’s life—and to recognize him not as a footnote, but as a rightful resident of the home and a symbolic figure in East Lyme’s overlooked Black history.

During a 1970s restoration of the house, a copy of the Christian Freeman, a progressive abolitionist newspaper, was found hidden in the walls. It was dated 1845, just two years before the Costin parents died. Its presence, once dismissed as an oddity, now stands as a powerful symbol: someone in this house—perhaps even someone who knew the Costin family—believed in the abolitionist cause and left a quiet legacy behind the plaster.

Amos’s story is not yet fully told, and much remains to be uncovered. But with every deed, obituary, census line, and church record, a clearer image emerges of who he was—and of the deep, often untold history of Black lives in small-town Connecticut.

This article is based on recent research, and extensive fact-checking is still ongoing. Therefore, some information presented may not be entirely accurate.