Historic New England: Extraordinary Woman by Vivian R. Johnson, Associate professor emerita, Boston University
"Zipporah Potter Atkins realized the American Dream more than two and a half centuries before the term was coined: in 1670, she bought a house in Boston.
The fact that Atkins was a free black woman in colonial Boston, where most people of color were enslaved and property owners for the most part were white males, makes her purchase extraordinary. Atkins is the first known recorded African American woman to own a house and land in the city." MORE
Location of the Zipporah Potter Atkins Plaque on the Rose Kennedy Greenway, Boston's North End
"Zipporah Potter Atkins (c. 1645-1705), the first African American woman to purchase a home in Boston, was born to parents enslaved by Captain Richard Keayne.
She was free because the 1641 law legalizing slavery in Massachusetts did not include children. Her father, Richard Done, received an inheritance from Keayne’s will that was passed on to her and possibly used to buy the property on Salem Street in 1670.
The deed was uncovered at the Massachusetts Archives by Dr. Vivian R. Johnson, a retired Boston University history professor. Dr. Johnson also discovered that Atkins had initiated the deed of sale in 1699, making her the first African-American woman in Suffolk County to do so.
When Zipporah Potter married and took the surname Atkins, the ceremony was conducted by prominent Protestant clergyman Cotton Mather."
Plaque honoring Zipporah Potter Atkins by The Heritage Guild, Inc., on The Rose Kennedy Greenway, Boston