Flute-Playing African American

This musician is thought to be Barzillai Lew of Groton, Massachusetts. As a boy, Lew served as a fifer in the Seven Years’ War, and in 1775 he again was a fifer in the Revolution through three enlistments, seeing action at Bunker Hill and Fort Ticonderoga. Fife and drum music supplied rhythm and mood for military marches, so fifing was an essential job. Courtesy of Mae Theresa Bonitto; photograph courtesy of the Boston Globe.