Mooktee

---

"A native of Bombay, India,

for nearly thirty years

a faithful Domestic in

the family of

Rev. H Bardwell,

died in Christian hope

Sept. 15, 1864."

Mooktee was born in Bombay, India around 1815. In the mid-1830s, a very politically unstable era in India, she came to the United States and began working for Rev. Horatio Bardwell in Oxford, MA. Mooktee and/or her family/community likely met Rev. Bardwell between 1816-1822 when the Reverend was living in Bombay as a Christian missionary. As I can find no records of her in her native land I do not know what her situation was in her youth; Was she an orphan? Did she come from a large family? She must have been very brave to leave the only home she had ever known to move halfway across the globe in search of a better life with people she barely knew.

In 1850 and 1860 Mooktee was living in Oxford, MA with Rev. Bardwell and his wife Rachel. Her color was given as "mulatto", most likely because she did not fit the other two options in the US Census (black, white). Her birthplace is listed as "Hindustan" in 1850 and "India" in 1860. The 1840 US Census only lists the name of the head of the household, but Mooktee is likely the "free colored person" living in the Bardwell household. In the 1855 MA State Census Mooktee is recorded as a 40 year old black female.

Mooktee died of heart disease and dropsy in Oxford on September 15, 1864 and was buried in the Bardwell family lot in South Cemetery.