name of Slocum, his former owner. In 1746, he married Ruth Moses. She was a member of the Wampanoag Nation, and had been born and raised on Cape Cod. At that time Kofi was working as a paid laborer for Holder Slocum, who had a large farm in Dartmouth and also owned the westernmost Elizabeth Islands, off the south coast of Massachusetts. Holder Slocum and his neighbors transported sheep to those islands for grazing during the summer months. He hired Kofi Slocum to care for those sheep; in about 1750 Kofi moved with his family to the westernmost island, known as Cuttyhunk. There he built a house and lived year-round with his family for the next 15 years. The last eight children of Coffe and Ruth were born on Cuttyhunk, including Paul, the 7th child and youngest of four boys. They had the only house and may have been the only full-time residents on Cuttyhunk. Members of the Wampanoag tribe likely lived, at least seasonally, on nearby islands in the Elizabeth chain and also on Martha's Vineyard. In 1766 Coffe and Ruth bought a farm in nearby Dartmouth, and moved to the mainland with their ten children in the spring of 1767. Coffe Slocum died in 1772, when Paul was 13. As their two eldest brothers by then had families of their own elsewhere, Paul and his brother John took over their father's farm operations. They also supported their mother and several sisters. Around 1777-1778, when he was 19, Paul's older brother John decided to use a version of his father's first name, Coffe, as his last name. Several of his siblings did the same, but not all. Paul later signed his name on correspondence, deeds, and his will by spelling 'Coffe', with a 'u' instead of an 'o'. In the national census of 1790, 1800 and 1810 his last name is recorded as "Cuff"; census takers sometimes wrote only how names sounded and are not required to meet the people whose names they're recording. Paul's mother, Ruth Moses, died on January 6, 1787. Time as a mariner In 1773, the year after his father's death and again in 1775, Paul Cuffe sailed on whaling ships, getting a chance to learn navigation. In his journal, he identified as a marineer (mariner). In 1776 after the start of the Revolutionary War, he sailed on a whaler but it was captured by