Phyllis was born in Guinea and came to the Lake Champlain area as a slave of Thomas Treadwell, a judge and a proprietor of the Plattsburgh area. Supposedly, ten of the slaves that came with Tredwell to Plattsburgh were Phyllis’s children. Her request to be buried at his feet may have been because her family stayed with her. Phyllis’s wish may have been granted. Placed across the foot of Thomas Treadwell’s grave is a stone with the following inscription:
OLD PHYLLIS THE SLAVE
WAS OF AFRICAN BIRTH
AND SHE DIED LONG AGO, LONG AGO,
AND HER LAST SAD REQUEST, AS SHE PASSED
TO HER REST
WAS LAY ME AT OLD MASSA’S FEET.
The stone was placed on the grave in October 1891 by Mrs. C. T. Longstreet and her sister, Mrs. James L. Baggs of Syracuse. They came here to see about improving and beautifying the Treadwell burial-ground on what was the old homestead farm at Treadwell’s Bay. They had a suitable monument and fence for the enclosure done. They also placed a new white marble slab which nenotes the spot where Judge Tredwell’s faithful slave, Phyllis desired to be buried. No marker existed prior to this.