"Joseph Hobbs had two [enslaved people], Zelph and Phillis. Phillis has a little daughter of the age of five years, to whom she was bound by all the ties which take hold of a mother's heart. But a distinguished Revolutionary officer, with the same heartlessness which we have been wont to attribute to those engaged in the slave trade, took this little child from its mother, and, as he would any article of produce, carried her to Saco, and there sold her. The agony of the poor mother in this cruel separation, was said to be indescribable. Yet there were no relentings and no remorse on the part of the trader, which led to any attempt to rescind the unholy contract. It does not seem that our own townsmen had any more doubt, in the judgment of conscience, as to the legitimacy of this traffic; and that a negro was a mere chattel, subject to be bought and sold at the will of the master, than they had that right of sale in the owner, was a condition of incident of any other property. There was no special callousness of heart in this transaction. The same feeling was general in relation to the slave; and all the odious features of the institution, of which so much has been said at the present day, were exhibited everywhere in New England." - Bourne, p. 407

Shelley (p. 153) states "Joseph Hobbs had Zelph and Phyllis baptized." However, these two baptism records are not included in the - Records of the First Church of Wells, as transcribed in 6 issues of the New England Historical and Genealogical Register, Vol 75-76, 1921-22.

The 1790 US Census for Wells lists Joseph Hobbs with one "other free person." This could have been Zelph or Phillis.

Bibliography:

The History of Wells and Kennebunk from the Earliest Settlement to the Year 1820 - by Edward Bourne (1875)

My Name is Wells - by Hope M. Shelley (2002)