The cookie is attributed to Lucretia Thomas Brown, who made them at Black Joe’s Tavern in Marblehead, Massachusetts, which she and her husband Joseph operated from a saltbox house on Gingerbread Hill beginning in 1795. Joseph Brown had been born into slavery as the son of an African-American mother and a Wampanoag father. He earned his freedom by serving in the Revolutionary War in place of his enslaver’s son, then made his way to Marblehead, where he met Lucretia, whose own parents had been previously enslaved. The tavern they built together on the edge of a frog pond became a known gathering place for sailors and fishermen. The cookies were sold by the dozen to men heading out of port. The name combines Joe’s first name with the frog pond next door — the cookies were large and dark enough to resemble the lily pads floating on the water, and the frogs that gave the pond its character.

Lucretia Brown’s original recipe has been lost. What survives are later versions collected in New England cookbooks, as well as a recipe on the Town of Marblehead’s website that attempts to reconstruct the original proportions. Joseph Brown died in 1834; Lucretia in 1857. In 1976, the town erected a memorial to Joseph Brown as part of the American Bicentennial. Black Joe’s Pond carries his name, as does a conservation area nearby. The tavern building, dating to 1691, is still standing and in private use. Joe Frogger cookies are sold at the Muffin Shop on Washington Street in Marblehead, at Old Sturbridge Village, and at the National Museum of African American History and Culture in Washington, D.C. — a range that suggests the cookie has traveled further than Lucretia Brown’s name has.

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Regional Roots

• New England