Catharine Freebody was born around 1784 in Connecticut’s Turkey Hill District, present-day East Granby. Her father, London Freebody, was a veteran of the American Revolution and died before his daughter’s birth. Archival records relating to Catharine's mother have not been located.

Appearing to be orphaned at a young age, Catharine was baptized in the Congregational Church in Turkey Hills and “dedicated by Capt Matthew Griswold & Abiah his Wife who had taken the Child to educate.” Both the 1790 census and 1810 census show a free person of color living in the household of Matthew Griswold in Windsor, though the identity of this person remains unclear. Nonetheless, this early effort by the Griswold family to baptize and “educate” Catharine introduced her to a life of acquaintanceship with Connecticut’s well-known families.

In the 1820 and 1830s, Catharine engaged in a number of legal transactions with several members of the Clark family of Granby as well as a John G. Munn, of Windsor, against whom she won a court judgment. During this time, she sold and leased land in Turkey Hills along the Windsor border.

Court records show Catharine living in Hartford by 1821. At this time, the city's African American population was very small and a significant portion of the community lived in white households.

According to the 1830 census, there were 341 African Americans living in Hartford, 206 of which - over 60% - lived in white households. Since Catharine does not appear as a head of household in any census record, she likely lived in one or more of these white households.

After at least a decade of living in Hartford, Catharine united with the First Congregational Church in 1832 at the age of 48.

Catharine likely lived just 500 feet away from her church, where she came to be connected to three of Hartford’s most notable citizens who lived in the same Prospect Street neighborhood: Thomas Scott Williams, former mayor of Hartford, former State Representative, former Congressman, and Chief Justice of Connecticut Supreme Court, then known as the Connecticut Supreme Court of Errors; Williams’ nephew, Judge Francis Parsons; and business magnate, William H. Imlay.

In a triangular relationship the exact details of which remain hazy, Parsons served as Catharine’s straw buyer for a parcel of land sitting down the street of his property. The former chief justice and his wife were two of the three witnesses to Catharine’s will. The land was never conveyed in her lifetime, but instead, was mortgaged to William Imlay, with interest accruing in Catharine’s Society for Savings account. When she died in 1845, Parsons became the executor of her estate and he eventually transferred her property to the First Hartford Colored Congregational Society for a sum of $10, an infinitesimal sum compared to the purchased price of $759 in 1842. By the time the land was sold in 1857, the society netted $1500. This web of relationships suggests Freebody worked for Williams in some capacity and that he, Imlay, and Parsons helped to secure land access for her with her own funds. While Catharine shared an interest in missionary causes with Williams, the lion’s share of her funds supported the religious and educational cause of the Black community in Hartford.