A Hotbed of Abolitionists

On a rainy morning in Boston, I was looking for a place to hang out until the sun came out.  So I walked over to Beacon Hill to the former Abiel Smith School which now houses the National Park Service's Museum of African American History.

There I learned how Boston was a boiling pot of abolitionists, authors, freemen and fugitive slaves in the early 1800s.  All simmered to turn Boston into the leading city of the American antislavery movement.

Museum of African American History
in the former Abiel Smith School

As early as 1787, black members of the Boston community railed against being taxed for public schools when their children were not allowed to attend any school.  Eleven years later, the African school was organized and met in the African Meeting House.  In 1812, the Boston School Committee, after decades of requests, finally funded the African school, albeit only partially.  Three years later, businessman Abiel Smith died and left $4,000 to the African school.  Those funds were used to build the Abiel Smith Schoolhouse.

That's just one of the interesting things I learned that morning in the Museum of African American History.  When the rain stopped, I opted to walk the Black Heritage Trail.  Juggling my umbrella to avoid the dripping trees and my cell phone to photograph sites along the way, I began my journey through the past.



View Boston's Black Heritage Trail in a larger map

A.  African Meeting House

B.  Smith Court Residences

C.  Abiel Smith School 

D.  John Coburn House

E.  Lewis & Harriet Hayden House

F.  Charles Street Meeting House

G.  John J. Smith House

H.  George Middleton House

I.   Robert Gould Shaw & the 54th Massachusetts Regiment Memorial

The John Coburn House

John P. Coburn ran a clothing store on Brattle Street and a gaming salon in his home.  He acted a treasurer for the New England Freedom Association which assisted fugitive slaves.  He also founded the Massoasoit Guards, an all-black militia in 1852.

The Lewis and Harriet Hayden House

Lewis and Harriet Hayden made their home a way station for the Underground Railroad which helped fugitive slaves flee across the border into Canada.  When slave catchers once arrived at their door, Lewis told them he had kegs of dynamite stashed underneath his front stoop which he threatened to explode.  Needless to say, the slave catchers continued on their way.  

The Charles Street Meeting House

Anti-slavery leaders such as Sojourner Truth, Wendell Phillips, Frederick Douglass and Charles Sumner spoke at the Charles Street Meeting House.

The John J. Smith House

John J. Smith was a barber whose shop was a meeting place for organizing abolitionist activities.  During the Civil War, Smith recruited blacks for African American regiments, including the 54th Massachusetts Regiment. 

Robert Gould Shaw & the 54th Massachusetts Regiment Memorial

This Memorial commiserates the 54th Massachusetts Regiment, the first all-black regiment formed after Lincoln issued the Emancipation Proclamation.  Robert Gould Shaw commanded the regiment which became renown for its July 18, 1863 assault on Fort Wagner, South Carolina. 

William Lloyd Garrison was not listed on the Black Heritage Trail, although his words and his work as the editor of The Liberator newspaper received much attention in the Museum of African American History.  One of his quotes struck me:

"I will be as harsh as truth, and uncompromising as justice...I am in earnest, I will not equivocate, I will not excuse, I will not retreat a single inch, and I will be heard."

~ William Lloyd Garrison

Because of the tireless efforts of Garrison and other committed Bostonians, all Americans heard the seething call for abolitionism that swirled out from Boston.