Philadelphia early ranked among her foremost leaders of the Colored people, William Whipper, Stephen Smith, Robert Purvis, William Still, Frederick A. Hinton, and Joseph Cassey. From an inquiry instituted in 1837, it was ascertained that out of the 18,768 Colored people in Philadelphia, 250 had paid for their freedom the aggregate sum of $79,612, and that the real and personal property owned by them was near $1,500,000. There were returns of several chartered benevolent societies for the purpose of affording mutual aid in sickness and distress, and there were sixteen houses of public worship, with over 4,000 communicants. And in Western Pennsylvania there were John Peck, John B. Vashon, Geo. Gardner, and Lewis Woodson. Every State in the North seemed to produce Colored men of marked ability to whom God committed a great work. Their examples of patient fortitude, industry, and frugality, and their determined efforts to obtain knowledge and build up character, stimulated the youth of the Negro race to greater exertions in the upward direction.
The African Methodist Episcopal Church was organized as early as 1816. Its churches grew and its ministry increased in numbers, intelligence, and piety, until it became the most powerful organization of Colored men on the continent. The influence of this organization upon the Colored race in America was excellent. It brought the people together, not only in religious sympathy, but by the ties of a common interest in all affairs of their race and condition. The men in the organization who possessed the power of speech, who had talents to develop, and an ambition to serve their race, found this church a wide field of usefulness.
The Colored Baptists were organized before the Methodists, [in Virginia,] but their organization has always lacked strength. The form of government, being purely Democratic, was adapted to a people of larger intelligence and possessed of greater capacity for self-government. But, notwithstanding this fact, the "independent" order of Colored Baptists gave the members and clergymen of the denomination exalted ideas of government, and abiding confidence in the capacity of the Negro for self-government. No organization of Colored people in America has produced such able men as the Colored Baptist Church.
In Ohio, Illinois, Indiana, and Michigan, Colored men distinguished themselves in the pulpit, in the forum, in business, and letters. William Howard Day, of Cleveland, during this period [1850-1860] Librarian of the Cleveland Library and editor of a newspaper; John Mercer Langston, of Oberlin; John Liverpool and John I. Gaines, of Cincinnati, Ohio, were good men and true. What they did for their race was done worthily and well. At the Ohio Anti-Slavery Convention, held at Putnam on the 22d, 23d, and 24th of April, 1835, the committee on the condition of the "people of Color," made the following report from Cincinnati:
The number of Colored people in Cincinnati is about 2,500. As illustrating their general condition, we will give the statistics of one or two small districts. The families in each were visited from house to house, taking them all as far as we went:
Number of families in one of these districts 26
" of individuals 125
" of heads of families 49
" of heads of families who are professors of religion 19
" of children at school 20
" of heads of families who have been slaves 39
" of individuals who have been slaves 95
Time since they obtained their freedom, from 1 to 15 years;
average, 7 years.
Number of individuals who have purchased themselves 23
Whole amount paid for themselves $9,112
Number of fathers and mothers still in slavery 9
" of children 18
" of brothers and sisters 98
" of newspapers taken 0
" of heads of families who can read 2EMPLOYMENT OF HEADS OF FAMILIES.
Common laborers and porters 7
Dealers in second-hand clothing 1
Hucksters 1
Carpenters 2
Shoe-blacks 6
Cooks and waiters 11
Washer-women 18Five of these women purchased themselves from slavery. One paid four hundred dollars for herself, and has since bought a house and lot worth six hundred dollars. All this she has done by washing.
Another individual had bargained for his wife and two children. Their master agreed to take four hundred and twenty dollars for them. He succeeded at length in raising the money, which he carried to their owner. "I shall charge you thirty dollars more than when you was here before," said the planter, "for your wife is in a family-way, and you may pay thirty dollars for that or not take her, just as you please." "And so," said he (patting the head of a little son, three years old, who hung upon his knee), "I had to pay thirty dollars for this little fellow six months before he was born."
Number of families in another district 63
" of individuals 258
" of heads of families 106
" of families who are professors of religion 16
" of heads of families at school 53
" of newspapers taken 7
Amount of property in real estate $9,850
Number of individuals who have been slaves 108
" of heads of families who have been slaves 69
Age at which they obtained their freedom, from 3 months to
60 years; average, 33 years.
Time since they obtained their freedom, from 4 weeks to 27
years; average, 9 years.
Number of heads of families who have purchased themselves, 36
Whole amount paid for themselves $21,515.00
Average price $597.64
Number of children which the same families have already
purchased 14
Whole amount paid for these children $2,425.75
Average price $173.27
Total amount paid for these parents and children $23,940.75
Number of parents still in slavery 16
" of husbands or wives 7
" of children 35
" of brothers and sisters 144These districts were visited without the least reference to their being exhibited separately. If they give a fair specimen of the whole population (and we believe that to be a fact), then we have the following results: 1,129 of the Colored population of Cincinnati have been in slavery; 476 have purchased themselves, at the total expense of $215,522.04, averaging for each, $452.77; 163 parents are still in slavery, 68 husbands and wives, 346 children, 1,579 brothers and sisters.
There are a large number in the city who are now working out their own freedom—their free papers being retained as security. One man of our acquaintance has just given his master seven notes of one hundred dollars each, one of which he intends to pay every year, till he has paid them all; his master promises then to give him his free papers. After paying for himself, he intends to buy his wife and then his children. Others are buying their husbands or wives, and others again their parents or children. To show that on this subject they have sympathies like other people, we will state a single fact. A young man, after purchasing himself, earned three hundred dollars. This sum he supposed was sufficient to purchase his aged mother, a widow, whom he had left in slavery five years before, in Virginia. Hearing that she was for sale, he started immediately to purchase her. But, after travelling five hundred miles, and offering all his money, he was refused. Not because she was not for sale, nor because he did not offer her full value. She had four sons and daughters with her, and the planter thought he could do better to keep the family together and send them all down the river. In vain the affectionate son pleaded for his mother. The planter's heart was steel. He would not sell her, and with a heavy heart the young man returned to Cincinnati. He has since heard that they were sold in the New Orleans market "in lots to suit purchasers."
Cincinnati produced quite a number of business men among her Colored population.
HENRY BOYD
was born in the State of Kentucky, on the 14th day of May, 1802. He received some instruction in reading and writing. He was bound out to a gentleman, from whom he learned the cabinet-making trade. He developed at quite an early age a genius for working in all kinds of wood—could make any thing in the business. He came to Ohio in 1826, and located in Cincinnati. He was a fine-looking man of twenty-four years, and a master mechanic. He expected to secure employment in some of the cabinet shops in the city. Accordingly, he applied at several, but as often as he applied he was refused employment on the ground of complexional prejudice. In some instances the proprietor was willing that a Colored man should work for him, but the white mechanics would not work by the side of a Colored man. In other cases it was quite different. The proprietors would not entertain the idea of securing the services of a "Black mechanic." So it was for weeks that Mr. Boyd sought an opportunity to use his skill in the direction of his genius and training; but he sought in vain. Disappointed, though not disheartened, he turned to the work of a stevedore, which he did for four months. At the expiration of this time he found employment with a house-builder. Within six months from the time he began work as a builder he had so thoroughly mastered the trade that he quit working as a journeyman, formed a co-partnership with a white man, and went into business. The gentleman with whom he joined his fortunes was a mechanic of excellent abilities, and acknowledged the superior fitness of Boyd for the business.
As a builder he succeeded first-rate for four years. But his color was against him. His white partner would make the contracts, secure the jobs, and then Boyd would come forward when the work was to be done. He had an abundance of work, and always finished it to the entire satisfaction of his patrons. It is impossible to estimate just how many houses he built, but the number is not small. He had made a beginning, and secured some capital. He did not like the builder's trade, and only entered it at the first from necessity—as a stepping-stone to his own trade, for which he had a great deal of enthusiasm. In 1836, ten years after his arrival in Cincinnati, he engaged in the manufacture of bedsteads. For six years he carried on this business—found a ready market and liberal pay. He brought to his business some of the oldest buyers in the bedstead line, and had a trade that kept him busy at all seasons of the year. His very excellent business habits won for him many friends, and through their solicitations he enlarged his business by manufacturing all kinds of furniture. He put up a building on the corner of Eighth Street and Broadway, where he carried on his manufacturing from 1836 till 1859, a period of twenty-three years. His business required four large buildings and a force of skilful workmen, never less than twenty, frequently fifty. He used the most approved machinery and paid excellent wages.
His manufactory presented, perhaps, what was never seen in this country before or since. His workmen represented almost all the leading races. There were Negroes, Americans, Irishmen, Scotchmen, Englishmen, Frenchmen, and men of other nationalities. And they didn't bite each other! Their relations were pleasant.