Horsham Monthly
Negroes schooled at expense of school committee
Though there is scant evidence in the Horsham Monthly Meeting minutes to indicate what they did in reference to the Negroes’ education, we are not left entirely in the dark. The Horsham School Committee, which made a report of its own after 1783, made occasional reference thereto, and it must be understood from these reports that the Negroes were schooled at the expense of the school committee. The only proof of this statement, given in the records, is found in statements like the following:
An account of Thomas Hallowell for schooling Griffith Camel’s and negro Caesar’s children was produced and considered, and the treasurer ordered to pay him grant given. That of Caesar’s lies for inspection.[1307]
This makes clear that cases of Negro schooling were taken before the same committee as cases of poor Whites and were investigated and disposed of in the same manner.
Byberry
Slaves in 1721
1727
Byberry Preparative Meeting makes no reference during the early years to the status of the Negro in its limits. Martindale, in a History of Byberry and Moreland, states that slavery came into Byberry about 1721,[1308] the slaves being employed by the more opulent class to do the roughest work. The inventory of a Friends’ property (1727) showed that he possessed “one negro girl, £20, and one negro boy, £30.”[1309] Of their intervening history little is recorded, though the Negroes were set free by many members of Friends, and in 1779 the meeting authorized Silas Walmsley and William Walmsley to provide a suitable burying ground for the use of Negroes who had been freed.[1310] What was done for their education is not known.