Monthly Archives: January 2014

Rev. John A. King: Abolitionist, Preacher, and Planemaker

This blog is dedicated to the memory of the King Family as they were one of Newark’s Black founding families.

In the book, Prophets of Protest: Reconsidering the History of American Abolitionism, Richard Newman has a chapter entitled “A Chosen Generation”: Black Founders and Early America. He wrote:

“Black founders” is a fancy term to describe the charter generation of free blacks in early national America. Born in the eighteenth century, some free (like James Forten of Philadelphia)) but many enslaved (like Richard Allen, Prince Hall, and Venture Smith, all of whom struggled mightily for their freedom), black founders came of age just as the American nation took shape….For they were of a generation that first battled bondage in an organized fashion, the generation that created vibrant free black institutions throughout the nation, and that innovated protest tactics—from establishing print as a key form of black activism to aiding fugitive slaves and distressed free blacks to forming the first national conventions dedicated to racial justice and independence—which still held sway on the eve of the Civil War.”

Given Newman’s definition of “Black Founders”, I maintain that the King Family was one of Newark’s Black founding families. I have chosen to focus on Rev. John A. King simply because there is more in the public record on him than his brothers. But, make no mistake about it, the lives of the other King brothers, especially Jacob and Abraham, are also noteworthy.

Over the past few years, my cousin Andrea and I have pieced together the King brothers’ early lives. Based on the 1830 census, John was born about 1790 in Morris County, NJ making him the oldest of Lucy King’s sons. Abraham was born around 1795. Their mother was originally a slave on Abraham Ogden’s estate in Morristown, NJ. Their father was Dublin King, a man born in British Guiana. John and Abraham were also tradesmen which tells us that they occupied a more privileged status over enslaved people. We don’t know when they became free or how they learned their trade, but Abraham Ogden’s estate was settled in 1802 and we assume Lucy was freed thereafter. He children inherited their father’s estate.

Sometime prior to 1820, the King brothers met Rev. Christopher Rush, another Black founder. Together with Rev. Rush, they founded the African Methodist Episcopal Zion Church (now known as the Clinton Memorial A.M.E. Zion Church) in Newark in 1822. This church was the first black church founded in Newark and was also considered to be a sister church to the Mother Zion Church in Lower Manhattan that was founded in 1796. Rev. Rush would go on to become the Bishop of the A.M.E. Zion Church in 1828. As stated in a previous post, before he left to become a bishop, he sold his land to Jacob D. King who built an Underground Railroad House in 1830.

I should add that around 1820, John married Phebe Beard who was from Delaware. They ended up having 6 children: John Jr., Mary Rebecca, Cornelia, Robert, Edward, and Christopher Rush King. That John named one of his children after  Rev. Rush indicates how close a colleague and friend he considered Rev. Rush to be. Abraham married Mary McIntosh in Morristown, NJ in 1824 and they had 2 sons, Abraham Ogden King, Jr. and William.

The A.M.E. Zion Church in Newark was active in both the Underground Railroad and in the education of all Blacks. By 1826, the Church was teaching Blacks, both young and old, how to read and write. According to the Township of Newark records, On April 14, 1828, Abraham and John walked into the town meeting with a petition asking for funding for a colored school. Please note that this school had already been in existence for years. They were only asking for formal funding from the town. They received limited funding initially and were able to have a formal budget for the school from 1836 onward.

In the early years, the Colored School, as it came to be known, was located first  in the A.M.E. Zion Church and then in the Plane Street Colored Presbyterian Church. It wasn’t until 1864, when James Baxter became the principal, that the Colored School had their own building. The Colored School lasted until 1909. I should also mention that two of Jacob’s daughters, Marcia and Harriet King, were teachers in the Colored School.

Plaque on James Baxter mentioning the King Brothers

At the same time that the King brothers were educating Blacks, building churches, and harboring fugitive slaves, between  the mid-1820’s and early-1830’s, they were also holding down full-time jobs in the carpentry trade. Abraham was a carpenter and Jacob was a cooper. However, John was one of the four Black planemakers in the United States prior to the Civil War. The others were Cesar Chelor of Wrentham, MA, John Teasman, Jr., a fellow Newarker whose father became the principal of the New York African Free School in Manhattan in 1797, and George Ball of New York City.

You may ask yourself what exactly was a planemaker. Well, in the 18th and 19th centuries, woodworking was a specialized activity. Carpenters, cabinetmakers, and joiners used a variety of tools in their trade.  A “plane” was one such tool that shaved down a piece of wood to a particular thickness. The plane held an iron chisel in a fixed position so the wood could evenly be removed from the surface. There were different types of wooden planes used to create different surfaces. For example, you had utilitarian planes and planes that created moldings and edges.  Hence,  planemakers made planes and they were considered to be toolmakers.  Wooden planes were used up until the Industrial Revolution.

John A. King Wooden Plane in NJ Toolmakers:A Heritage of Quality by Alexander Farnham

After researching John’s career as a planemaker, I have come across a couple of inaccuracies in the public record on him. There have been several websites and articles that list John’s years as a planemaker as only being between 1835-1837. One of the most notable is a website on African-American woodworkers in the 18th and 19th centuries. However, the Newark City directory has him clearly listed as being a planemaker from 1836-1846. Since the directory was only published in 1836, he may have even worked earlier than that.  In addition, there was an article written by Ronald Pearson called “Hand Tools: A Significant Find” in The Chronicle of the Early American Industries (Vol.37:49-50) . In the article, Pearson writes about how he acquired an old tool box that had 38 wooden planes, 13 of which were made by John A. King. He hypothesizes that John was only a “jobber” working for two white planemakers, the Andruss brothers. There is no basis in fact for his hypothesis as John was an independent planemaker with his own business. In his later years, he was known to have only worked with James Searing, another Newark planemaker. By not doing the  primary research that would have indicated John’s long career as a planemaker and insinuating that John couldn’t possibly work for himself, these researchers have done a disservice to his memory. Today, they stand corrected.

In the early 1830’s, John become very active in the abolitionist movement and he also became an ordained minister in the A.M.E. Zion Church in Newark at this time. He participated in local, state, and national anti-slavery societies as well as national Negro conventions. Through these activities, he met some of the most well-known white abolitionists of the day like the Tappan brothers and William Lloyd GarrisonIn addition, he also started writing for The Liberator.

He also met more often and socialized with other well-known early Black abolitionists like Rev. Amos N. Freeman, David Ruggles, Rev.Theodore S. Wright, and Rev. Samuel Cornish, who later became a minister at the Plane Street Colored Presbyterian Church in Newark. In fact, by the late 1830’s, John was also writing for Cornish’s Colored American newspaper.

In his newspaper articles, John addressed the concerns of the day. These included the issue of colonization. In 1816, the American Colonization Society was founded. The Presbyterian Church was a main proponent of the colonization of free Blacks to Africa and later to the Caribbean after 1834. Many free Blacks in Newark, including John, were  vocal anti-colonizationists. Having grown up in the shadow of the Revolutionary War, these people believed that they, too, sang America. It was the US that they called home and they saw all attempts to remove them from the US as nothing more than an extension of slavery’s hand.

The colonization movement hit close to home. In 1839, one of the first ministers of the Plane Street Colored Presbyterian Church, Rev. T. P. Hunt emigrated to Trinidad with his family and some members of the congregation. In 1841, Rev. Hunt returned to Newark and met with his old congregation and told them what he encountered. Very little was positive for they had been deceived into emigrating in the first place. John then wrote the article below in the Colored American. Please note the resolutions made.

Anti-Colonization article by John A. King

Another topic John was concerned about was the restoration of Black citizen’s voting rights. From 1790-1807,  free Blacks and women had the right to vote in New Jersey. In 1807, the state of NJ, disenfranchised over 3,000 free Blacks and untold number of women. John took note of this Black disenfranchisement  in an article for the Colored American.

 

John A. King advocating for Black voting rights

From the mid-1830’s to the mid-1840’s, John, in addition to continuing to preach at the Newark A.M.E. Zion Church,  was also a minister at the Mother Zion Church in NYC as well as the Mount Zion A.M.E. Church in Eatontown, NJ which was part of Shewsbury Township back then.  In Carter G. Woodson’s book, The History of the Negro Church, he mentions John A. King as being one of the leaders in A.M.E. Zion Church between 1830 and 1840.

 

John A. King mentioned in Woodson’s History of Negro Churchpapers.

John is also listed in all history books pertaining to the founding of the A.M.E. Zion Church. Moreover, John, Abraham, and Jacob are also listed in the Black Abolitionist Papers which is a testament itself to their abolitionist activities during their lifetimes. I consider this to be an honor.

In 1848, the Newark Daily Advertiser reported a fire at John’s house on 20 Academy Street in Newark.

Newark Daily Advertiser, 3/16/1848

Most of the inside of the house was destroyed. We don’t really know if he was ever able to rebuild his house.

Over a year ago, I also found two articles written in 1849 in the Newark Daily Advertiser that broke my heart. The tears flowed uncontrollably. In January 1849, John’s wife Phebe died which, together with the fire, quite possible made him depressed. It was on April 6th and 7th, 1849, that the Newark Daily Advertiser announced his suicide below.

Newark Daily Advertiser, 4/7/1849

 

Newark Daily Advertiser, 4/6/1849

After his death on 04/05/1849, John’s brother William was left to settle his affairs. It wasn’t until 1852 that his estate was settled.

Estate sale of John A. King’s properties

 

Estate sale of John A. King

In the 1850 census, John’s 2 youngest children, Edward and Christopher, are living with William.

After reading that article, I wondered how often do we consider the needs of those who lead our flock. Do we really know how well are shepards are doing? John was a preacher who comforted and led others. Was he being comforted?  I shed tears for a man who did so much for others, but couldn’t do enough for himself. Tears, tears, and more tears.

I would be remiss if I ended my blog post on this note. Those who know me also know I just won’t do that. I truly believe it is up to those of us alive to give voice to our ancestors, to allow them to speak in a voice that is their own, and to correct the inaccuracies about them. Likewise, I believe it is up to us descendants to remember our role model ancestor, our radiant roots, in a positive light. If we don’t, then who will? So, 165 years after the death of my ancestor, Rev. John A. King, I offer a prayer of remembrance to him.

Dear Uncle John,

I want to THANK YOU for the wonderful life you left behind. It has truly been an honor to retrace your footsteps. You have made us proud to call you an esteemed ancestor. We claim all aspects of your life and the lives of your brothers, as our own now. We exalt you for making Newark, NJ a better place for all African-Americans at a time when we were not considered to be full citizens. That you never gave up the call for equal rights is laudable. Your quest for equality showed us just how much a true American you were and how much you believed in the ideals of the American Revolution—freedom, liberty, and equal rights for all.

I want you to know that you were loved, not only by your immediate family and by us, your descendants, but also, by God. God never failed you–not even in your greatest moment of despair. I pray that you have continued to find comfort in His arms. You served an awesome God — a God that we continue to serve.

God bless you, John, and the legacy you left behind. Continue to rest in peace as we continue to spread your good name and the good deeds you did during your lifetime. You are still loved and remembered.

We call your name, John, we… call… your… name…

Amen!

PostScript:

If I could speak to John, I would tell him that his extended family is still hanging strong in Newark on Academy St. Our family has never left Newark.

 

My cousin Raymond Armour, Esq.

 

Ethnicity, Admixture and Me

One of the most prominent  features of DNA testing is the ethnic admixture results you get with each test. Now, there has been some debate about the reliability of admixture tests. It is true that no one test will tell you every ethnic group that left it’s mark on your genome. For starters, ethnic groups have changed over time and so have the geo-political boundaries that encompassed these groups. Furthermore, each DNA testing company has it’s own ethnic reference samples with which they compare your genome with and this also influences their results.

That being said, I do find admixture results to be somewhat informative if one’s family history includes the ancestries and geographical locations indicated. As a child of the African Diaspora, I also believe that admixture tests do point to geographical areas where my ancestors may have come from during the Transatlantic Slave Trade. For African-Americans, this is a key reason as to why we take DNA test in the first place. We want to find that missing piece of our ancestral self that was denied to us.

So, Who Did I Think I Was?

Whoever I thought I was pre-DNA test was only a partial portrait of me. I already knew all my usual suspect ancestries by name (i.e., West African, British, Irish, Dutch, German, Eastern European/Jewish, Spanish,and Native American) prior to taking the test so I expected them to show up in my results. And they did. However, it was the UNUSUAL SUSPECT ancestries that caught my attention big time. My post-DNA test results now included Central-South Africa, East Africa, South/Southeast Asia, North Africa, Italy, France, and Scandinavia. Hmmm… Now, I wondered where and when did these ancestries enter my genome. I mean I thought I knew where my African and European ancestors came from. Well, I guess NOT!  LOL Now, I needed to further investigate my new roots.

 

My 23andme Admixture Results

 

My AncestryDNA Admixture Results

 

My DNA Tribes Admixture Results, Pt. 1

 

My DNA Tribes Admixture Results, Pt. 2

 

Unusual Suspect #1: Central-South Africa, East Africa, and South/Southeast Asia

One of the biggest surprises that my family encountered with DNA testing was my cousin Andrea’s family’s mtDNA results. Though my own mtDNA is H1 because my maternal matrilineal line traces back to Ireland, Andrea’s mtDNA, which comes from our shared 2nd great-grandmother, is M23. This haplogroup is found only in MADASGASCAR!

 

My M23 Cousins

The people who made up the original settlers came from East (Indonesia, Oceania, and  Melanesia, ) and Africa (East African and South Africa).  According to a paper written by Cox, Nelson, et. al., 

“The settlement of Madagascar is one of the most unusual, and least understood, episodes in human prehistory. Madagascar was one of the last landmasses to be reached by people, and despite the island’s location just off the east coast of Africa, evidence from genetics, language and culture all attests that it was settled jointly by Africans, and more surprisingly, Indonesians. Nevertheless, extremely little is known about the settlement process itself… Maximum-likelihood estimates favour a scenario in which Madagascar was settled approximately 1200 years ago by a very small group of women (approx. 30), most of Indonesian descent (approx. 93%). This highly restricted founding population raises the possibility that Madagascar was settled not as a large-scale planned colonization event from Indonesia, but rather through a small, perhaps even unintended, transoceanic crossing.”

When I saw all of my admixture results, I knew that my Central-South African, East African, and South/Southeast Asian ancestry could be traced back to my maternal Madagascar ancestors. Out of all the admixture tests, DNA Tribes has the best admixture breakdown. All of my relatives, who have taken the DNA Tribes SNP Analysis, have ancestry from South Africa (Bantu, Pedi, and/or Nguni), East Africa (Somali or Ethiopian), South Asia(India), Southeast Asia (Borneo, Malay, Indo-Chinese), and Oceania (Papua New Guinea, Samoa, and Guam).

Here is my 2nd cousin 1XR Mildred’s DNA Tribes Native Population Analysis. Mildred is a direct matrilineal descendant of my 2nd great-grandmother and DNA Tribes has her as being 4.5% Southeast Asian. Her Madagascar ancestry is much clearer— at least I think so.

My cousin Mildred’s DNA Tribes Results

In addition, my maternal family has colonial roots in both New Jersey and New York. Slaves from Madagascar were directly imported into New York City between 1678-1698 and then from 1716-1721. They were also directly imported into Perth Amboy, NJ. In his book, Black Crescent: The Experience and Legacy of African Muslims in America, Michael A.Gomez writes:

 

Madagascar Slaves in New York

My 3rd great-grandmother, Susan Pickett, was born in Morris County, NJ in 1809. Her mother, a slave named Tun, was born in the late 1700s in either NY or NJ. It is quite possible that Tun’s maternal Madagascar ancestors arrived during one of those two periods. I am now searching for Tun in her slave owner’s records. Apparently she was owned by someone who then rented her out to another master.

Unusual Suspect #2: North Africa

Prior to my DNA tests, I only had knowledge of my Ashkenazi Jewish ancestry on my mother’s side. Post-DNA test, I now know that I am also a descendant of Sephardic Jews from Spain. My North African ancestry is from my paternal side. Following their 1492 expulsion from Spain, Jews settled mainly in the Ottoman Empire, Morocco and Algeria, southern France, Italy, Puerto Rico, Cuba, Costa Rica, the Dominican Republic, New Mexico, Texas, Arizona, and Mexico, Spanish South America, Brazil, Netherlands and her territories (Curaçao, Suriname, Aruba and New Amsterdam) England (as well as English colonies such as Barbados and Jamaica), Germany, Denmark, Poland, Austria and Hungary. So, some of my North African ancestry comes from my Sephardic  roots. But, I also have Puerto Rican ancestors via the Canary Islands which includes the Guanches who are of Berber descent from North Africa.

My DNA Tribes SNP Analysis also includes Fulani ancestry. The Fulani were known to be nomadic and migrated from West Africa to North Africa. This ancestry may come from either one of my parents.

Unusual Suspect #3: France, Corsica, and Italy

French and Italian ancestry is very common in Puerto Ricans. This is due to the Spanish Crown issuing the 1815 Royal Decree of GracesThis decree lasted until 1898 when the US took over Puerto Rico.

Royal Decree of Graces of 1815

King Ferdinand decided that one of the ways to end the pro-independence movement in Puerto Rico and Cuba was to allow non-Spanish Catholic Europeans (e.g., the French, Corsican, Irish, and Italians), who swore loyalty to the Spanish Crown, to settle on both islands. These new immigrants were given land grants and papers indicated that they were loyal to both  the Spanish Crown and the Catholic Church. After 5 years, they could become Spanish subjects. It was these immigrants who became the sugarcane, tobacco, and coffee planter class with Africans being the slave labor class.

Part of my French ancestry is due to French immigration to Puerto Rico at this time. (By the way, I have some Puerto Rican cousins with the surnames LeGrand, Betancourt, Poupart, and Ruitort among others.)  However, some of my French ancestry is also due to Corsican immigration to the island. In the early 1800s, Yauco was Ground Zero for Corsican Immigration. Corsica was originally an Italian territory that was lost to France in 1768 as such a lot of Corsican surnames are Italian in origin.

My paternal grandfather, Antonio Vega Bonilla, was born in Susua Alta, Yauco, Puerto Rico as were his ancestors.  On some of my paternal family’s birth and marriage certificates, people with Corsican surnames like Cardi, Bernadini, Filiberti, and Oliveri are listed as relatives who were witnesses to those events. I believe my paternal grandfather’s ancestors intermarried with, or had children by, these Corsican immigrants.

As I communicate with some of Euro DNA cousins, I am also finding that I have French ancestry on my maternal side as well. Some of this French ancestry is from French Huguenots who arrived in the US during colonial times from England. I also have a lot of French Canadian/Arcadian ancestry. I have no idea where this ancestry comes from and I am still investigating.

Unusual Suspect #4: Scandinavia 

When I first received my 23andme results, they only listed Finland as a Scandinavian country that apparently left a mark on my DNA. Say what? On their new Ancestry Composition, this changed to the more general Scandinavian category. When I look at my DNA relatives and Ancestry Finder lists, I see DNA cousins with Finnish, Swedish, and Norwegian ancestry. I had no knowledge on either side of my family of Scandinavian ancestry. I found this to be interesting. How did I get Finnish DNA???

Well, it turns out that there was a New Sweden colony that extended from Delaware, Pennsylvania, and up to New Jersey between the years of 1638-1655. Finland was part of Sweden at this time. As a result, a lot of Finnish and Swedish people immigrated to this colony. By 1690, the Swedes and Finns had settled in Cape May, Salem, and Gloucester counties in New Jersey. When I look at my DNA 5th-8th cousins’ family trees on Ancestry.com, I see a lot of surnames from Salem and Gloucester counties in NJ,  but I don’t recognize the names. It may be that I inherited Scandinavian DNA from a slave owner sometime in the colonial NJ era. As this time,  the best I can do is to be on the lookout for any Scandinavian names that pop up in my research on my NJ ancestors.

So where does all of this new admixture analyses leave me? 

My admixture results do not change what I consider myself to be. I will always be half African-American and Puerto Rican. The culture(s) you were raised in do(es) count for something after all. You are not just the sum of your DNA. I think of admixture results as clues to telling me more about my ancestors. By looking at who they may have been and how they ended up in the locations where I found them, I learn more about my family history.  But, admixture results still lead me to look for the paper trail –no matter how elusive it seems– on my ancestors.

 

 

The Underground Railroad House that Jacob D. King Built in Newark

This post is in honor of all my King ancestors. Jacob D. King and his family, including my 3rd aunt Mary Thompson King, stood up against the evil that was slavery in 19th century Newark, NJ and triumphed.

 

Shortly after finding out that Jacob D. King, my 3rd great-uncle by marriage, built his Underground Railroad house at 70 Warren Street in Newark in 1830, Andrea and I set out to find out more about him and his family. After looking through probate records, census records, church records, and newspaper articles, we were able to piece together parts of his life.

One of the first things we found out, via his daughter Harriet Brown’s obituary in a New York Age newspaper article on 9/12/1912, was that the King family had been in Newark since the mid-1700s.

NY Age Newspaper 9/12/1912

However, my 5th cousin Eleanor Mire, who descends from Jacob’s daughter Martha, told me that King oral history has indicated that they were in New Jersey during King Philip’s War (1675-76). From our research, we have learned that King family was in Essex and Morris counties prior to the mid-1700s.

One of the things Andrea and I are doing now is researching the Essex and Morris county’ slave owners who are affiliated with our family — the Ogdens, Riggs, Thompsons, Canfields, Morris families among others. DNA is also confirming the links to these slave owners families. For example, Andrea’s uncle Robert  matches almost 20 centimorgans  with a descendant of Edward Riggs, an original settler of Newark. Newark was founded in 1666 by Puritans from Connecticut which means that our ancestors were probably there close to its founding which makes us one of the oldest African-American families to continuously reside in Newark, NJ from the start.

Jacob was born in Newark on April 6, 1806 to Lucy, formerly owned by Abraham Ogden, and a Scots-Irish man named Dublin King. His father was the late sexton of Trinity Church in Newark. Unfortunately, church records did not record his name.

Jacob’s 1806 Trinity Church Baptism Record

He was one of 8 chilldren born tho his parents. The others being Abraham, John, Henry, and Charles. She also had a daughter named Venus. Lucy and Dublin had two other infant sons who died and who were later buried with their father. One of her sons, Abraham Ogden King was named after her slave owner, Abraham Ogden, a Patriot.

Abraham Ogden’s Inventory featuring Lucy King

It should be mentioned that Trinity Church in Newark was founded by Josiah Ogden and was the Ogden family’s home church as well as Hercules Daniel Bize’s church.

Mary Thompson married Jacob King in 1829 in the First Presbyterian Church in Newark, NJ. At the time, my Thompson ancestors were members of the First Presbyterian Church and her marriage to Jacob reflects her family’s membership in his church. However, the King family were founding members of the first African Methodist Zion Church, later known as the Clinton Avenue A.M.E. Zion Church. This church was founded in 1822 by Rev. Christopher Rush, who was one of the first missionaries of the black Methodist movement.

NYPL Digital Collection, Schomburg Center

Bishop Christopher Rush was born in Craven County, NC in 1777. He escaped to New York City in 1798 and became a member of the A.M.E. Zion Church which gave him a license to preach in 1815. He was ordained as a deacon in the church in 1822 was also charged with founding an A.M.E. Zion church in Newark, NJ. In 1828, he became the Bishop of the A.M.E. Zion (aka Mother Zion Church) in NYC. I should also mention that my 3rd great-grandfather’s 2nd wife Rosetta Thompson’s father, Rev. John A. Dungey, was also a founding member of this church as well.

The A.M.E. Zion church, it should be noted, was known for it’s Underground Railroad activity. In addition to Jacob D. King and his family, later Black abolitionists of this church included Frederick Douglass, Harriet Tubman and Sojourner Truth. Bishop Christopher Rush advocated helping fugitive slaves escape slavery and he charged the early A.M.E. churches with helping with this task. And they did.

In 1830, Jacob King bought land from Rev. Christopher Rush in the amount of $100. According to the deed, Rev. Christopher Rush was already a resident of NYC. I should mention that Jacob’s brother, Rev. John A. King, was a minster in the Newark A.M.E. Zion church.

Jacob D. King’s 1830 Land Deed

It is on this land that Jacob built an Underground Railroad house at 70 Warren Street in Newark. Jacob was a cooper by trade and two of his brothers were also involved in the carpentry field. Abraham was a carpenter and John was a planemaker, one of three African-American planemakers in the United States prior to the Civil War. Their brother-in-law Cato Thompson, was also a carpenter and we assume he learned the trade from his in-laws and also helped to build this house.

After I found the photo of Jacob’s house in Charles F. Cumming’s article, I went to the NJ Historical Society to see I could locate the actual article since Cummings didn’t give the date the article was published. I am so thankful for the staff at the NJ Historical Society, especially James Amemasor.  James has gone above and beyond in helping me find the documents needed for my research. He helped me go through a year’s worth of the Newark Sunday Call  newspaper. Thank God it was just a weekly paper!  On the first day of looking, I didn’t find anything after 5 hours of looking. But, when I arrived back home an hour later, James had left me a message saying that he thought the article on Jacob’s house was in the magazine section. So, I went back a couple of days later. It took a while, but we found the article and James was right. It was in the magazine section and it included 4 more photos! I am so glad I went to look for the source of the photo. I believe my ancestors were guiding me.

Here are the photos of the inside of Jacob’s Underground Railroad house in 1937, a year after Jacob’s daughter Ellen passed away. It should be noted again that this house stayed in the family for 106 years. I wish this house could talk because I would love to hear all the stories that could be told.

Full Sunday Newark Call Magazine Article, 10/3/1937

 

 

Newark Sunday Call Magazine, 10/3/1937

 

Newark Sunday Call Magazine, 10/3/1937

 

Newark Sunday Call Magazine, 10/3/1937

 

Newark Sunday Call Magazine, 10/3/1937

 

My 3rd great-aunt Mary Thompson King’s Dutch oven

Words cannot express how excited I was to see these photos. I ran home and had to tell everybody about this find.

One of my favorite photos is of my 3rd great-aunt Mary’s old Dutch oven. For too long, the role of  everyday, drylongso African-American women has been absent from the historical record as it pertains to the Underground Railroad. Yes, we know about the role of Black men and the role of white male and female abolitionists on the UGRR. But, what about the wives, daughters, and sisters of Black abolitionists?  Weren’t their roles just as important?

I am reminded of a post on my cousin Dawn Terrell’s  Answering The Ancestor’s Call blog, where she writes about an ancestor calling her out to be remembered. When I saw Mary’s Dutch oven, I know she was calling me out and reminding me that she, too, had helped fugitive slaves. We now know that it was Mary and her daughters, and maybe even her sisters, who cooked for the slaves hidden in the basement at 70 Warren Street. They probably also washed and repaired fugitive slaves’ clothes, helped out with childcare, comforted frightened fugitive slaves, and did other things that were typically defined as “women’s work.” I am so thankful for this photo. I may not have a photo of Mary, but praise God I have this remembrance of her and the important work that she was doing along with Jacob and the rest of my ancestors. Praise God indeed.

On a whim, I then went to the Schomburg Center for Research and Black Culture to see if I could find even more info on Jacob’s Underground Railroad activities. I came across The Black Abolitionist Papers, an account of Black abolitionists from the 1830s until the Civil War. In this multi-volume set, I found the names of both my Thompson and King ancestors. Regarding Jacob D. King, I found the following:

 

From The Black Abolitionist Papers

According to the Weekly Anglo-African newspaper, Jacob was a treasurer in a Relief Association which was a local organization, that assisted fugitive slaves on the Underground Railroad.

Weekly Anglo-American Newspaper, 10/15/1859

 

From the time Jacob built his UGRR house in 1830 until the 1860s, Jacob was non-stop in his abolitionist activities. I should also add that, in the article above, Thomas Washington was Jacob’s son-in-law, the husband of his daughter Martha. Hence, King black abolitionism was a family affair

Jacob passed away at 74 years old on 5/3/1880 and is buried in Woodland Cemetery  in Newark. He devoted more than half his life to fighting against the evils of slavery. He is a man who should definitely be remembered.