Underground Railroad

The weight of English settlement and the appetite for land led to two wars and shocking atrocities against Native people.

- Courtesy of Oberlin College Archives

John Mercer Langston
John Mercer Langston, an Oberlin College graduate and the first black lawyer in Ohio, was the western recruiting agent for the Massachusetts 54th and 55th regiments.

A letter of recommendation from Governor John Andrew

- Massachusetts Archives

Detail of “Presentation of Colors to the Fifty-fifth Regiment” This newspaper clipping describes the presentation of flags to the 55th Massachusetts Infantry before it left for the front. After the war, the flags donated by the African-American women of Ohio were given to Governor Andrew. The national and state flags were returned to the Massachusetts State House, where they are kept to this day.

- Massachusetts Archives

A London coffee house. Some in England associated Protestantism with a growing business culture. Coffee was seen as an appropriate drink for industrious Protestants, unlike alcohol that dulled the senses.

- Public Domain Review

Coffee beans in a holiday mood
- Graphics Fairy

The Green Dragon, a tavern and coffee house, later became a gathering place for patriots before the American Revolution.
- Blandon Campbell

A 1750 Massachusetts
law presents a skeptical
view of tea and coffee

This 1750 Massachusetts law presents a skeptical view of tea and coffee. “Taking into consideration the great and unnecessary use and consumption of Sundry articles which tend to impoverish the [people]...and to prevent... industry… there shall be paid for all Tea, Coffee... the Sundry Duties following...To every Pound of Tea...Ten pence...For every pound of coffee Two pence.
- Massachusetts Archives

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A portrait of Judge Samuel Sewall — *Judge Samuel Sewall*

Cranberries
Today Massachusetts is the second largest producer of cranberries in the United States. English colonists called them “bear berries” because they attracted bears and “cranberries” because pink blossoms in spring resembled the head and neck of a crane.

Intrigue
Lewis Hayden remarried after the sale of his fi rst wife. An owner leased him to Lexington Kentucky’s Phoenix Hotel as a waiter for the racing season. Expecting to be sold and separated from family once again, Hayden planned an escape. Calvin Fairbank, a ministerial student, hired a carriage and driver. Lewis and his wife Harriet posed as servants, “or passed as white lady and gentleman, veiled and cloaked.” Harriet’s son hid under a seat. The Haydens made it to Canada and freedom.

Lewis and Harriet Hayden in a carriage on the Maysville Road, disguised with white flour, passing thirteen tollhouses to freedom.

Kentucky Tollhouse

Calvin Fairbank

This bill for dinner for an Admiralty Court is dated April, 9th, 1675.

Potatoes

Popcorn
Archaeologists have uncovered evidence that native people in Peru prepared popcorn over 3,000 year ago. According to legend Wampanoags brought it to Plymouth for the 1621 feast. That is unlikely since local varieties of corn were not effective for popping.

Returning the Favor:
Morris was called the “black lawyer” but also the “Irish lawyer” because so many clients were Irish immigrants. He was sympathetic to a young boy harassed by classmates in the Chelsea schools. One of ten Irish students in a class of one hundred, the child’s arm was broken at one point. Starting as an offi ce boy with Morris, Patrick Collins later studied law and became mayor of Boston.

A statue of Patrick A. Collin — Patrick A. Collin

A photo of an 1851 petition against segregated schools — Patrick A. Collin

This 1851 petition against segregated schools
This 1851 petition against segregated schools includes the names of socially prominent abolitionists including Wendell Phillips, son of a former mayor, and attorney Ellis Gray Loring, who mentored Robert Morris. Charles Sumner, less prominent at first, later became famous as a Massachusetts Senator. - Massachusetts Archives

3 Photos of African American politicians and leaders. — *- Images by Anthony W. Lanier, Photographer*

Anthony W. Lanier has been taking photographs in Roxbury for over 20 years. Most of his images are for reference in his drawings. In 2000, Lanier exhibited a series of graphite drawings of people waiting for the bus in the Dudley MBTA bus terminal. A Massachusetts Cultural Council Grant was awarded for the work in 2002. In 2007 the Boston Public Library purchased fifteen of his original graphite drawings for their permanent collection.

This exhibit is the first display of some of the historic images from the past two decades taken by the artist. The Commonwealth Museum is pleased to feature these photos in an exhibit that celebrates one of the oldest communities in Massachusetts and highlights its history, diversity, and vitality.

Emergence of Lewis Hayden
Hayden quickly became a leader in resisting the Fugitive Slave Law. Although relatively new to Boston, he had unique qualities: an impressive capacity for growth, a dignity that earned credibility with black and white Bostonians, and rock steady reliability in a crisis. A “man of action” he combined intelligence with physical courage. Some African-Americans called him the “Tavern of Strength.” To children he was “Papa Hayden.”

Photograph of Sergeant Charles Douglass, 5th Massachusetts Cavalry
As a soldier in a cavalry regiment, Charles Douglass wore a distinctive uniform. This included a shortened coat, sturdy leather boots, and a heavy saber.
- Courtesy of Moorland-Spingarn Research Center, Howard University Archives

Charles Douglass was the youngest son of famed abolitionist Frederick Douglass. He was said to be the first soldier enlisted in the African-American regiments from Massachusetts. After briefly serving in the 54th Infantry, he was commissioned as a first sergeant in the 5th Cavalry. After his discharge from the Army in 1865, he moved to Washington, D.C., and played for the Mutuals, one of the first African-American baseball clubs. In later life he worked as a clerk in the Pension Office, and died in Washington, D.C., in 1920.

Captions are clear of wrap - Clear both
Benjamin Robert’s daughter Sarah was forced to walk a longer distance to a segregated school. Her maternal grandfather James Easton was a Revolutionary War veteran who tried to integrate his local church. After buying a pew, he found it covered with tar the following week. Benjamin Roberts published a newspaper for a time and ran a printing business. He brought suit to desegregate Boston public schools. Some black parents disagreed, thinking that a segregated school was safer.

Charles L. Remond

The Abiel Smith School

A photograph of the petition against
school segregation

Petition against segragation

A document seeking fairness and self-sufficiency, Hewlett incorporated
the Cambridge Land and Building Association in
1868 to provide loans to members of the black community.

Lemuel Shaw

Coffee beans in a holiday mood
- Graphics Fairy

The Green Dragon, a tavern and coffee house, later became a gathering place for patriots before the American Revolution.
- Blandon Campbell

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About the Compromise of 1850
The free state of California would balance the slave state of Texas. The territories of New Mexico and Utah would decide on slavery for themselves. The slave trade (but not slavery) would end in the District of Columbia. Under the Fugitive Slave Law private citizens faced a $1,000 fi ne or six months in prison for assisting runaways. Fugitives would appear before a federal commissioner paid $10 for ruling against the slave and $5 for supporting a claim of freedom.

“

“One of the most revolting scenes I have ever witnessed took place this morning in the yard of the Leverett Street prison.”

– Baltimore Sun article, 1849

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TEXT ONLY
Massachusetts recruited three African-American regiments during the Civil War, the 54th, 55th, and 5th Cavalry. News that black soldiers could not be offi cers led to divisions within the black community. Some opposed recruitment. “Equality fi rst, guns afterward” was the sentiment voiced by William Wells Brown. Robert Morris agreed and argued against enlistment. William Cooper Nell was discouraged by the ban but thought the historical opportunity should not be missed. Similar concerns arose over the issue of equal pay

An old newspaper advertisement selling a slave — **“For Sale Likely Negro Male”** Hayden was sold three times before escaping. Possibly this 1840 ad was for the sale of Lewis Hayden. Courtesy of the Kentucky Room,
*- Lexington Public Library*

Setting the Stage:
The “Latimer Law” In 1843, escaped slave George Latimer was held under an earlier version of the Fugitive Slave Law. Abolitionists protested with 65,000 petitions weighing 150 pounds and rolled into the State House. In response, the legislature passed a “Personal Freedom Law” prohibiting the holding of escaped slaves in Massachusetts jails. By denying secure facilities it encouraged later rescue attempts.

Latimer petition

Personal liberty

An English Woman on Native Foods
In 1676, during King Philip’s War, Mary Rowlandson was held captive by Nipmuc Indians. She later described their diet in a situation of extreme deprivation. “The chief and commonest food was ground nuts. They eat also nuts and acorns, artichokes, lilly roots, ground beans and several other weeds and roots…also bear, venison, beaver, tortoise, frogs, squirrels, dogs, skunks, rattlesnakes.” Reluctant at first, she came to regard some native foods as “savory.” “For to the hungry soul every bitter thing is sweet.”

Commemorating the Boston Massacre
In 1858 abolitionists began the annual commemoration of the Boston Massacre to recognize Crispus Attucks, of black and native ancestry, the fi rst to die in the American Revolution. Many activists in the black community submitted petitions for a monument to Attucks. Eventually a monument recognizing all victims was placed on Boston Common. Lewis Hayden played a prominent role in this effort.

A photograph of Lewis Hayden’ s petition for a monument commemorating Crispus
Attucks and the Boston Massacre

Hayden Petition

A photograph of an Act establishing the salary
of the Messenger, 1859.
Lewis Hayden’s salary was
determined by this legislation.
Massachusetts Archives

Boston Massacre Memorial

Paul Revere’s copper engraving plate depicting the Boston Massacre, showing British soldiers firing on American colonists.

Boston MassacreEngraving Plate

The Bigelow home

Ann Bigelow in old age.

A photo of a Massasoit monument — Imagining Massasoit – a noble image overlooking Plymouth harbor.
*- Greg Kullberg*

Alliance with Massasoit
The small size and vulnerability of the colony encouraged efforts at an alliance with Massasoit and his Pokanoket nation (a Wampanoag community). Their numbers had been greatly reduced by disease, making them vulnerable to attack by rival nations like the Narragansett. Plymouth Colony court records show a more cautious attitude at first toward Native people accused of crimes. As more English settlers arrived punishments became more severe.

Power Play
A friend and advisor of Civil War Governor John Albion Andrew, Lewis Hayden remained active in Republican politics after the war, serving one term in the legislature. Hayden and others wanted a substantial role in party politics including input on the nominee for governor. Most party leaders thought that abolition of slavery was enough. They took African-American support for granted and pushed Hayden and others to the side. The resilient Hayden worked as a messenger in the Secretary of State’s office.

Kentucky Tollhouse

Calvin Fairbank

Speak for Yourself, John
Henry Wadsworth Longfellow, the children’s poet, helped burnish the Pilgrim’s image. His story of John Alden proposing to Priscilla Mullins, on behalf of his bashful friend Myles Standish, is memorable – as is her reply – “speak for yourself John.” Longfellow introduces real historical figures but not real history. Standish, the colony’s military leader, was not bashful but overly aggressive at times, particularly with Native people.

The Courtship of Miles Standish’ by Henry Wadsworth Longfellow, published by Tichnor, depicting a man talking to a woman as she spins yarn. — The Courtship of Miles Standish
*- by Henry Wadsworth Longfellow Tichnor*

In his own words
Hayden was born into slavery in Kentucky around 1811. Unlike many who escaped on the Underground Railroad, he did not remain in the shadows. On a visit to Boston Harriet Beecher Stowe interviewed Lewis and other fugitive slaves. His story – in his own words – traces a history of cruel separation from parents and siblings.

The fate of Hayden’s parents
My mother was of mixed blood – white and Indian. She married my father when he was working in a bagging factory near by. After a while my father’s owner moved off and took my father with him, which broke up the marriage. A man made proposals of a base nature to {my mother}...She would not consent to live with this man...and he sent her to prison, and had her fl ogged and punished in various ways, so that at last she began to have crazy turns.

The Hayden children sold by Kentucky Minister Adam Rankin
When he was going to leave Kentucky for Pennsylvania, he sold all my brothers and sisters at auction. I stood by and saw them sold. When I was just going up on the block, he swapped me off for a pair of carriage horses...It was commonly reported that my master had said in the pulpit that there was no more harm in separating a family of slaves than a litter of pigs...

Newspaper ad

Document from the Massachusetts Archives stating that in 1675, Governor Josiah Winslow of the Plimoth Colony was chosen as “Captain General or Commander in chief” for the United Colonies, with full power to find and destroy the Narragansett enemy and other native fighters

Slave Auction

A photograph of Lewis Hayden from the
Houghton Library, Harvard University — *Harriet Beecher Stowe*
*- Library of Congress*

A Key to Uncle Tom’s Cabin
Lewis Hayden died in Boston on Sunday morning April 7, 1889. His passing was front-page news in the New York Times as well as in the Boston Globe, Boston Herald and Boston Evening Transcript.

Leading nineteenth century reformers attended the funeral including Frederick Douglass, and women’s rights champion Lucy Stone. The Governor of Massachusetts, Mayor of Boston, and Secretary of the Commonwealth felt it important to participate.

Hayden’s was a life of real signifi cance — but few people know of him today. A historical marker at his Beacon Hill home tells part of the story: “A Meeting Place of Abolitionists and a Station on the Underground Railroad.”

Hayden is often described as a “man of action.” An escaped slave, he stood at the center of a struggle for dignity and equal rights in nineteenth century Boston. His story remains an inspiration to those who take the time to learn about it.

Hayden’s Early Years

The weight of English settlement and the appetite for land led to two wars and shocking atrocities against Native people.