University of Virginia Library

CHAPTER V

THE SUCCESSFUL MIGRANT

THE reader will naturally be interested in
learning exactly what these thousands of
Negroes did on free soil. To estimate these
achievements the casual reader of contemporary
testimony would now, as such persons did then,
find it decidedly easy. He would say that in
spite of the unfailing aid which philanthropists
gave the blacks, they seldom kept themselves
above want and, therefore, became a public
charge, afflicting their communities with so much
poverty, disease and crime that they were considered
the lepers of society. The student of
history, however, must look beyond these comments
for the whole truth. One must take into
consideration the fact that in most cases these
Negroes escaped as fugitives without sufficient
food and clothing to comfort them until they
could reach free soil, lacking the small fund with
which the pioneer usually provided himself in
going to establish a home in the wilderness, and
lacking, above all, initiative of which slavery had
deprived them. Furthermore, these refugees
with few exceptions had to go to places where
they were not wanted and in some cases to
points from which they were driven as undesirables,

although preparation for their coming
had sometimes gone to the extent of purchasing
homes and making provision for employment
upon arrival.[1] Several well-established Negro
settlements in the North, moreover, were broken
up by the slave hunters after the passing of the
Fugitive Slave Law of 1850.[2]

The increasing intensity of the hatred of the
Negroes must be understood too both as a cause
and result of their intolerable condition. Prior
to 1800 the Negroes of the North were in fair
circumstances. Until that time it was generally
believed that the whites and the blacks would
soon reach the advanced stage of living together
on a basis of absolute equality.[3] The Negroes
had not at that time exceeded the number that
could be assimilated by the sympathizing communities
in that section. The intolerable legislation
of the South, however, forced so many
free Negroes in the rough to crowd northern
cities during the first four decades of the nineteenth
century that they could not be easily readjusted.
The number seeking employment far
exceeded the demand for labor and thus multiplied
the number of vagrants and paupers, many
of whom had already been forced to this condition
by the Irish and Germans then immigrating
into northern cities. At one time, as in the case

of Philadelphia, the Negroes constituting a
small fraction of the population furnished one
half of the criminals.[4] A radical opposition to
the Negro followed, therefore, arousing first the
laboring classes and finally alienating the support
of the well-to-do people and the press.
This condition obtained until 1840 in most
northern communities and until 1850 in some
places where the Negro population was considerable.

We must also take into account the critical
labor situation during these years. The northern
people were divided as to the way the Negroes
should be encouraged. The mechanics of
the North raised no objection to having the Negroes
freed and enlightened but did not welcome
them to that section as competitors in the struggle
of life. When, therefore, the blacks, converted
to the doctrine of training the hand to
work with skill, began to appear in northern
industrial centers there arose a formidable prejudice
against them.[5] Negro and white mechanics
had once worked together but during
the second quarter of the nineteenth century,
when labor became more dignified and a larger
number of white persons devoted themselves to
skilled labor, they adopted the policy of eliminating
the blacks. This opposition, to be sure,

was not a mere harmless sentiment. It tended
to give rise to the organization of labor groups
and finally to that of trades unions, the beginnings
of those controlling this country to-day.
Carrying the fight against the Negro still
further, these laboring classes used their influence
to obtain legislation against the employment
of Negroes in certain pursuits. Maryland
and Georgia passed laws restricting the privileges
of Negro mechanics, and Pennsylvania
followed their example.[6]

Even in those cases when the Negroes were
not disturbed in their new homes on free soil, it
was, with the exception of the Quaker and a few
other communities, merely an act of toleration.[7]
It must not be concluded, however, that the Negroes
then migrating to the North did not receive
considerable aid. The fact to be noted
here is that because they were not well received
sometimes by the people of their new environment,
the help which they obtained from friends
afar off did not suffice to make up for the deficiency
of community cooperation. This, of
course, was an unusual handicap to the Negro,
as his life as a slave tended to make him a dependent
rather than a pioneer.

It is evident, however, from accessible statistics
that wherever the Negro was adequately
encouraged he succeeded. When the urban Negroes

in northern communities had emerged
from their crude state they easily learned from
the white men their method of solving the problems
of life. This tendency was apparent after
1840 and striking results of their efforts were
noted long before the Civil War. They showed
an inclination to work when positions could be
found, purchased homes, acquired other property,
built churches and established schools.
Going even further than this, some of them, taking
advantage of their opportunities in the business
world, accumulated considerable fortunes,
just as had been done in certain centers in the
South where Negroes had been given a chance.[8]

In cities far north like Boston not so much difference
as to the result of this migration was
noted. Some economic progress among the Negroes
had early been observed there as a result
of the long residence of Negroes in that city as
in the case of Lewis Hayden who established a
successful clothing business.[9] In New York
such evidences were more apparent. There
were in that city not so many Negroes as frequented
some other northern communities of
this time but enough to make for that city a decidedly
perplexing problem. It was the usual
situation of ignorant, helpless fugitives and free
Negroes going, they knew not where, to find a
better country. The situation at times became

so grave that it not only caused prejudice but
gave rise to intense opposition against those
who defended the cause of the blacks as in the
case of the abolition riots which occurred at several
places in the State in 1834.[10]

To relieve this situation, Gerrit Smith, an unusually
philanthropic gentleman, came forward
with an interesting plan. Having large tracts
of land in the southeastern counties of New
York, he proposed to settle on small farms a
large number of those Negroes huddled together
in the congested districts of New York
City. Desiring to obtain only the best class, he
requested that the Negroes to be thus colonized
be recommended by Reverend Charles B. Ray,
Reverend Theodore S. Wright and Dr. J. McCune
Smith, three Negroes of New York City,
known to be representative of the best of the
race. Upon their recommendations he deeded
unconditionally to black men in 1846 three hundred
small farms in Franklin, Essex, Hamilton,
Fulton, Oneida, Delaware, Madison and Ulster
counties, giving to each settler beside $10.00 to
enable him to visit his farm.[11] With these holdings
the blacks would not only have a basis for
economic independence but would have sufficient
property to meet the special qualifications
which New York by the law of 1823 required
of Negroes offering to vote.

This experiment, however, was a failure. It
was not successful because of the intractability
of the land, the harshness of the climate, and, in
a great measure, the inefficiency of the settlers.
They had none of the qualities of farmers.
Furthermore, having been disabled by infirmities
and vices they could not as beneficiaries answer
the call of the benefactor. Peterboro, the town
opened to Negroes in this section, did maintain
a school and served as a station of the Underground
Railroad but the agricultural results
expected of the enterprise never materialized.
The main difficulty in this case was the impossibility
of substituting something foreign for
individual enterprise.[12]
Progressive Negroes did appear, however, in
other parts of the State. In Penyan, Western
New York, William Platt and Joseph C. Cassey
were successful lumber merchants.[13] Mr. W. H.
Topp of Albany was for several years one of
the leading merchant tailors of that city.[14]
Henry Scott, of New York City, developed a
successful pickling business, supplying most of
the vessels entering that port.[15] Thomas Downing
for thirty years ran a creditable restaurant
in the midst of the Wall Street banks, where he
made a fortune.[16] Edward V. Clark conducted

a thriving business, handling jewelry and silverware.[17]
The Negroes as a whole, moreover,
had shown progress. Aided by the Government
and philanthropic white people, they had before
the Civil War a school system with primary, intermediate
and grammar schools and a normal
department. They then had considerable property,
several churches and some benevolent institutions.

In Southern Pennsylvania, nearer to the
border between the slave and free States, the
effects of the achievements of these Negroes
were more apparent for the reason that in these
urban centers there were sufficient Negroes for
one to be helpful to the other. Philadelphia presented
then the most striking example of the remaking
of these people. Here the handicap of
the foreign element was greatest, especially after
1830. The Philadelphia Negro, moreover, was
further impeded in his progress by the presence
of southerners who made Philadelphia
their home, and still more by the prejudice of
those Philadelphia merchants who, sustaining
such close relations to the South, hated the
Negro and the abolitionists who antagonized
their customers.

In spite of these untoward circumstances,
however, the Negroes of Philadelphia achieved
success. Negroes who had formerly been able
to toil upward were still restricted but they had

learned to make opportunities. In 1832 the
Philadelphia blacks had $350,000 of taxable
property, $359,626 in 1837 and $400,000 in 1847.
These Negroes had 16 churches and 100 benevolent
societies in 1837 and 19 churches and 106
benevolent societies in 1847. Philadelphia then
had more successful Negro schools than any
other city in the country. There were also about
500 Negro mechanics in spite of the opposition
of organized labor.[18] Some of these Negroes,
of course, were natives of that city.

Chief among those who had accumulated considerable
property was Mr. James Forten, the
proprietor of one of the leading sail manufactories,
constantly employing a large number of
men, black and white. Joseph Casey, a broker
of considerable acumen, also accumulated desirable
property, worth probably $75,000.[19] Crowded
out of the higher pursuits of labor, certain
other enterprising business men of this group
organized the Guild of Caterers. This was composed
of such men as Bogle, Prosser, Dorsey,
Jones and Minton. The aim was to elevate the
Negro waiter and cook from the plane of menials
to that of progressive business men. Then
came Stephen Smith who amassed a large fortune
as a lumber merchant and with him Whipper,
Vidal and Purnell. Still and Bowers were

reliable coal merchants, Adger a success in
handling furniture, Bowser a well-known painter,
and William H. Riley the intelligent bootmaker.[20]

There were a few such successful Negroes in
other communities in the State. Mr. William
Goodrich, of York, acquired considerable interest
in the branch of the Baltimore and Ohio
Railroad extending to Lancaster.[21] Benjamin
Richards, of Pittsburgh, amassed a large fortune
running a butchering business, buying by
contract droves of cattle to supply the various
military posts of the United States.[22] Mr.
Henry M. Collins, who started life as a boatman,
left this position for speculation in real estate
in Pittsburgh where he established himself as
an asset of the community and accumulated considerable
wealth.[23] Owen A. Barrett, of the
same city, made his way by discovering the remedy
known as B. A. Fahnestock's Celebrated
Vermifuge, for which he was retained in the employ
of the proprietor, who exploited the remedy.[24]
Mr. John Julius made himself indispensable
to Pittsburgh by running the Concert
Hall Cafe where he served President William
Henry Harrison in 1840.[25]

The field of greatest achievement, however,
was not in the conservative East where the people
had well established their going toward an
enlightened and sympathetic aristocracy of
talent and wealth. It was in the West where
men were in position to establish themselves
anew and make of life what they would. These
crude communities, to be sure, often objected to
the presence of the Negroes and sometimes
drove them out. But, on the other hand, not a
few of those centers in the making were in the
hands of the Quakers and other philanthropic
persons who gave the Negroes a chance to grow
up with the community, when they exhibited a
capacity which justified philanthropic efforts in
their behalf.

These favorable conditions obtained especially
in the towns along the Ohio river, where
so many fugitives and free persons of color
stopped on their way from slavery to freedom.
In Steubenville a number of Negroes had by
their industry and good deportment made themselves
helpful to the community. Stephen Mulber
who had been in that town for thirty years
was in 1835 the leader of a group of thrifty
free persons of color. He had a brick dwelling,
in which he lived, and other property in the
city. He made his living as a master mechanic
employing a force of workmen to meet the increasing
demand for his labor.[26] In Gallipolis,

there was another group of this class of Negroes,
who had permanently attached themselves
to the town by the acquisition of property.
They were then able not only to provide
for their families but were maintaining also a
school and a church.[27] In Portsmouth, Ohio,
despite the "Black Friday" upheaval of 1831,
the Negroes settled down to the solution of the
problems of their new environment and later
showed in the accumulation of property evidences
of actual progress. Among the successful
Negroes in Columbus was David Jenkins
who acquired considerable property as a
painter, glazier and paper hanger.[28] One Mr.
Hill, of Chillicothe, was for several years its
leading tanner and currier.[29]

It was in Cincinnati, however, that the Negroes
made most progress in the West. The
migratory blacks came there at times in such
large numbers, as we have observed, that they
provoked the hostile classes of whites to employ
rash measures to exterminate them. But the
Negroes, accustomed to adversity, struggled on,
endeavoring through schools and churches to
embrace every opportunity to rise. By 1840
there were 2,255 Negroes in that city. They
had, exclusive of personal effects and $19,000
worth of church property, accumulated $209,000

worth of real estate. A number of their progressive
men had established a real estate firm
known as the "Iron Chest" company which built
houses for Negroes. One man, who had once
thought it unwise to accumulate wealth from
which he might be driven, had, by 1840, changed
his mind and purchased $6,000 worth of real
estate.

Another Negro paid $5,000 for himself and
family and bought a home worth $800 or $1,000.
A freedman, who was a slave until he was
twenty-four years of age, then had two lots
worth $10,000, paid a tax of $40 and had 320
acres of land in Mercer County. Another, who
was worth only $3,000 in 1836, had seven houses
in 1840, 400 acres of land in Indiana, and another
tract in Mercer County, Ohio. He was
worth altogether about $12,000 or $15,000. A
woman who was a slave until she was thirty was
then worth $2,000. She had also come into potential
possession of two houses on which a
white lawyer had given her a mortgage to secure
the payment of $2,000 borrowed from this
thrifty woman. Another Negro, who was on
the auction block in 1832, had spent $2,600 purchasing
himself and family and had bought two
brick houses worth $6,000 and 560 acres of land
in Mercer County, Ohio, said to be worth
$2,500.[30]

The Negroes of Cincinnati had as early as
1820 established schools which developed during
the forties into something like a modern
system with Gilmore's High School as a capstone.
By that time they had also not only
several churches but had given time and means
to the organization and promotion of such as the
Sabbath School Youth's Society, the Total Abstinence
Temperance Society and the Anti-Slavery
Society. The worthy example set by the
Negroes of this city was a stimulus to noble endeavor
and significant achievements of Negroes
throughout the Ohio and Mississippi Valleys.
Disarming their enemies of the weapon that
they would continue a public charge, they secured
the cooperation of a larger number of
white people who at first had treated them with
contempt.[31]

This unusual progress in the Ohio valley had
been promoted by two forces, the development
of the steamboat as a factor in transportation
and the rise of the Negro mechanic. Negroes
employed on vessels as servants to the travelling
public amassed large sums received in the
form of tips. Furthermore, the fortunate few,
constituting the stewards of these vessels, could
by placing contracts for supplies and using
business methods realize handsome incomes.
Many Negroes thus enriched purchased real estate
and went into business in towns along the
Ohio.

The other force, the rise of the Negro mechanic,
was made possible by overcoming much
of the prejudice which had at first been encountered.
A great change in this respect had taken
place in Cincinnati by 1840.[32] Many Negroes
who had been forced to work as menial laborers
then had the opportunity to show their usefulness
to their families and to the community.
Negro mechanics were then getting as much
skilled labor as they could do. It was not uncommon
for white artisans to solicit employment
of colored men because they had the reputation
of being better paymasters than master workmen
of the favored race. White mechanics not
only worked with the blacks but often associated
with them, patronized the same barber
shop, and went to the same places of amusement.[33]

Out of this group came some very useful Negroes,
among whom may be mentioned Robert
Harlan, the horseman; A. V. Thompson, the
tailor; J. Presley and Thomas Ball, contractors,
and Samuel T. Wilcox, the merchant, who was
worth $60,000 in 1859.[34] There were among
them two other successful Negroes, Henry Boyd
and Robert Gordon. Boyd was a Kentucky
freedman who helped to overcome the prejudice
in Cincinnati against Negro mechanics by inventing
and exploiting a corded bed, the demand

for which was extensive throughout the Ohio
and Mississippi valleys. He had a creditable
manufacturing business in which he employed
twenty-five men.[35]

Robert Gordon was a much more interesting
man. He was born a slave in Richmond, Virginia.
He ingratiated himself into the favor of
his master who placed him in charge of a large
coal yard with the privilege of selling the slake
for his own benefit. In the course of time, he
accumulated in this position thousands of dollars
with which he finally purchased himself
and moved away to free soil. After observing
the situation in several of the northern centers,
he finally decided to settle in Cincinnati, where
he arrived with $15,000. Knowing the coal business,
he well established himself there after
some discouragement and opposition. He accumulated
much wealth which he invested in
United States bonds during the Civil War and
in real estate on Walnut Hills when the bonds
were later redeemed.[36]

The ultimately favorable attitude of the people
of Detroit toward immigrating Negroes had
been reflected by the position the people of that
section had taken from the time of the earliest
settlements. Generally speaking, Detroit adhered
to this position.[37] In this congenial community

prospered many a Negro family. There
were the Williams' most of whom confined themselves
to their trade of bricklaying and amassed
considerable wealth. Then there were the
Cooks, descending from Lomax B. Cook, a
broker of no little business ability. Will Marion
Cook, the musician, belongs to this family. The
De Baptistes, too, were among the first to succeed
in this new home, as they prospered materially
from their experience and knowledge
previously acquired in Fredericksburg, Virginia,
as contractors. From this group came
Richard De Baptiste, who in his day was the
most useful Negro Baptist preacher in the
Northwest.[38] The Pelhams were no less successful
in establishing themselves in the economic
world. Having an excellent reputation
in the community, they easily secured the cooperation
of the influential white people in the
city. Out of this family came Robert A. Pelham,
for years editor of a weekly in Detroit,
and from 1901 to the present time an employee
of the Federal Government in Washington.

The children of the Richards, another old
family, were in no sense inferior to the descendants
of the others. The most prominent and
the most useful to emerge from this group was
the daughter, Fannie M. Richards. She was
born in Fredericksburg, Virginia, October 1,
1841. Having left that State with her parents

when she was quite young, she did not see so
much of the antebellum conditions obtaining
there. Desiring to have better training than
what was then given to persons of color in Detroit,
she went to Toronto where she studied
English, history, drawing and needlework. In
later years she attended the Teachers' Training
School in Detroit. She became a public-school
teacher there in 1863 and after fifty years of
creditable service in this work she was retired
on a pension in 1913.[39]

The Negroes in the North had not only shown
their ability to rise in the economic world when
properly encouraged but had begun to exhibit
power of all kinds. There were Negro inventors,
a few lawyers, a number of physicians and
dentists, many teachers, a score of intelligent
preachers, some scholars of note, and even successful
blacks in the finer arts. Some of these,
with Frederick Douglass as the most influential,
were also doing creditable work in journalism
with about thirty newspapers which had developed
among the Negroes as weapons of defense.[40]

This progress of the Negroes in the North was
much more marked after the middle of the nineteenth
century. The migration of Negroes to
northern communities was at first checked by

the reaction in those places during the thirties
and forties. Thus relieved of the large influx
which once constituted a menace, those communities
gave the Negroes already on hand better
economic opportunities. It was fortunate too
that prior to the check in the infiltration of the
blacks they had come into certain districts in
sufficiently large numbers to become a more potential
factor.[41] They were strong enough in
some cases to make common cause against foes
and could by cooperation solve many problems
with which the blacks in dispersed condition
could not think of grappling.

Their endeavors along these lines proceeded
in many cases from well-organized efforts like
those culminating in the numerous national conventions
which began meeting first in Philadelphia
in 1830 and after some years of deliberation
in this city extended to others in
the North.[42] These bodies aimed not only to
promote education, religion and morals, but,
taking up the work which the Quakers began,
they put forth efforts to secure to the free
blacks opportunities to be trained in the mechanic
arts to equip themselves for participation
in the industries then springing up throughout
the North. This movement, however, did
not succeed in the proportion to the efforts put

forth because of the increasing power of the
trades unions.

After the middle of the nineteenth century too
the Negroes found conditions a little more favorable
to their progress than the generation before.
The aggressive South had by that time so
shaped the policy of the nation as not only to
force the free States to cease aiding the escape
of fugitives but to undertake to impress the
northerner into the service of assisting in their
recapture as provided in the Fugitive Slave
Law. This repressive measure set a larger number
of the people thinking of the Negro as a
national problem rather than a local one. The
attitude of the North was then reflected in the
personal liberty laws as an answer to this measure
and in the increasing sympathy for the Negroes.
During this decade, therefore, more was
done in the North to secure to the Negroes better
treatment and to give them opportunities
for improvement.