People, Locations, Episodes

Maria Chapman, Abolitionist born

Maria Weston Chapman was born on this date in 1806. She was a White American abolitionist.

Sarah M. Douglass, Writer, and Teacher born

The birth of Sarah Mapps Douglass in 1806 is marked on this date. She was a Black educator and abolitionist.

Born in Philadelphia, Douglass was the daughter of Robert Douglass and Grace Bustill Douglass. Her grandfather was Cyrus Bustill, a Quaker, who owned a bakery, operated a school, and was one of the early members of the Free African Society, the first Afro-American charity organization. Her mother operated a millinery store next to the family bakery. Young Douglass entered the “colored” school that her mother and the wealthy Negro shipbuilder James Forten established in 1819.

Margaretta Forten, Suffragist, and Abolitionist born

*Margaretta Forten was born on this date in 1806. She was a Black suffragist and abolitionist. Margaretta Forten was born in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. Her parents, Charlotte Vandine Forten and James Forten, were abolitionists, and her father founded the American Moral Reform Society. Due to the exclusion of women from the American Anti-Slavery Society, Forten, with her mother Charlotte and sisters […]

Silvia Hector Webber, Abolitionist born

*Silvia Webber’s birth is celebrated on this date, c. 1807. She was an enslaved Black woman and abolitionist. Born Sylvia Hector, she was from the Spanish West Florida parishes that became part of eastern Louisiana. There are few records of her childhood except a bill of sale on March 10, 1819.  The twelve-year-old Hector was […]

Solomon Northup, Abolitionist, and Author born

*Solomon Northup was born on this date in 1807. He was a Black musician, abolitionist, and author. Born in Rhode Island, he was taken with the Northup family when they moved to Hoosick, New York, in Rensselaer County.   His father, Mintus, was a freedman who had been a slave in his early life in […]

James Pennington, Author, and Abolitionist born

The birth of the Reverend James William Charles Pennington in 1807 is celebrated on this date. He was a Black educator, clergyman, orator, author, and abolitionist.

Charles B. Ray, Minister born

*Charles B. Ray was born on Christmas Day in 1807.  He was a Black minister, journalist, and abolitionist.   Born a free man in Falmouth, Massachusetts, Charles Bennett Ray was the son of mail carrier Joseph Aspinwall Ray and his wife, Annis Harrington.  He attended Wesleyan Seminary in Wilbraham, Massachusetts, studying theology, and then in 1832, enrolled as the first Black student at Wesleyan University in Middletown, Connecticut. […]

Salmon P. Chase, Abolitionist, and Judge born

Salmon Portland Chase, a white man, was born on this date in 1808. He was a White American teacher, abolitionist, lawyer, and judge.

Frances Dana Barker Gage, Abolitionist born

*Frances Dana Barker Gage was born on this date in 1808.  She was a white-American reformer, feminist, and abolitionist.   Frances Dana Barker was born near Marietta, Ohio, the daughter of farmers Elizabeth Dana and Col. Joseph Barker, the tenth of eleven children.  Baker wrote that her woman suffrage work began when she was ten years old in 1818. She helped her father […]

Benjamin ‘Pap’ Singleton, Abolitionist born

The birth of “Pap” Singleton in 1809 is celebrated on this date. He was a Black abolitionist who helped lead hundreds of African Americans out of the South and into the West, specifically to Kansas, during Reconstruction.

Francis Frederic, Writer, and Publisher born

*The birth of Francis Fredric is celebrated on this date in 1809. He was a Black abolitionist and publisher.

He was born a slave on a plantation in Fauquier County, Virginia. When he was fourteen years old, Fredric’s master moved to Mason County, Kentucky. His master’s wife used him as a house slave. However, after attending a prayer meeting he was so badly whipped he ran away. He was free for nine weeks but was captured and received 107 lashes of the whip.

Stephen S. Foster, Abolitionist born

*Stephen Foster was born on this date in 1809.  He was a white-American abolitionist.   Stephen Symonds Foster was born in Canterbury, New Hampshire. His parents, Sarah and Asa Foster, had twelve children; Stephen was the ninth. The family attended the local Congregational church and participated in Canterbury’s anti-slavery society.   Foster apprenticed to a carpenter but left at age 22 to […]

Fanny Kemble, Actress, and Abolitionist Writer born

Frances “Fanny” Kemble was born on this date in 1809. She was a White British actress, author, and abolitionist.

Frances Anne Kemble was a member of the famous Kemble theatrical family, and the oldest daughter of actor Charles Kemble and his actress wife Maria Theresa De Camp, and the niece of noted tragedienne Sarah Siddons. Fanny was born in London, and educated chiefly in France.

Clarina Nichols, Abolitionist born

*Clarina Nichols was born on this date in 1810.  She was a white-American journalist, lobbyist, and public speaker involved in temperance, abolition, and the women’s movement. Born in West Townshend, Vermont, into a prosperous New England family, Clarina Irene Howard fell on hard times after a disastrous early marriage. Supporting herself and her children on […]

Charles Remond, Abolitionist, and Orator born

*On this date in 1810, Charles Lenox Remond was born. He was a Black abolitionist.

From Salem, Massachusetts, he was the son of free Blacks, John and Nancy Remond. He joined the Anti-Slavery Society and in 1838 became its first African American lecturer. An outstanding orator, Remond spoke at public meetings in Massachusetts, Rhode Island, Maine, New York and Pennsylvania. In 1840 Remond went on a lecture tour of Europe and while in England attended the World’s Anti-Slavery Convention in London.