Community Building

Intentional strategies were employed to build the Black communities in Beacon Hill and in Cambridge through the devices of individual and community acquisition of property for living and gathering purposes, forming organizations to build leadership components, gaining access to educational and legal resources, sustained through skillful, planned, supportive action.

1769

Tony and Cuba’s son Darby is born on May 15th.

Agency
Courtesy of Museum of African American History, Boston and Nantucket
Grave of Prince Hall 1

1775

Prince Hall and sixty-six other men form the African Lodge 459, the first African American masonic order.

Agency
Place
Courtesy of Boston Public Library, Norman B. Leventhal Map Center
Map of Cambridge 2
Courtesy of Boston Public Library, Norman B. Leventhal Map Center

1786

Tony and Cuba purchase property and a house at Shepard Street and Massachusetts Avenue, a site which becomes central to the establishment of the Black community in Cambridge known as “Lewisville.”

Agency
Place
Courtesy of Library of Congress, Theological Pamphlet Collection,
Israel Thorndike Pamphlet Collection, Thomas Waterman
Pamphlet Collection, and Daniel Murray Pamphlet Collection
A discourse delivered before the African Society in Boston, 15th of July, on the anniversary celebration of the abolition of the slave trade.4

1796

Darby and his brother Cyrus become founding members of the African Society, a mutual aid organization for free Black citizens in Massachusetts.

Networking Across Differences

1798

Primus Hall, Prince Hall’s son, and leader in the free Black community in Boston, opens the African School for Black children.

Agency
Place
Courtesy of Camrbridge Historical Commission
Courtesy of Harvard Map Collection, Harvard University
Map of Cambridge, communities of color 5

1800-1860

Lewisville, Harvard Square, Harvard Hill, and Lower Port are all known as communities of color in Cambridge.

Place

1808

Primus Hall’s African School is moved to the schoolroom in the basement of the African Meeting House.

Place

1815

Darby’s sister Catherine marries Adam Lewis, who becomes a founding member of the free Black Lewisville Community in Cambridge.

Agency
Courtesy of Boston Public Library, Norman B. Leventhal Map Center
“Map of the City of Cambridge ... Massachusetts,” 1854 Lewisville Community on map. 2
Courtesy of Boston Public Library, Norman B. Leventhal Map Center
"A map of Cambridge, Mass." 3

1816

Darby’s sister Catherine and her husband Adam Lewis purchase a triangular lot at Garden Street and Concord Street, adding to the growing Lewisville Community in Cambridge.

Agency
Place

1817

The Abiel Smith School is established in the basement of the African Meeting House.

Place

1826

Quaku Walker Lewis, Adam Lewis’ brother, co-founds the Massachusetts General Colored Association in an effort to combat slavery and racism.

Courtesy of Boston Public Library, Anti-Slavery (Collection of Distinction)
"The Liberator." 6
Courtesy of Boston Public Library, Anti-Slavery (Collection of Distinction)
The Liberator Masthead 7

1831

The anti-slavery newspaper "The Liberator" is published by William Lloyd Garrison, a white journalist and abolitionist.

Voice
Networking Across Differences

1835

The Abiel Smith School opens next door to the African Meeting House.

Courtesy of Boston Public Library, Anti-Slavery (Collection of Distinction)
"The Liberator." 6
Courtesy of Boston Public Library, Anti-Slavery (Collection of Distinction)
"The Liberator." 7

1844

Darby and his son-in-law Jonas W. Clark are signatories to resolutions at the New England Anti-Slavery Society convention.

Agency

1850

As part of the Missouri Compromise, Congress passes the Fugitive Slave Act, which enforces the capture and return of self-emancipated people to their enslavers, even within free states.

Courtesy of Boston Public Library, Anti-Slavery (Collection of Distinction)
"The Liberator." 8

1851

Darby is listed among a who’s-who of New England abolitionists who donated to support the New England Anti-Slavery Society convention. William Cooper Nell, famous author and abolitionist, was also listed.

Courtesy of Boston Public Library, Norman B. Leventhal Map Center
"Map of Liberia." 9
Courtesy of Boston Public Library, Anti-Slavery (Collection of Distinction)
"The Liberator." 10
Courtesy of Boston Public Library, Anti-Slavery (Collection of Distinction)
Theodore Parker 11

1858

Darby is invited as the guest of honor at the Boston Massacre commemoration. He is referred to as “a living relic of the coloured population of revolutionary days" in remarks by Theodore Parker.

Place

Enoch Lewis, brother of Adam and Quaku, form the Cambridge Liberian Emigrant Association. Henry Wadsworth Longfellow donates $10.00 for “Negroes to Liberia.”

Place
Agency

Catherine and Adam Lewis join twenty-one Black Cambridge residents who set sail for Liberia to establish civil and religious liberty, and to create “a nation among nations, like the Pilgrim Fathers.”

Networking Across Differences
Courtesy of Boston Public Library, Arts Department
"The Liberator." 12

Image Citations

1. Garrison, William Lloyd, and James Brown Yerrinton. "The liberator." Newspaper. Boston, Mass.: William Lloyd Garrison and Isaac Knapp, June 14, 1844. Digital Commonwealth, https://ark.digitalcommonwealth.org/ark:/50959/gb19h0445
‍2. Hayward, James. "A map of Cambridge, Mass." Map. Boston Mass.: Eddy's Lith., 1838. Digital Commonwealth
3. Hayward, James. "A map of Cambridge, Mass." Map. Boston Mass.: Eddy's Lith., 1838. Digital Commonwealth
4. Harris, Thaddeus Mason, et al. A discourse delivered before the African Society in Boston, 15th of July, on the anniversary celebration of the abolition of the slave trade. Boston: Printed by Phelps and Farnham, 1822. Pdf. Retrieved from the Library of Congress
5. "The Liberator." Newspaper. Boston, Mass.: William Lloyd Garrison and Isaac Knapp, June 14, 1844. Digital Commonwealth
6. "The Liberator." Newspaper. Boston, Mass.: William Lloyd Garrison and Isaac Knapp, June 14, 1844. Digital Commonwealth
7. Garrison, William Lloyd, and James Brown Yerrinton. "The Liberator." Newspaper. Boston, Mass.: William Lloyd Garrison and Isaac Knapp, June 8, 1851. Digital Commonwealth
‍8. Garrison, William Lloyd, and James Brown Yerrinton. "The Liberator." Newspaper. Boston, Mass.: William Lloyd Garrison and Isaac Knapp, June 13, 1851. Digital Commonwealth, https://ark.digitalcommonwealth.org/ark:/50959/rf55zn63w
9. Coyle, Randolph. "Map of Liberia." Map. Baltimore Md.: Lith. by E. Weber & Co., 1845. Digital Commonwealth
10. Garrison, William Lloyd, and James Brown Yerrinton. "The Liberator." Newspaper. Boston, Mass.: William Lloyd Garrison and Isaac Knapp, March 5, 1858. Digital Commonwealth
11. "Theodore Parker." Photograph. [ca. 1855]. Digital Commonwealth
12. Garrison, William Lloyd, and James Brown Yerrinton. "The Liberator." Newspaper. Boston, Mass.: William Lloyd Garrison and Isaac Knapp, March 5, 1858. Digital Commonwealth, https://ark.digitalcommonwealth.org/ark:/50959/5h742g10z