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Brown, John  

Charles Rosenberg

Article

Publication History:

Published online:
30 September 2012

barber and Underground Railroad station operator, was born to free parents in Virginia, where he lived until moving to Cleveland, Ohio, in 1828. Although records in Ohio do not identify his parents, it is likely that he came from the large extended family of Browns in and around Charles City County, Virginia, descended from William Brown, born around 1670, who all had the status of “free colored.” Abraham Brown, born in 1769, was a founder of Elam Baptist Church of Charles City County. There were several men in the family named John, and newborns were often named for relatives.

“John Brown the barber,” as he was commonly known in Cleveland, may have been related to John Brown, born in 1768, head of a Chesterfield County family of eight “free colored” people in 1810, or John Brown, born in 1764 and his ...

Article

Hope, John Caesar  

Charles Rosenberg

Article

Publication History:

Published online:
30 September 2012

an enslaved barber in Yorktown, Virginia, who later was able to run his own business in Richmond, was born in Africa, captured and enslaved, transported across the Atlantic, sold in Virginia, and given the name of Caesar. He was first registered as a slave for tax purposes in York County on 17 August 1743 by Benjamin Catton, at which time his age was estimated as ten. He last owner of record was the widowed Susan or Susanna Riddell. He may or may not have been owned by others in between.

He learned and practiced skills as a barber for thirty years, before Riddell petitioned the Virginia legislature in 1779 to emancipate him submitting that he has set so good an Example to all in his circumstance and conducted himself with so much Industry Sobriety and Honesty as to engage the approbation of all who know him She may have ...

Article

Saunders, William  

Vajid Pathan

Article

Publication History:

Published online:
28 February 2013

tailor, entrepreneur, and civil rights pioneer, was born in Barbados, West Indies. His past prior to 1820 is unknown. The first record of him in Hartford, Connecticut, appears in 1829 when the first city directory was published, stating that he was married to Roxana Cuffee and had four children. An earlier announcement in the 26 September 1828Freedom's Journal noted that Saunders had married Roxana Cuffee of Sag Harbor, New York, in Hartford on the fifteenth of that month in a ceremony presided over by the Reverend Mr. Gardiner. Between 1829 and 1836 the couple had four children: Thomas P., Prince H., Amos, and Elizabeth.

In 1820 William Saunders founded the Cheap Store on 10 Talcott Street Hartford Connecticut He was known to be the finest tailor and his clothiers had the reputation of being the least expensive in the city He often placed advertisements seeking ...

Article

Staines, Ona Maria Judge  

Glenn Allen Knoblock

Article

Publication History:

Published in print:
15 March 2013
Published online:
31 May 2013

slave of President George Washington, was the daughter of Andrew Judge, a white indentured servant who came to North America from England in 1772, and an enslaved woman named Betty. Andrew Judge worked at the Washingtons' Mount Vernon estate for a term of four years before becoming free. Betty was originally a slave of Martha Washington's first husband. Upon his death and Martha's subsequent marriage to George Washington, Betty came to Mount Vernon, where she met Judge. Though Ona's father was free, the children of slave women in Virginia were, as virtually everywhere else in the New World, legally considered the property of their owners and remained in bondage.

Betty was an expert seamstress for the Washington family Like her mother Ona Judge was assigned to work in the Washington mansion performing domestic duties and she learned sewing skills from her mother She became such ...

Article

Stanly, John Carruthers  

Loren Schweninger

Article

Publication History:

Published in print:
15 March 2013
Published online:
31 May 2013

former slave and wealthy North Carolina planter, was born a slave in Craven County, North Carolina, the son of an African Ibo woman who had been brought to America on a vessel owned by the merchant-shipper John Wright Stanly in the decade prior to the American Revolution. Described as a “dark-skinned mulatto,” he was almost certainly the son of John Wright Stanly, although his apparent father did not acknowledge paternity. As a young boy he was turned over to Alexander Stewart, who captained the ship that brought his mother from Africa, and Stewart's wife, Lydia Carruthers Stewart, who taught Stanly to read and write and arranged for him to open a barbershop in New Bern as a teenager. Intelligent, gracious, and personable, Stanly quickly became a success, and as New Bern expanded commercially, he earned a good livelihood, even as a slave. In 1795 the Stewarts petitioned ...