Marblehead History
John Lewis
What prompted MRJT to donate this painting of John Lewis to Marblehead Public Schools?
This portrait is now displayed at the Glover School through the 2023/2024 school year.
John Lewis was born in Alabama in 1940 and served as a United States Congressman for Georgia for over 30 years. As a college student, he led a group of students who protested peacefully for people of color to freely eat in restaurants, swim in swimming pools, and vote in elections the same as white people. Many times people who disagreed with Mr. Lewis hurt him. But, he still believed America should be a “beloved community” where every person has equal rights and fair treatment.
About the artist: Anne Demeter is a member and past president of the North Shore Arts Association, Rockport Arts Association and founding member of Saltbox Gallery.
Harriet Tubman
What prompted MRJT to donate this painting of Harriet Tubman to Marblehead Public Schools?
This portrait is now displayed at the Glover School through the 2023/2024 school year.
Harriet Tubman was born and enslaved in Maryland in 1822. She freed herself by escaping to the North, but she secretly returned to the South 13 times. Ms. Tubman rescued about 70 people from slavery by following a hidden route of safe-houses called the Underground Railroad. She traveled to Boston many times before the Civil War. She gave exciting speeches on abolishing slavery. Once the war was started, Ms. Tubman was a spy and a US Army scout. She helped people all her life.
Today a statue of her stands in Boston’s Harriet Tubman Park located at the intersection of Columbus Avenue and Pembroke Street in the South End.
About the artist: Anne Demeter is a member and past president of the North Shore Arts Association, Rockport Arts Association and founding member of Saltbox Gallery.
Crocker Park
Front Street
Across from Darling Street Intersection
What makes this site in Marblehead meaningful about African Americans?
Dr. Booker Washington was a prominent national African American personality in the late 1800’s through his death in 1915. He was the leader of Tuskegee Institute, a college in Alabama attended by African Americans. He was an articulate proponent for African American businesses.
Dr. Washington came to Marblehead and spoke to a crowd in Crocker Park in 1912.
An article in the July 19, 1912, Marblehead Messenger gave extensive details. An excerpt is:
“Mr. Washington maintained that his race was coming to the front and that they would be a factor in the near future in solving the great problems which will confront the American people, and help shape the destiny of the nation.
He raised a laugh from this audience when he said that his was the only people who had been invited to come to this country and that their fare had been paid; all other people come here for their desire to escape oppression.
After having talked for an hour it was easily seen that the great majority of his listeners were much impressed with what he had told them.”
St. Michael’s Church
26 Pleasant Street
Intersection of Pleasant, Washington, and Summer Streets
What makes this site in Marblehead meaningful about African Americans?
A lady of African descent enslaved in Marblehead, Agnes, was baptized here in 1716. When Agnes died in 1718, a gravestone for her was placed in Old Burial Hill. This was unlike treatment of any other enslaved person, to our knowledge.
The gravestone for Agnes remained in place until it disappeared in the 1970’s through vandalism. An exact replica was funded by the Marblehead Racial Justice Team and installed in 2022.
Old Town House
Market Square
Intersection of Mugford, Washington, and State Streets
What makes this site in Marblehead meaningful about African Americans?
This building was the site of many activities and speeches, along with official Town Meetings, from the late 1720’s until the construction of Abbot Hall in 1876. Meetings held here reflected at one point the racist treatment of people of color in Marblehead, as well as the later abolitionist response to injustices of slavery.
In April of 1788, the Town Meeting implemented a state law ordering Africans and Negroes to depart the town upon completion of a special census to identify them. The reason for this law appears to have been a fear that people recently freed from toiling in slavery would not find paid work or housing and become a financial burden for the town. Discrimination in this era did often result in few opportunities to make a living for people formerly enslaved.
In the mid-1800’s, the Old Town House hosted abolitionist speakers including Frederick Douglass. Mr. Douglass had escaped slavery and achieved national prominence as an orator calling for an end to slavery in the USA. During the Civil War, he was an advisor to President Abraham Lincoln.
[Adapted from a walking tour composed for Marblehead Racial Justice Team by Ginny von Rueden.]
236 Washington Street
“Underground Railroad Station”
What makes this site in Marblehead meaningful about African Americans?
This house was the home in the mid-1800’s of Simeon and Betsy Dodge. They were Marblehead’s foremost “stationmasters” for the “Underground Railroad”. The Underground Railroad was the name for an extensive network of helpers aiding people who were freedom seekers escaping from slavery — it was not an actual railroad.
Over many years before the Civil War, Simeon and Betsy protected numerous formerly enslaved African Americans fleeing the South. One strategy the Dodges used was to hide people in a section of their house under a trap door.
[Adapted from a walking tour composed for Marblehead Racial Justice Team by Ginny von Rueden.]
© 2023 MRJT