Study Areas
|
Rev. Edward E. BennettBusinessman and Community LeaderSometime about 1815 Edward E. Bennett arrived in Harrisburg from his native Carlisle at the age of twelve. Accounts of his early life are sparse. He may have spent his early years in the borough working in a white household. If so, this would explain why he does not appear on the 1821 Registry of free Blacks in town. Sometime in the 1830s he began a chimney sweeping service in competition with other local African American businessmen Ezekiel Carter and John Battis. The growing town had plenty of chimneys to keep clean, in the years before coal became a common fuel in town, and Bennett's business prospered despite his late arrival on the scene. Not only was Edward Bennett able to successfully market his services in a small town with two other chimney sweeping businesses, but he was also able to eclipse both Carter and Battis in the size of his operation, soon becoming the overseer of the town's largest corps of young boys engaged as sweeps. Bennett took his operation beyond the town limits, and marketed his services to the residents living along the farm lanes and country roads that radiated out from Harrisburg. |
|
Edward Bennett was a young man, clearly ambitious and smart, and he soon attracted the eye of Mary Ann Richards, the daughter of a local matriarch, Judy Richards. Edward and Mary Ann married, and the newlyweds settled in a house near the bride's mother, near Third and Mulberry streets. This area had been developing slowly as a mixed race neighborhood, since before the 1820s, and its "proprietress," or the person to whom local inhabitants went to get things done or to settle disputes, was Judy Richards. So important was Richards to the informal governance of this neighborhood that the area, squeezed into the southern edge of Harrisburg, became known as Judytown or Judy's Town. It was from his home in Judy's Town that Edward Bennett managed his expanding army of young African American chimneysweeps, who he dispatched on their rounds early every morning into the streets of Harrisburg and out into the townships. Spiritual Leader and Underground Railroad ConductorWith regard to that influence, a local historian recalled that Judystown
|
||
NotesThe marriage of Edward and Mary Ann Richards probably occurred between 1820 and 1830. In 1820, Mary Richards is enumerated in the 1820 census as a free person of color head of household consisting of two FPOC women. No males are enumerated in her household. The 1830 census includes the Edward Bennett household, consisting of one male adult 10-24, one female age 24-36, and one female child below age 10, all of which corresponds roughly with their ages. According to published biographical information, Edward was born on March 27, 1803, so the slash mark recording him should have been in the male, 24-36 years column. The census taker either recorded his age incorrectly, or he was possibly younger than reported. Mary Ann was several years older than Edward and appears to have been recorded correctly, based upon her reported age at her death.
Sources
|
||
Now Available on this site The Year of Jubilee Vol. 1: Men of God and Vol. 2: Men of Muscle by George F. Nagle Both volumes of the Afrolumens book are now available on this website. Click the link to read. The Year of Jubilee is the story of Harrisburg'g free African American community, from the era of colonialism and slavery to hard-won freedom. Volume One, Men of God, covers the turbulent beginnings of this community, from Hercules and the first slaves, the growth of slavery in central Pennsylvania, the Harrisburg area slave plantations, early runaway slaves, to the birth of a free black community. Men of God is a detailed history of Harrisburg's first black entrepreneurs, the early black churches, the first black neighborhoods, and the maturing of the social institutions that supported this vibrant community. It includes an extensive examination of state and federal laws governing slave ownership and the recovery of runaway slaves, the growth of the colonization movement, anti-colonization efforts, anti-slavery, abolitionism and radical abolitionism. It concludes with the complex relationship between Harrisburg's black and white abolitionists, and details the efforts and activities of each group as they worked separately at first, then learned to cooperate in fighting against slavery. Read it here. Non-fiction, history. 607 pages, softcover. Volume Two, Men of Muscle takes the story from 1850 and the Fugitive Slave Law of 1850, through the explosive 1850s to the coming of Civil War to central Pennsylvania. In this volume, Harrisburg's African American community weathers kidnappings, raids, riots, plots, murders, intimidation, and the coming of war. Caught between hostile Union soldiers and deadly Confederate soldiers, they ultimately had to choose between fleeing or fighting. This is the story of that choice. Non-fiction, history. 630 pages, softcover.
|
||
|
||