Study Areas

Enslavement

Anti-Slavery

Free Persons of Color

Underground Railroad

The Violent Decade

US Colored Troops

Civil War

Year of Jubilee (1863)

20th Century

Development of Pennsylvania's Free African American Communities

Featured Page

• Midland Cemetery--A Historic African American Cemetery in Swatara Township, Dauphin County

History

• Harrisburg's "Free Person of Color" Registration Ordinance of 1821
• Harrisburg's African American Community Opposes Colonization, 1831
• Dauphin County Citizens Petition Congress in Support of Colonization
• William Nesbit Replies to T. Morris Chester on Colonization, 1855
• Fugitive Slave Incidents in Central Pennsylvania
• Harrisburg's Role on the Trail to Freedom by T. R. McIntosh
• Emancipation Day:  Harrisburg Celebrations
• Emancipation Day: Carlisle Celebrations
• A Jubilee of Freedom:  Harrisburg's African American Population Hails the Emancipation Proclamation
• Arrest of the Patriot and Union Staff--1862 with commentary
• "Our Alma Mater:"  An Address by Octavius V. Catto  by Andy Waskie, Ph.D.
• Carolina Singers at the Odd Fellows Hall, Harrisburg, 1873
• See also: The Underground Railroad in Central Pennsylvania

People

• Free Blacks Money and Fry Hold a 200-Year Lease in 1767 Philadelphia
• Octavius V. Catto:  "Forgotten Black Hero of Philadelphia" by Andy Waskie
• John G. Chaplin, African American Artist, 1828-1907
• Obituary of John G. Chaplin, Artist
• W.C. Williams, First Black Police Officer in Harrisburg
  by David W. Houseal
• Pennsylvania African American Civil War Veterans

Places

• Adams County Items  Interesting short stories
• Dauphin County Items   Interesting short stories
• Lycoming County Items Interesting short stories
"Old Negro Cemetery," (Charles Fies) Middletown
• African American Burial Ground near Fort Hunter
• African American Burials at St. John's, Chester County with notes
• Harrisburg Cemetery:  Black History Perspectives
• Records of African Americans at the Berks County Poor House, Deaths and Pregnancies, 1825-1857
• Burials at Hosanna Church, Chester County
• Orrick Cemetery, Winchester, VA--Links to local families

Building Community

• Roebuck Family Dedicates Monument at Midland Cemetery
• "Let Us Remember" Keynote speech delivered by SFC Houston D. Wedlock at Midland Cemetery, 2004.
• Rededicated Tombstone for Thomas Morris Chester:  Lincoln Cemetery, 2002 (Page 1) | (Page 2)
• Photographs from the USCTI Conference, Harrisburg, 2002

Reference and Databases

• 1820 Census of African Americans in Dauphin County, part 1
• 1820 Census of African Americans in Dauphin County, part 2
• 1830 Census of African Americans in Dauphin County
• 1850 Census of African Americans in Dauphin County
• 1850 Census of African Americans in West Caln, Chester County
• 1880 Census of African Americans in Dauphin County
• Lincoln Cemetery, Harrisburg Tombstone transcriptions and images
• Midland Cemetery Lot Holders
  Records of burial, costs, causes of death and other information, transcribed from old lot books, 1894-1916.
• Midland Cemetery Map, Names and History
• All Names Index to Midland Databases  Unified index to the names of all persons known buried at Midland Cemetery, and names of African Americans who died in the Steelton area in the late 1800's and early 1900's.

Covering the history of African Americans in central Pennsylvania from the colonial era through the Civil War.