African Meeting House | |
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Location | 8 Smith Court, Boston, MA |
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Coordinates | 42°21′35.94″N71°3′55.73″W / 42.3599833°N 71.0654806°W |
Built | 1806 |
Architectural style | Federal |
Part of | Beacon Hill Historic District (ID66000130) |
NRHP reference No. | 71000087 |
Significant dates | |
Added to NRHP | October 7, 1971 [1] |
Designated NHL | May 30, 1974 [2] |
Designated CP | October 15, 1966 |
The African Meeting House, also known variously as First African Baptist Church, First Independent Baptist Church and the Belknap Street Church, was built in 1806 and is now the oldest black church edifice still standing in the United States. The church also established a school, at first holding classes in its basement. After serving most of the nineteenth century as a church, it then served as a synagogue until 1972 when it was purchased for the Museum of African American History. It is located in the Beacon Hill neighborhood of Boston, Massachusetts, adjacent to the historically Black American Abiel Smith School, now also part of the museum. It is a National Historic Landmark.
Before 1805, although black Bostonians could attend white churches, they generally faced discrimination. They were assigned seats only in the balconies and were not given voting privileges.
Thomas Paul, a Black American preacher from New Hampshire, led worship meetings for blacks at Faneuil Hall. Paul, with twenty of his members, officially formed the First African Baptist Church on August 8, 1805. In the same year, land was purchased for a building. The African Meeting House, as it came to be commonly called, was completed the next year. At the public dedication on December 6, 1806, the first-floor pews were reserved for all those "benevolently disposed to the Africans," while the black members sat in the balcony of their new meeting house.
In the early 1800s, Primus Hall had established a school in his home. He sought funding from the community, including Black American sailors, to pay for expenses to run the school. Unsuccessful in attempts to establish a public school with the city of Boston in 1800, he moved his school to the African Meeting House by 1806. Hall continued fund-raising to support the Black American school until 1835. [4]
Besides inspiring Boston's Black Americans to pursue justice and quality in education, the school offered them opportunities for employment and economic growth, which in turn provided funds for future generations of Black American Bostonians to pursue higher education. [4]
The Abiel Smith School was built in 1834 following the donation of $2,000 (~$65,211 in 2023) by Abiel Smith. The primary and grammar school was the first building built as a public school for Black Americans in the country. [5] In 1835, all Black American children in Boston were assigned to the Smith school, which replaced the basement school in the African Meeting House.
The African Meeting House became known as the Black Faneuil Hall during the abolitionist movement. On January 6, 1832, William Lloyd Garrison founded the New England Anti-Slavery Society here. During the Civil War, Frederick Douglass and others recruited soldiers here for the 54th and 55th Massachusetts Regiments.
At the end of the 19th century, when the black community began to migrate to the South End and Roxbury, the building was sold to a Jewish congregation, Anshei Lubavitch. They were the new immigrants in the city and living on Beacon Hill and in the North End. It served as a synagogue until 1972, when it was acquired by the Museum of African American History and adapted as a museum.
It was declared a National Historic Landmark in 1974. [2] [6]
The African Meeting House houses the Museum of African American History, which is a museum "dedicated to preserving, conserving and accurately interpreting the contributions of African Americans in New England from the colonial period through the 19th century," according to the museum's website. [7] The African Meeting House is open to the public. This site is part of Boston African American National Historic Site.
Adjacent to the African Meeting House, is the Education and Technology Center. The Trust for Public Land assisted in the acquisition of the building when the museum needed space to expand. [8]
Funds for the African Meeting House were raised in both the white and black communities. Cato Gardner, a native of Africa, was responsible for raising more than $1,500 toward the total $7,700 to complete the meeting house. A commemorative inscription above the front door reads: "Cato Gardner, first Promoter of this Building 1806." Scipio and Sylvia Dalton also helped organize and raise money to build the church.
Although the building committee was able to secure $2,500 for the church, the congregation and the committee were compelled to ask the Massachusetts legislation for funds to complete construction. This funding request required an accounting of persons who worked on and supplied materials to the construction project and documents that both African-American and white laborers contributed to it. This accounting lists, for example, that the white carpenter Amos Penniman worked on the African Meeting House. This research has not yet located this document, but it does substantiate that Abel Barbadoes did masonry work on the building, as Chloe Thomas, then a resident of the Home for Aged Colored Women, told George Ruffin in 1883: [9]
I heard from the lips of some of our most honored fathers, Cato Gardner, Father Primus Hall, Hamlet Earl, Scipio Dalton, Peter G. Smith, G.H. Holmes, that George Holmes made the first hod to carry bricks and mortar that was ever used in Boston. He invented it for the purpose of carrying bricks and mortar to build our meeting house with as he was a mason and calculated to do his part to the best of his ability. And Boston Smith, father of P.G. Smith, with the rest of his devoted brothers, was anxious to do all in his power. As Boston Smith was a master builder, he led the carpentry department...Abel Barbadoes, being a master mason also assisted. He was the father of Mrs. Catherine Barbadoes at 27 Myrtle Street.
The façade of the African Meeting House is an adaptation of a design for a townhouse published by Boston architect Asher Benjamin. In addition to its religious and educational activities, the meeting house became a place for celebrations and political and anti-slavery meetings. The African Meeting House was remodeled by the congregation in the 1850s.
Charles Bulfinch was an early American architect, and has been regarded by many as the first American-born professional architect to practice.
Faneuil Hall is a marketplace and meeting hall located near the waterfront and today's Government Center, in Boston, Massachusetts. Opened in 1742, it was the site of several speeches by Samuel Adams, James Otis, and others encouraging independence from Great Britain. It is now part of Boston National Historical Park and a well-known stop on the Freedom Trail. It is sometimes referred to as "the Cradle of Liberty", though the building and location have ties to slavery.
The First Baptist Meetinghouse, also known as the First Baptist Church in America is the oldest Baptist church congregation in the United States. The Church was founded in 1638 by Roger Williams in Providence, Rhode Island. The present church building was erected between 1774 and 1775 and held its first meetings in May 1775. It is located at 75 North Main Street in Providence's College Hill neighborhood. It was designated a National Historic Landmark in 1960. It is affiliated with the American Baptist Churches USA.
Beacon Hill is a historic neighborhood in Boston, Massachusetts, United States, and the hill upon which the Massachusetts State House resides. The term "Beacon Hill" is used locally as a metonym to refer to the state government or the legislature itself, much like Washington, D.C.'s Capitol Hill does at the federal level.
The Freedom Trail is a 2.5-mile-long (4.0 km) path through Boston that passes by 16 locations significant to the history of the United States. It winds from Boston Common in downtown Boston, to the Old North Church in the North End and the Bunker Hill Monument in Charlestown. Stops along the trail include simple explanatory ground markers, graveyards, notable churches and buildings, and a historic naval frigate. Most of the sites are free or suggest donations, although the Old South Meeting House, the Old State House, and the Paul Revere House charge admission. The Freedom Trail is overseen by the City of Boston's Freedom Trail Commission and is supported in part by grants from various non-profit organizations and foundations, private philanthropy, and Boston National Historical Park.
The Charles Street Meeting House is an early-nineteenth-century historic church in Beacon Hill at 70 Charles Street, Boston, Massachusetts.
The Boston National Historical Park is an association of sites that showcase Boston's role in the American Revolution and other parts of history. It was designated a national park on October 1, 1974. Seven of the eight sites are connected by the Freedom Trail, a walking tour of downtown Boston. All eight properties are National Historic Landmarks.
The Boston African American National Historic Site, in the heart of Boston, Massachusetts's Beacon Hill neighborhood, interprets 15 pre-Civil War structures relating to the history of Boston's 19th-century African-American community, connected by the Black Heritage Trail. These include the 1806 African Meeting House, the oldest standing black church in the United States.
Abiel Smith School, founded in 1835, is a school located at 46 Joy Street in Boston, Massachusetts, United States, adjacent to the African Meeting House. It is named for Abiel Smith, a white philanthropist who left money in his will to the city of Boston for the education of black children.
The West End is a neighborhood of Boston, Massachusetts, United States, bounded generally by Cambridge Street to the south, the Charles River to the west and northwest, North Washington Street on the north and northeast, and New Sudbury Street on the east. Beacon Hill is to the south, North Point is across the Charles River to the north, Kendall Square is across the Charles River to the west, and the North End is to the east. A late 1950s urban renewal project razed a large Italian and Jewish enclave and displaced over 20,000 people in order to redevelop much of the West End and part of the neighboring Downtown neighborhood. After that, the original West End became increasingly non-residential, including part of Government Center as well as much of Massachusetts General Hospital and several high rise office buildings. More recently, however, new residential buildings and spaces, as well as new parks, have been appearing across the West End.
Thomas Dalton (1794–1883) was a free African American raised in Massachusetts who was dedicated to improving the lives of people of color. He was active with his wife Lucy Lew Dalton, Charlestown, Massachusetts, in the founding or ongoing activities of local educational organizations, including the Massachusetts General Colored Association, New England Anti-Slavery Society, Boston Mutual Lyceum, and Infant School Association, and campaigned for school integration, which was achieved in 1855.
William Cooper Nell was an American abolitionist, journalist, publisher, author, and civil servant of Boston, Massachusetts, who worked for the integration of schools and public facilities in the state. Writing for abolitionist newspapers The Liberator and The North Star, he helped publicize the anti-slavery cause. He published the North Star from 1847 to 1851, moving temporarily to Rochester, New York.
The William C. Nell House, now a private residence, was a boarding home located in 3 Smith Court in the Beacon Hill neighbourhood of Boston, Massachusetts, opposite the former African Meeting House, now the Museum of African American History.
The First Baptist Church is a historic American Baptist Churches USA congregation, established in 1665. It is one of the oldest Baptist churches in the United States. It first met secretly in members homes, and the doors of the first church were nailed shut by a decree from the Puritans in March 1680. The church was forced to move to Noddle's Island. The church was forced to be disguised as a tavern and members traveled by water to worship. Rev. Dr. Stillman led the church in the North End for over 40 years, from 1764 to 1807. The church moved to Beacon Hill in 1854, where it was the tallest steeple in the city. After a slow demise under Rev. Dr. Rollin Heber Neale, the church briefly joined with the Shawmut Ave. Church, and the Warren Avenue Tabernacle, and merged and bought the current church in 1881, for $100,000.00. Since 1882 it has been located at the corner of Commonwealth Avenue and Clarendon Street in the Back Bay. The interior is currently a pending Boston Landmark through the Boston Landmarks Commission.
Thomas Paul (1773–1831) was a Baptist minister in Boston, Massachusetts, who became the first pastor for the First African Baptist Church, currently known as the African Meeting House. He later helped found the Abyssinian Baptist Church in New York City. An abolitionist, he was a leader in the black community and was an active missionary in Haiti.
Robert Morris was one of the first African-American attorneys in the United States, and was called "the first really successful colored lawyer in America."
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James George Barbadoes was an African-American, community leader, and abolitionist in Boston, Massachusetts in the early 19th century. Dedicated to improving the lives of people of color at the local level, as well as the national level.