Bethel Burying Ground Project

Four-month-old Sarah Galloway died this date, April 11th, in 1848 of Convulsions and was buried at Bethel Burying Ground. Sarah was the daughter of Benjamin (~47 y/o) and Rebecca (~43) Galloway. They had three other children Matilda (~10), Mary (~8) and Isabella (~5). The family lost another daughter, 6-year-old Rebecca, on December 1, 1847. She died of a brain fever, possibly Meningitis and was buried at Bethel Burying Ground.

There was also a twenty-four-year-old male named James Galloway in the household whose relationship to the family is unknown. He was employed as a waiter in 1847 and a boxman in 1850, according to census records.

The Galloway family rented a room or two at 10 Bonsall Street, later known as Rodman Street. They lived on one of the floors of a three-story house with stairs up in a piazza or veranda, similar to the photo below. The indoor hallways would connect to the outdoor landings and the flight of stairs to the next floor.

There was no indoor water service in the house on Bonsall. Water was obtained from the hydrant (spigot) in the backyard of the house near the privies. The water for drinking, cooking, laundry, and washing had to be carried upstairs. 

A young woman, “Trilby,” standing next to an outdoor hydrant.

Ms. Galloway worked as a laundress and would have been very familiar with the backyard water supply. Mr. Galloway was employed as a silk dryer, a very skilled profession, rare for an African American to hold. The work of a silk dryer was labor-intensive and one of precision. The dryer’s duties included cleaning the raw silk, bleaching it, adding chemicals to fix the color, dyeing, and drying. To clean raw silk, the dryer hung the silk on a long pole and immersed them in a large vat of boiling soapy water. He or she then would rinse the silk clean in a running river. The poles would be carried back to the factory and the process would be repeated and the desired hue achieved. The poles then would be carried back down to the river to be rinsed for the second time and, once again, carried back to the factory and hung up to dry.

Benjamin and Rebecca Galloway lived long lives with their married children and grandchildren residing with them in a house on Lombard Street, according to the 1870 Federal Census. Benjamin died on February 2, 1880, at the age of seventy-eight of Stomach Cancer. He was still employed in the silk manufacturing and cleaning business. Ms. Galloway was still alive at the time of her husband’s death. Her death certificate isn’t on file. 

Seventy-five-year-old Charles Cavalier* died this date, March 30th, in 1849 due to gangrene of an arm and was buried at Bethel Burying Ground. He raised pigs in the rural “Neck” section of far south Philadelphia.  His spouse, who is unnamed, worked as a domestic. Both were not native to Pennsylvania, according to the 1847 Philadelphia African American Census. 

The “Neck” was a crisscrossed mishmash of swamps, meadows, dikes, and canals. It was well known for its cabbages, thousands of pigs, packs of dogs, game birds, eccentric residents and especially for its smell. Situated in these moors were several hamlets that were little more than a cluster of shanties that bore names like Frogtown and Martinsville. The Cavaliers lived in such a pocket with a number of Black families. However, the vast majority of the residents of the “Neck” was Irish with a few Dutch families scattered about.  

A small farm in the “Neck.”

A Black man working in the “Neck.”

The dozens of creeks and canals in the “Neck” were a long recognized health hazard by the city’s Board of Health. They had become the receptacle of diseased refuse that included dead animals, while its canals’ banks were lined with outhouses, emptying their contents in the slow-moving sewer, and the waste from cows, pigs, and horses, dye houses, slaughterhouses, kitchens, and street-sewage. Also, it was not uncommon to see a corpse floating by on its way from the city to the Delaware River. It was a very difficult environment to keep a wound clean and was possibly the source of the infection that led to Mr. Cavilier’s cause of death.

Photograph by T. Buckalew

—————————————————————————————————————————————–

For a fuller story on the “Neck” please go to –

https://babel.hathitrust.org/cgi/pt?id=coo.31924079637470;view=2up;seq=354

*The spelling of “Cavalier” on the death certificate with two Ls is incorrect. Census records and city directories have the spelling with one L. 

One-year-old Stephen Hubert died on or near March 23rd, in 1851 and was buried at Bethel Burying Ground. The cause of death is listed as convulsions. The death certificate signed by a physician has not survived. Above is the weekly summary signed by the Bethel Church sexton and manager of the cemetery.

From existing documents, it appears the child was the son of Littleton* and Ann Hubert, 46 and 39 years old respectively. Tragically, Ms. Hubert died a year later of Tuberculosis. It also is likely the family had lost another child in January of 1847 due to “Fever.” 

Littleton and Ann were native to Delaware, moving to Philadelphia sometime before 1837.  By 1837, Mr. Hubert was a “well-to-do grocer” who, by 1847, was one of the “elite” of the African American community. He was a successful restaurateur, owning a popular “eating-saloon” on 6th Street above St. Mary’s Street, within sight of Bethel AME Church at 6th and Lombard Streets. In 1847, he reported the value of his real estate holdings at $190,000 and his personal property at $100,000 – both numbers are translated to current dollar values. Census records report that Ann Hubert worked in the family business.

Mr. Hubert, formerly enslaved, was very active in the community. In 1837, he was a delegate to the American Moral Reform Society along with successful Black businessmen and leaders of the community James Forten and Robert Purvis. Hubert was also a member of the Philadelphia Temperance Society. In 1841 he joined the call, with other Black leaders, for a revival of the National Convention Movement. He was a prominent member of an African American Masonic lodge and he likely assisted William Stills with hiding fugitives on the run from roaming slave hunters. Mr. Hubert was not shy with his money or time in providing support for captured fugitives. 

Well-to-do 19th century African American family

African-American men in Philadelphia were allowed to succeed in a few upscale professions during the antebellum era. Food service was one of them. Most of those who prepared and sold food ran modest operations—an oyster-cellar or a small eatery of some sort—but a handful of people, such as Littleton Hubert, James LeCount, Gil Ball and Thomas J. Dorsey had establishments that serviced both white and Black customers.

The Hubert family lived at 256 South 7th Street between Washington Square and Pennsylvania Hospital. All members of the family could read and write with the children being educated by African American educator Solomon Clarkson at his school near 6th and Lombard Streets.

Modern map of the area

• In one City Directory, Mr. Hubert’s first name is spelled “Lyttleton.”

Five-year-old Sarah E. Haight died this date, March 11th, in 1843 of Tuberculosis and was buried at Bethel Burying Ground. I cannot be 100% certain as to the identity of her parents. Her father was likely to have been Joseph Haight who was employed as a waiter. Joseph’s spouse, who is unnamed, worked as a domestic servant, according to the 1837 African American Census. In addition to Sarah, there appears to have been an older child in the family. 

Sarah died of Tuberculosis (Phthisis), “a disease of misery”/”a disease of darkness.” Tuberculosis is born in rooms without fresh air and sunlight and then spreads easily throughout the neighborhood. A neighborhood of the poor where overcrowding, poverty, and poor nutrition made a perfect incubator for the bacteria.

The family lived on Dock Street, one of the oldest sections of the city. Before it was a serpentine cobblestone street, it was a creek, an open sewer, that carried human waste and the dead animals that littered the city streets – dogs, cats,  rats, and horses. In addition, the putrid waste from slaughterhouses and tanneries were dumped into this slow-moving stream. This creek eventually was covered by a road in the late 18th century.

Sarah E. Haight lived in a tenement along this paved-over sewer that would often clog and back up, filling the basements and turning them into fetid cesspools of disease. Heavy rains would fill the first floors of the buildings, causing the streets and pavements to collapse. In this environment, it is not hard to imagine Sarah contracting a deadly illness. It takes some thought on how she lived to five years of age. No one chooses to live like this.

Worldwide 1.7 million people died from Tuberculosis in 2017, despite an effective vaccine.

Twenty-two-year-old Robert Devine died this date, March 12th, in 1852 of heart disease and was buried at Bethel Burying Ground. The young man was employed as a hack driver or a public coachman, similar to a taxi driver of today. 

Robert lived with his mother Louisa Devine in a small room at 242 Lombard Street, below 3rd, for which they paid $2.25 a month for rent. Ms. Devine, forty-nine years of age, worked as a laundress and received a small quantity of firewood in public assistance, according to the 1847 Philadelphia African American Census. Both mother and son were born in Pennsylvania. I was unable to locate any information on Mr. Devine’s father.

The 1837 Philadelphia African American Census shows that Ms. Louisa Devine was the head of a family of four including herself. At that time, she was employed as a domestic (in-service) and lived at 8th and Lombard Streets. The family worshiped at Bethel African Methodist Episcopal Church at 6th and Lombard Streets.  

At the time of the 1837 Census, approximately one Black Philadelphia family in three was headed by a female. Currently, it is estimated to be over double that (68%) nationally.

Louisa Devine died in 1873 at seventy-two-years-old. She was working as a cook at the time. She was buried at Lebanon Cemetery.