Bethel Burying Ground Project

Someone’s speaking in Ba-kongo another answers a question asked in English with a phase of Wolof 

Someone is telling a joke in Mandingo a young man – salt water African – becrys his fate in Swahili (1)

Eighty-eight-year-old Levi Ganges died on September 13th, in 1846 from the complications of a stroke and was buried at Bethel Burying Ground. He was born ‘Lahy,’ son of Malcauba, an African tribal chief. At approximately forty-years-old, he was kidnapped and placed on a slave ship destined for the sugar cane plantations of the Caribbean. 

Mr. Ganges was one of the 135 enslaved Africans rescued in 1800 by the U.S.S. Ganges, an American naval ship.

Mr. Michael Kearney has diligently researched the history of this incident and the genealogy of the Ganges family. For his authoritative account, please go to https://thegangesfamilies.com/

Mr. Ganges was a member of the Susu people, also spelled Soso, a West African ethnic group, one of the Mandé peoples (Mandingo), living primarily in Guinea and Northwestern Sierra Leone. (The photo below is from the New York Library Digital Collection,)

1906 map of the African west coast showing the home of the Mande people. 

The Pennsylvania Abolition Society volunteered to take over the care of Black men and women of Africa. The Society put into place a program where the new citizens would be indentured for a number of years. They would be clothed, housed, and taught a trade. Levy/Lahy Ganges was indentured for four years to Enos Eldridge, a farmer in Darby County, Delaware County, to be taught the fundamentals of agriculture.

In September of 1839, it became known to the lawyers arguing for the freedom of the Africans rescued from the slave ship Amistad that Mr. Ganges spoke their language and could be valuable as a translator. He traveled to Hartford, Connecticut to meet with his fellow countrymen. The pertinent documents concerning this meeting are on Mr. Kearney’s website. 

My research is focusing on Mr. Ganges life between the end of his indenture and his translation work with the Africans of the Amistad.

Lahy, son of Malcauba, died on a cool and clear September day where the temperature only rose to sixty-six degrees by late afternoon. There was a total eclipse of the moon on the evening that he passed away. He was buried, with dignity, at Bethel Burying Ground.

(1) Meditations in Congo Square by Lamont B. Steptoe, p, 32. (Camden, NJ: Whirlwind Press.

(2) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Susu_people

Forty-five-year-old Mary Stewart died this date, August 15th in 1849, due to “Cramps of the Stomach” and was buried at Bethel Burying Ground. In 1847 she told the census taker that her spouse worked irregularly as a laborer, earning $3.50 a week, when he was able. He was not named. Ms. Stewart was employed as a domestic. In the 1847 Philadelphia African American Census, Ms. Stewart sadly reported that she had to sell “some of her things to procure the means to bury a child.” She added that “at the same time her son sold some of his things to bury his wife.” Either Mr. or Ms. Stewart had formerly been enslaved and gained their liberation through manumission.  The family was struggling just to stay alive.

Green Street is enclosed in the red circle. The red pin illustrates the location and proximity of the Bethel A.M.E. Church.

Ms. Stewart and her family lived in a room at #19 Green Street for which they paid $3 a month and reported having only $15 in personal property. In modern currency, their rent equates to approximately $100 monthly and their property equates to approximately $500. Green Street was a block-long thoroughfare, packed with forty-seven Black families with a total of almost one-hundred-fifty men, women and children. 

The above photo is of 4th and Spruce Streets, right around the corner from the residents of Green Street. It was taken circa 1859. These are some of the homes that the Black women of Green Street would work in as domestics, cooks, and wash women. (Free Library of Philadelphia Digital Collection)

Mary Stewart died on an August day where the temperature rose to 82° and saw a brief shower at 11am. The rest of the day was clear and fair. She was buried by her family, with dignity, at Bethel Burying Ground.

Eleven-year-old John Holly died on August 3rd in 1848 from drowning and was buried at Bethel Burying Ground. John was fishing with friends on the West Philadelphia Canal, near the north side of the Market Street Bridge, when he fell into the Schuylkill River and drown, according to the City Coroner. His body was recovered almost immediately. 

North American, 5 August 1848

The red pin indicates the approximate location of the Holly residence on Pearl Street above 12th Street. The red arrow shows the location where young John was fishing when he drowned.

John Holly’s parents were Ann and Aaron Holly. Ms. Holly was forty-one-year-old at the time of her son’s death and Mr. Holly was forty-seven. She was born in Delaware and he was born in Pennsylvania. They had a daughter Harriet, who was thirteen-years-old at the time of her brother’s death and who was also born in Pennsylvania, according to the 1850 U.S. Census. 

Aaron Holly was employed as a laborer earning $4 a week while Ann Holly toiled as a washwoman, reportedly making $2 a week. Earning that much for a washwoman usually meant that she had steady clients. Their apartment at #17 Pearl Street in the Spring Garden District contained three rooms. The rent was expensive at $5 a month and they may have rented out a room to help with the cost. The entire family attended church services, according to the 1847 Philadelphia African American Census.

“Market Street Bridge” Date: approximately 1850-1930. Source: The New York Library Digital Collection.

John Holly was one of nineteen Philadelphia boys to die by drowning in the summer of 1848.

The eleven-year-old died on a clear August day where the temperature rose to 80° by mid-day. His parents buried him, with dignity, at Bethel Burying Ground.

Thirty-one-year-old Jane Potter died this date, July 15th, in 1849 of Cholera and was buried at Bethel Burying Ground. She was born in Maryland and came to reside in Philadelphia in 1826 when she was eight-years-old. At the time of her death, she was married and labored as a domestic worker. There is no additional personal information on Ms. Potter nor her spouse.

In 1849, Ms. Potter lived on Lombard Street which was the center of the Black population in the city. Bethel AME Church at 6th and Lombard was its keystone. In addition to the activities around the church, during the week Ms. Potter would have seen and heard the dozens of young children being brought by their parents to the Lombard Street Infant School. Two Black teachers provided daycare and teaching for two-to-five-year-old Black children. The school was financed by the Pennsylvania Society for Promoting the Abolition of Slavery.

Ms. Potter may have been one of the mourners at the funeral of Bishop Morris Brown on May 20th in 1849. He was the second Bishop of the African Methodist Episcopal Church and the protege of Bishop Richard Allen. It was a Sunday afternoon when the coffin was carried on a bier by ministers wearing flowing white scarfs. After them came others with scrolls, representing the six conferences over which Bishop Brown presided. Hundreds of mourners came next and after them came the daughters of the conference, one hundred and seventy in number, each being “uniformly clad in the deepest mourning. ” (1)

Ms. Potter may have been very sick by this point and realized her time on earth was limited. As the coffin passed her by, thoughts might have been of her last days. Ms. Potter’s death certificate was signed by Black physician J. J. Gould Bias. For more information on the Bias family, please click on the link below. (2)

New York Library Digital Collection

Ms. Potter died on a relatively cool day in July where the temperature rose to only 76° by midday, accompanied by a slight breeze out of the north. She was buried by her family, with dignity, at Bethel Burying Ground.

(1) The Liberator, 25 May 1849.

(2) BIAS

Twenty-eight-year-old Hannah Douglass died this date, July 9th, in 1842 of Tuberculosis and was buried at Bethel Burying Ground. There is little additional information on Ms. Douglass besides what is on her death certificate. She was a married woman and a native of Philadelphia who labored as a washwoman.

“Laundress,” The NY Public Library Digital Collection

Hannah Douglass worked at a job that taxed her body and spirit. Water had to be drawn and carried from the nearest hydrant, firewood had to be obtained, fires had to be started and heavy bundles of clothes had to be picked up and returned to her customers after the clothes and sheets were hung up, dried and folded. All in the wilting heat and freezing cold, while taking care of children, shopping for and preparing the family’s meals, and, on occassion, while pregnant. It was an undertaking for only the strong and strong-willed. And, for all this, she might earn between $0.50 and $1.00 a week!

The red arrow illustrates the location of #3 Little Pine Street. The yellow circle indicates the location and proximity of Bethel A.M.E. Church.

Hannah Douglass lived with her family in a room at #3 Little Pine Street. The 1847 Philadelphia African American Census shows that they would have paid $3 – $4 a  month. In modern currency that would be $93.81 – $125.08. After Ms. Douglass’s death, I am unable to find any information on Mr. Douglass or children if they had any. Three weeks after she died, a massive city-wide anti-Black riot occurred, where African Americans were killed, homes and churches destroyed. Many Black families fled the city and never returned. Mr. Douglass may have been in that group.

Philadelphia Free Library Digital Collection

According to the Philadelphia Board of Heath record, Ms. Douglass was one of the 1,991 Philadelphians to succumb to the Tuberculosis bacteria during the period of 1841 and 1842. There would be no vaccine for the disease until the early 1900s. The above advertisement from the 1800s shows the desperate extent to which victims would go for a cure. “Sea-Weed Tonic” was not the answer.

Hannah Douglass died on a rainy and windy day in July and was buried by her family, with dignity, at Bethel Burying Ground.

Addison Street (formerly Little Pine Street) in 1938. (Philadelphia Library)

One-year-old Charles Elias died this date, July 6th, in 1844 of Cholera and was buried at Bethel Burying Ground. His mother Elizabeth was young, at nineteen-years-old, while his father James was twenty-four-years-old. James worked as a waiter and Elizabeth labored as a laundress, according to the Philadelphia African American Census of 1847 and the U.S. Census of 1850. Mr. Elias was born in Delaware and Ms. Elias in Philadelphia. It appears that Baby Charles was their only child at that time. However, Elizabeth Elias would have two daughters by the 1850 Census. Sarah Ann was born in 1847 and Mary in 1848. 

Quince Street in 1915 (Temple University Archives)

Quince Street was a narrow street near Rittenhouse Square, toward the western end of center city Philadelphia. It was little more than a cart path that would often be blocked by piles of garbage, ash, and animal waste. In the winter, snow and ice would make it impassable. The existence of several stables and carpenter workshops on the street made buildings vulnerable to frequent fires.  In 1847, this small thoroughfare was crammed with forty-three Black families totaling one-hundred and thirteen members that worked as laborers and domestics. The poor living conditions led to the deadly diseases of Tuberculosis, Cholera, and Pneumonia.

The burning of St. Agnes Catholic Church by Nativists

On the day that one-year-old Charles Elias died the city erupted into a hellish battlefield. For the second time in a month, thousands of Nativists, white Protestants, invaded the Southward District, looking to destroy Catholic churches and the Irish men and women who worshipped in them. The death and destruction continued for days, until the military intervened. Black families fled the city or hid in their homes with the memories of the race riots of 1839 and 1842 still fresh in their minds.  

Mother and Child (New York Library Digital Collection: 1939.)

With measureless grief, the young couple watched their baby quickly deteriorate and suffer constant diarrhea, vomiting and, then, the convulsions. They were unable to do anything as their infant slipped into a coma and died. They buried their son on a hot day in July at Bethel Burying Ground.*

*Little Charles Elias is the tenth documented individual as of July 6, 2020 to have resided on Quince Street and interred at Bethel Burying Ground.