Four-year-old Elizabeth Smith died on this date, January 9th, in 1849 of Chronic Bronchitis and was buried at Bethel Burying Ground
Elizabeth and her family lived in the 700 block Bedford Street in the Moyamensing section of the county. Bedford Street was in a poor Black neighborhood constantly victimized by a viciously racist Irish gang calling itself the “Killers.” Called the “most prominent gang of the era”*, this band terrorized its victim with brutal beatings and attacks with straight razors and knives.** This is the gang that was involved in the anti-Black riots of the 1830s and 40s and started the infamous California House Riot, only nine months after little Elizabeth died.***
California House Riot – Source: “The life and adventures of Charles Anderson Chester: the notorious leader of the Philadelphia “killers”. . . 1850.
Looking at the 1847 African American Census, it is probable that Elizabeth’s father Edward Smith, a porter in a store. As of 1847 there was a total of eight members of the family (5 females and 3 males) at the no. 81 Bedford Street residence for which they paid $6 a month in rent. Mr. Smith brought home $4.50 a week from his work.
*Allen Steinberg, “The Transformation of Criminal Justice, Philadelphia 1800-1880,” 145.
** Philadelphia Inquirer, 23 July 1849.
***John Runcie, ” ‘Hunting the Nigs’ in Philadelphia: the Race Riot of August 1834″ Pennsylvania History, 39, 2, April 1972, 187-218 and Harry C. Silcox, “Philadelphia Politics from the Bottom Up – The Life of Irishman William McMullen, 1824-1901.”
Bethel Burying Ground Project 