Ms. Ardica’s age was not known. Her physician guessed 50 years but also stated it could be upwards of 60-70 years of age. The death certificate states that she had been suffering from Dysentery for about six weeks when she passed away. She was born in Guinea, African and very likely kidnapped and enslaved and survived the Middle Passage. She does not appear in any census records or city directories. It is probable that she was taken in chains to Haiti and eventually came to the United States after the rebellion of the enslaved from 1791 to 1804.  By 1793, Philadelphia became the center of French refugee life in America primarily due to the revolt of the enslaved in Haiti. Black Saint Dominguans were arriving at the Port of Philadelphia by the hundreds. They had been the domestic slaves of the white plantation owners and now in Philadelphia, they were freed. However, most were forced into indentures that would last for many years

 By 1793, Philadelphia became the center of French refugee life in America primarily due to the revolt of the enslaved in Haiti. Black Saint Dominguans were arriving at the Port of Philadelphia by the hundreds. They had been the domestic slaves of the white plantation owners and now in Philadelphia, they were freed. However, most were forced into indentures that would last for many years. Ms. Ardica may well have been one of those individuals.

Ms. Ardica was a practicing Roman Catholic. She regularly attended Holy Trinity Church at 6th and Spruce Streets. This Roman Catholic church was founded by Germans in 1789 was used by Frenchmen and French-speaking people of color since the arrival of white Canadian Arcadians in 1755. Holy Trinity Church was known as early as 1801 for refusing Black congregants burial in the church’s graveyards. That is why she is buried at Bethel Burying Ground. The apartheid continued even after death. 

Below is an image of the Holy Trinity church registry for 1814, the year that Ms. Ardica died. It shows her in good standing in the congregation. It also shows that her description as a woman of color was noted in Latin so the public would not immediately understand that she was black.  They also gave her an anglicized name – “Mary Jane.” The description reads “mulier nigra 50 vel 60 anorum quar etiam Mary Jane nominata fuit.” roughly translated it says “black woman 50 or 60 counted also named Mary Jane exists.”

Research is ongoing. 

For further reading on the St. Domingan refugees see Haiti’s Influence on Antebellum America by Alfred N. Hunt.

*Annals of Philadelphia and Pennsylvania in Olden Time by John Watson,p. 559. (Available on Google Books)

**1789-1914: A Retrospective of Holy Trinity Parish, p. 61. (Available at the Historical Society of Pennsylvania)

***Gary B, Nash, “Reverberations of Haiti in American North: Black Saint Dominguans in Philadelphia,” PA History (1998), 44-73. 

The six-month-old son of Samuel (46) and Elizabeth (33) Edwards died this date , October 1st, in 1848 of Tabes Mesenterica* and was buried at Bethel Burying Ground. The baby had three siblings Seaima (13)**, Mary Elizabeth (4) and Samuel (2).  A year later Ms. Edwards would give birth to a daughter Emma. There is evidence from the 1847 African American Census that the Edwards had two sons in their late teens that by this date may now be living on their own or “in service.”

The family lived in one room on Eutaw Alley close to the intersection of 8th and Race Streets in center city Philadelphia near where the Philadelphia Police Administration Building (“The Roundhouse”) has sat since 1963. Mr. Edwards worked as a porter and a whitewasher and Ms. Edwards as a laundress. 

Nineteenth-century African American family.

*Tabes Mesenterica is an obsolete termed that was used for a tubercular infection of the lymph glands in the abdomen; a wasting disease.

** The census worker wrote “Seaima.” The child’s name is probably “Saeima.”It is derived from the Arabic word “Saim” which means someone who is fasting.