Twenty-eight-year-old Susan Burton died this date, February 28th, in 1811 of “Dropsy of the brain” and was buried at Bethel Burying Ground. Chronic Hydrocephalus  – “Dropsy of the brain” is due to the meningitis virus and is marked by atrophy of the brain, mental weakness and convulsions.

Ms. Burton was an indentured servant under the ownership of William Smith. Indentured servants were slaves, just by another name. They were considered the property of their owners. We don’t know how Ms. Burton came to this circumstance. When families applied for aid at the local almshouses, they often were required to indenture their children. This happened to both black and white families. However, most black children were indentured to the age of twenty-eight, while most white boys were indentured until they were twenty-one, and most white girls until they were eighteen. It would be a horrible scenario to think that Ms. Burton died just as she was scheduled to be freed from enslavement. 

The only difference between being enslaved or indentured was that there was a supposed date that the individual would be set free. Indentured servants did not have the freedom to move about without a written note or to marry without their master’s permission. The penalty for doing so was the addition of one year of service to their contract. They were allowed to be whipped for any infractions and they had no real legal recourse.

Black female indentured servants were forced to be cooks, domestics, and nannies to the children of their white masters. I was unable to definitively identify the”William Smith” for whom Ms. Burton was forced to serve. He was either an attorney or wealthy merchant. Both of these men had large families and lived near the Delaware River in the old section of the city. 

Free Black men also were allowed to own indentured servants. Clearly, Black businessmen did this for profit but also to provide protection to an individual, such as for a child who was orphaned or whose family was no longer able to care for him or her. In Philadelphia, situations like those were not uncommon. But, no matter what the circumstances, indentured servants often would run away from their masters – Black or white. Below are two advertisements that the Rev. Richard Allen, the founder of the AME, Bethel Church, and the Bethel Burying Ground, placed in the local newspapers offering rewards for two young males who decided they no longer wanted the good Reverend’s hospitality.  

Dunlap’s Daily Advertiser, 29 May 1792

North American Intelligence, 28 September 1791. The young man’s name is “Sam.”

Susan Burton was buried on a warm day which broke a cold spell in late February.

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For further reading on Black women and indentured servitude, I suggest “A Fragile Freedom” by Erica Armstrong Dunbar.

Seventy-four-year-old Judith Govan* died this date, February 25th, in 1842 from complications of a stroke and was buried at Bethel Burying Ground. She had been a resident of Philadelphia for forty years. In 1768, she was born into enslavement in the colony of Maryland. She worked as a laundress and lived near 15th and Filbert Streets now J.F.K. Boulevard in center city Philadelphia. 

The above is an entry in the 1838 Philadelphia African American Census for the Govan family headed by Ms. Govan, a widow. I believe it shows that she was enslaved and eventually manumitted while her female child’s freedom was purchased by her late husband for $100. Manumission was the renunciation of the property rights that slave owners had over the enslaved. The enslaved were released from the owner’s control by self-purchase or by the last Will and Testament of the enslaver. The latter often occurred for the “faithful service” of the Black man or woman. 

Another enslaved Maryland woman, Harriet Tubman (far right) with a group that she assisted in escaping from slavery in Maryland. She herself escaped from a Maryland plantation in 1849. Ms. Tubman is the most famous “conductor” on the Underground Railroad.

*The physician who made out the death certificate spelled the last name “Governs.” All other documents including censuses use “Govan.” 

Fifty-five-year-old Jupiter Miller died this date, February 22nd, in 1851 of unknown causes. The 1847 Philadelphia African American Census reports that Mr. Miller was a “paralytic” which was likely due to a stroke and heart disease. In 1847 he lived on Mulberry Street (now Arch Street) between 5th and 6th Streets, in the shadow of Independence Hall, with his spouse, two of his adult children and what appears to be two grandchildren. The family of six lived in one room 12’x12′ for which they paid 75 cents a week. The adults worked as a woodsawyer, day worker, and rag sorter. Mr. Miller’s occupation was listed as “laborer” in the 1830s Philadelphia city directories. 

The 1847 Census reports that one of the older grandchildren stayed at home and cared for Mr. Miller while the other adults went to work. The 1838 Philadelphia African American Census shows that the family attended religious services at Bethel A.M.E. Church at 6th and Lombard Streets. The congregants of Bethel were caring people. They had numerous charitable societies that focused on the poor, the sick, orphans and widows.  The two oldest groups were the United Daughters of Tapsico, a mutual aid society for sick members founded in 1837, and the Union Benevolent Sons of Bethel, a burial aid society founded in 1826. The Sons served as caretakers of the Bethel Burying Ground plots. Hopefully, these groups provided aid to the Miller family.

Out of surviving Board of Health records, Jupiter Miller is one of thirty-two individuals with the family name of “Miller” who are buried at Bethel Burying Ground. Chronologically, he was the last one to be buried there in 1851.

Thirty-seven-year-old Mary Parker died this date, February 19th, in 1846 of Tuberculosis (Pulmonary Consumption) and was buried at Bethel Burying Ground. The morning of the 19th dawned clear and cold at 13 degrees with a stiff wind out of the northeast. By late afternoon, the skies had turned cloudy and gray with the temperature never rising above freezing. The graveyard was covered with snow, making digging the grave by church sexton Shepard Gibbs a more difficult job. 

I have not been able to find any more information on Ms. Parker except what is on her death certificate. There are many “Mary Parkers” in the immediate neighborhood of Rose Alley but none that I could definitively say were this Mary Parker. 

Rose Alley was a dead end backstreet, only ten feet wide, lined with three-story buildings with tattered masonry and split down the middle by grimy cobblestones. The one-time family homes had been turned into single rooms rented out to the poor working class. Mary Parker lived in one of these rooms. The 1847 African American Census reveals that the year after Ms. Parker died, there were eleven Black families living in small Rose Alley with a total of forty-two members. The women in the households were employed in the jobs available to them such as laundress, seamstress and domestic worker. If Ms. Parker was employed outside of the home, she likely worked in one of these jobs.

Rose Alley (red arrow) is rarely named on a map of the city. It was located parallel between 10th and 11th Streets and emptied into Locust Street. The alley no longer exists. It was demolished to make room for the Thomas Jefferson University Hospital.

Rose Alley was notable for an infamous house of prostitution and for a soup kitchen run by the Society of Friends (Quakers). It provided 600 quarts of hot soup daily during the bitter winter months. It is likely that Ms. Parker and her family (if she had one) took advantage of this life-saving nutrition. 

In addition to Mary Parker, research has so far identified nineteen other individuals with the family name of Parker interred at Bethel Burying Ground. Ms. Parker is the oldest one out of the twenty individuals recorded. She was 37 years of age. 

Eight-month-old Charlotte Stewart died this date, February 4th, in 1853 of Aptha and was buried at Bethel Burying Ground. The child’s death certificate was missing its top edge due to water damage which dissolved the paper. However, the weekly summary of burials by the Bethel Church Sexton, which is also damaged, appears to have  “Charlotte” (underlined in red) as the child’s first name.

The baby’s parents were Ellen (35 y/o) and Sidney (45 y/o) Stewart. The family owned a home on Harmony Street (now Fitzwater) a block from Bethel Burying Ground. Mr. Stewart was a steward on a passenger steamboat sailing on the Delaware River for which he earned $300 a year. I was unable to locate an out of the home occupation for Ms. Stewart. However, she was the mother of five other children beside Charlotte, according to the 1847 Philadelphia African American Census. We do know that one of the children was “Isabella,” age four years old at the time of her sister’s death.

Little Charlotte’s official cause of death is only a symptom of a more serious condition. Apatha or Apathae are ulcers usually found in the mouth which are not fatal. The term can also mean, in rare situations, ulcers of the colon and in the 19th Century always led to death. This is most likely the reason for the baby’s death. 

Charlotte was one of only three individuals in Philadelphia to die of Apatha in 1853. (19th-century photo of an unknown infant.)

Tragically, Sidney Stewart died six months later from lung disease and was buried next to his baby daughter at Bethel Burying Ground. Fourteen years later, the family would lose Isabella who was eighteen years of age, due to a bacterial infection she developed after giving birth to a child. She was buried at Lebanon Cemetery.