Seventy-three-year-old Philip Nelson died this date, May 31st, in 1850 of Tuberculosis and was buried at Bethel Burying Ground. Mr. Nelson was employed as a “Gentleman’s nurse,” according to the 1847 Philadelphia African American Census. He reportedly earned $20 a month and his duties would be similar to a personal attendant or valet. Mr. Nelson was a widower. However, below is who I believe to have been his son, William Nelson, and his family. The information is from the 1850 Federal Census. The initial “M” next to the gender category stands for “Mulatto.” 

(William Nelson 49 y/o – Blacksmith born in Virginia; Henrietta 43 y/o born in Maryland; Sarah 23 y/o born in Maryland; William 17 y/o born in Maryland; Ezekiel 15 y/o born in Maryland.)

Mr. Nelson’s obituary was published in the June 3, 1850 edition of the Public Ledger. Interestingly, the obit stated that Mr. Nelson “was of the family of the late Dr. Henry Claggett, of Leesburg, Virginia.” Claggett was a white slaver who had plantations in Virginia and Maryland, according to “Laws made and passed by the General Assembly of the State of Maryland in 1835.” Claggett had to get permission from both states to move his slaves from one state to the other. Basically, the obit is stating that the white enslaver was Philip Nelson’s father and Nelson was at one point enslaved. 

At the time of Mr. Nelson’s death, one-in-four African Americans in Philadelphia were born enslaved.  (1847 Census)

Although Mr. Nelson died on the 31st of May, he wasn’t buried until June 4th. The funeral service was held at the Nelson family home on 8th Street between Catharine and Queen Streets, only three blocks from Bethel Burying Ground. Mr. Nelson’s obituary stated that, while suffering the long fatal course of Tuberculosis, he “. . . bore the last with Christian patience and resignation.” Mr. Nelson’s coffin was carried to the small cemetery and interred at approximately 4 o’clock on a warm June afternoon.

The eighteen-month-old son of William Blake died this date, May 26th, in 1849 of convulsions and was buried at Bethel Burying Ground. The child’s first name was not recorded. According to the 1847 Philadelphia African American Census, Mr. Blake worked in a store that sold stoves located on 12th Street below Pine Street. Ms. Blake (unnamed) was employed as a laundress. There were a total of five in the family with one female child 15 years old or younger working as a cook, earning $2 a week. The fifth family member was identified only as “under 50.”  They all lived in one room at 54 Currant Alley for which they paid $7.20 a month.

Currant Alley was a two-city-block long narrow thoroughfare that historian Roger Lane considered “one of the worst [streets] in Philadelphia.”* Ninety-six Black families lived in the densely packed alley with a staggering total of three hundred twenty-one family members, according to the 1847 Census. The Census also showed that the Currant Alley adults were solidly working class, having a wide range of laboring and domestic jobs to which African American men and women were restricted.

On the day that the Blakes buried their child at Bethel Burying Ground, the dawn broke cool and overcast. During the day, the temperature never got above 59 degrees.

* “William Dorsey’s Philadelphia and ours . . .”

Forty-three-year-old Mary Ann Miller died this date, May 8th in 1843, of Tuberculosis and was buried at Bethel Burying Ground. Ms. Miller was a dressmaker, according to the 1838 “Register of the Trades of Colored People in the City of Philadelphia and the Districts.” She worked out of her home at the corner of #1 Gray’s Alley and 2nd Street, near the Delaware River docks and the center of the city’s import/export business. 

The 1837 Philadelphia African American Census reported that eighty-two Black women made their living by dressmaking at the artisan level.

Gray’s Alley was a small narrow alleyway that contained twenty-five African American families totaling seventy-three individuals, according to the 1847 Philadelphia African American Census. The crowded underventilated lodgings were the perfect environment for the disease that killed Mary Ann Miller. The male members of the families on Gray’s Alley were laborers, usually working as porters at the Delaware docks, and the female family members were laundresses or domestics who worked in the homes of the wealthy merchants nearby. Families would live in one room in the two and three-storied brick homes that were built before the Revolution. The rooms were commonly 10’x10′ for which the rent was around $1 – $2 a week.

Ms. Miller would have lived through the thirteen years of mob violence against Philadelphia’s people of color prior to her death. In 1842, the year before she died, there was a three-day riot in August that saw white mobs loot and burn Black homes, churches and public buildings. Black men and women were assaulted and forced to flee the city. There was never an accurate accounting of murdered African Americans. No whites were held significantly accountable. The mayor criticized the African Americans of the city for being provocative by demanding their civil rights.

Fifty-year-old Sarah Medad Westwood died this date, April 5th, in 1853 of a stroke (Apoplexy) and was buried at Bethel Burying Ground. Her spouse, Keeling Westwood, worked as a confectioner earning $30 a month. A confectioner was a person selling and/or making candy or other sweets. Ms. Westwood was employed as a “baker,” according to the 1847 Philadelphia African American Census. It appears that one of the older children worked in a store for $4 a week which was a good wage. It appears from that Census that the Westwoods had four children, two of whom were younger than two-years of age and two of whom were between two to fifteen years of age. Three were attending the Shiloh Baptist Church Infant School at South and Clifton Streets, now far from the Westwood home in Osborn’s Court, near 8th and Spruce. The photograph below is what the church infant school looks like currently. It is now an African Methodist Episcopal Church.

Ms. Westwood was born in Accomack County, Virginia in 1803 to Irving and Betty Medad. The 1820 Federal Census lists Ms. Betty Medad as a single free Black woman. Mr. Medad is not listed in the Census. It appears he was deceased prior to 1820. Accomack County, Virginia was a rarity in the Commonwealth of Virginia. Being located on the Eastern Shore, it did not have an agriculture economy that required the amount of slave labor that the plantations in the rest of the state required. In addition, the spread of Methodism and the influence of Quakerism in the county, plus the powerful personalities of several large landowners, created a unique social environment that fostered the emancipation of enslaved Black men and women. (Race and Liberty in the New Nation, pp. 61-62 by Eva Sheppard Wolf)

 The Westwoods lived on a narrow back alley in one room for which they paid $2-$4 a week. Osborn’s Court was typical for the era with the water spigot and privy outdoors. Street cleaning was infrequent, if at all, and, consequently, trash, garbage, ash and animal waste would form piles that would block gutters and force rainwater back in the cellars. Interestingly, Osborn’s Court had a long history of one of the more notorious houses of prostitution in that area of the city. There are numerous newspaper reports over the era of brawls between the ladies and their clients. The more violent encounters were between the ladies themselves. All this in the shadow of a large Protestant Church!

Osborn’s Court ran behind St. Andrew’s Protestant Episcopal Church at 250 S. 8th Street.

Thirty-five-year-old Sarah Golden died this date, April 30th, in 1853 of Tuberculosis and was buried at Bethel Burying Ground. She worked as a laundress earning $50 a year, according to the 1847 Philadelphia African American Census. Fifty dollars in the year 1847 is equivalent in purchasing power to $1,506.80 in 2018.

Ms. Golden was married to Samuel Golden who was employed as a waiter and, at one point, worked part-time in a stove store. The death of Ms. Golden left three children motherless – Joseph (16 y/o), Emeline (8) and Isabella (5), according to the 1850 Federal Census. The family moved a good deal. They lived in Atkinson Court, Smith’s Court and Hurst Street – all locations where the residents lived in extreme poverty and perfect environments for Tuberculosis to spread. The entire family likely would have lived in a 9’x9′ room for which they paid approximately $5 a month. 

Mr. and Ms. Golden sent their children to local schools that were established by private institutions to educate Black children and, according to the 1847 Census, three members of the family regularly attended church services. A surviving Philadelphia Board of Health death certificate reports that Sarah’s son Joseph died at 25 years of age of a stroke while employed as a “mariner.” 

An elderly Black man dying of Consumption (Tuberculosis ) living in the cellar of a tenement. “Neglected Neighborhoods,” p. 279. Chas. F. Weeler is the author.

One-year-old Lafillia Harrison died this date, April 28th, in 1840 of Convulsions and was buried at Bethel Burying Ground. Her parents, James and Lafillia Harrison, lived on Carpenter Street between 8th and 9th Streets in South Philadelphia. The 1847 Philadelphia African American Census reports Ms. Harrison’s occupation as “nurse” and Mr. Harrison as “in service,” most likely as a butler or a coach driver. There also is another female in the household who is reported to be between 15 and 50 years of age and employed as a seamstress. 

The Harrisons’ Carpenter Street address is currently only a block away from what is now known as the “Italian Market.” The name for the market was coined in the early 1970s for an area of south Philadelphia featuring numerous grocery shops, cafes, restaurants, bakeries, cheese shops, and butcher shops. In 1840, the Harrisons would have shopped for food and dry goods at the Eleventh Street Market at 11th Street and Moyamensing Avenue, about a mile away to the west. The other close market would have been at 2nd and Pine Street, again about a mile away. The Harrisons would not have been able to use public transportation to go to the markets because of the color of their skin.

Above are two views of the South Street Market where the Harrisons may have frequented. The Moyamensing Market would have been very similar.