Bethel Burying Ground Project

Seventy-two-year-old Joseph Lancaster died this date, October 19th, in 1847 of Apoplexy (stroke) and was buried at Bethel Burying Ground. Mr. Lancaster worked as a porter during his life. He was married to Hester Lancaster who was fifty-nine years old at the time of her spouse’s death. She worked as a washwoman. Both were born in Delaware. The 1838 Philadelphia African American Census reports that one of them was born enslaved and gained his or her freedom when the father paid the enslaver $135 dollars. In Delaware, the average price for an enslaved field hand in 1800 was $350. This was much higher than just fifteen years before in 1785. (1)

Above is the 1785 probate inventory of Robert Burton, a Delaware enslaver. (2)

The Lancasters lived at 100 Gaskill Street for many years for which they paid $3 a month in rent. That amount is approximately what Ms. Lancaster might earn in two weeks of washing clothes and bedsheets.

Gaskill Street was only an eight-foot-wide narrow cartway that often was clogged with garbage and ashes from stoves and fireplaces. Heavy rains and overflowing cesspools would flood the basements which would then filter down to the water level and contaminate the drinking water at the local hand pump, causing illness and often death. 

The 1847 Philadelphia African American Census shows the Black families on Gaskill Street were employed as mariners, chimney sweeps, porters, wood sawyers, shopkeepers, sailmakers, harnessmakers, shoemakers, laundresses, and waiters.

The yellow arrow illustrates the approximate location of the Lancaster’s home at #100 Gaskill Street. The black arrow illustrates the location of Bethel AME Church which the Lancasters attended, according to the 1838 Philadelphia African American Census. In 1859, the name of Gaskill Street was changed to Naudain.

Shortly after Mr. Lancaster died and was buried at Bethel Burying Ground, the 1847 African American Census reported that Samuel Lancaster is living with Ms. Lancaster. Presumably, Samuel is her son. He is twenty-nine-years old and is employed as a bootmaker. However, by the 1850 U.S. Census, the Lancaster home looks very different. It includes 6 additional females, ages 14 – 65, and one additional male, age 2.

In 1850, the Philadelphia city directories start listing Hester Lancaster as a shopkeeper at her home address. It may be that she is now working with her son and they have opened a boot and shoe business.

Hester Lancaster died in July of 1857, at sixty-nine-years-old, and was buried at Olive Cemetery.

(1) Slavery in Delaware – available at http://www.ssam.org/wp-content/uploads/2018/12/SlaveryInDelaware.pdf

(2) https://archives.delaware.gov/one-hundred-stories-exhibit/other-stories/the-human-cost-of-slavery/

15 October 1828: “Bethel Church Minute & Trial Book” 

Twenty-eight-year-old Rev. Joseph Corr died this date, October 18th, in 1835 of Tuberculosis and I assume that he was buried at Bethel Burying Ground. The death certificate no longer exists for Rev. Corr. However, he was a preacher and class leader at Bethel AME Church and also served as the Church’s Secretary. Given the year he died, his involvement with the Church and the personal relationship he enjoyed with Bishops Richard Allen and Morris Brown, I believe it is safe to assume that Rev. Corr was interred in Bethel Burying Ground. The information we have on Rev. Corr comes from historical African Methodist Episcopal Church documents and newspapers of the era.

“A WATCHMAN OF ZION DIES”

Rev. Joseph Corr’s father, Charles, was also a well respected AME minister.

Rev. Charles Corr was among those that fled Charleston, South Carolina to Philadelphia after the enslaved Denmark Vesey plotted a revolt in 1822. The uprising failed and the petrified white leadership of the city saw the local Black clergy as potential rebellion leaders and ordered them to leave the state under penalty of death. Joseph M. Corr would have been fifteen or sixteen years old when he fled north with his family to Philadelphia and the relative safety of Bishop Allen’s Bethel Church. (1)

“MOST GIFTED PREACHER”

Joseph M. Corr was sixteen-years-old when he started preaching at Bethel Church. He soon was hailed by the senior leadership as the “most gifted preacher.” He was the youngest member in the Church’s Conference which included Philadelphia, New York City, and Baltimore. Bishop Richard Allen chose the young man (“the best-educated”) to be the Secretary for the whole Conference and also Secretary specifically for Bethel Church. (2)

The young man supplemented his church income by working as a tailor. (3) He eventually would marry a woman named Emeline and start a family. Ms. Corr was employed as a laundress. (4)

“WRETCHED SPOT”

There were many streets, courts, and alleys in Philadelphia where living conditions were so bad that words almost fail to describe the human misery that existed therein. Small Street was one of those places. Reverend Corr chose to live on Small Street. He and his spouse both worked at occupations that would allow them to live somewhere better than Small Street. Two and one-half years after Rev. Corr’s death, Ms. Corr reported her personal wealth of $600 or $16,200 in present-day currency.

Small Street’s location is indicated by the red oval. The black diamond illustrates the location of the “Commons.” (See quote below.)

The skeletons of many horses lay bleaching in the sun, while lame horses were limping about, and others which but lately died were half devoured by dogs and crows. . . . it was on this common that long rows of sheds, weatherboarded, partitioned, and with a door to each compartment, were erected to accommodate the miserable inmates of Small street and St. Mary street with healthy summer residences during the great cholera season of 1832. Small street and St. Mary street were cleaned out, and fences were put across to prevent persons from going into them. . . . men, women, and children, black and white, barefooted, lame, and blind, half-naked and dirty, carrying old stools, broken chairs, thin-legged tables, and bundles of beds and bed clothing to their summer retreat on the common! (5) (Note: A “common” is open land belonging to the community.)

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3 July 1834: “Bethel Church Minute& Trial Book.”

The city and surrounding districts suffered epidemic-after-epidemic of Cholera in the 1830s. No one in the medical community knew how infectious diseases were spread. We now know the cause of the disease was drinking water fouled with human feces. However, most of the population believed the cause of the disease was miasma or poisonous vapors. White racists believed African Americans naturally gave off these vapors, especially in overcrowded neighborhoods. The editor of the most popular newspaper in Philadelphia called Small Street “a wretched place” and a “crowded sink [cesspool] of filth.” He went even further to warn white city leaders that Small Street likely would be the epicenter of a plague on the scale that destroyed London in 1666. He was raising the fear of the Black Death caused by the African Americans on Small Street. The home of Rev. Corr and his family. 

“TO SMALL STREET TO SMALL STREET!!”

After the demonization of Small Street as the devil’s den, it is no surprise what happened next. On the second night of the “Flying Horse” rioting in July of 1834, the frenzied white mob of thousands turned its attention to the homes of Rev. Corr and his neighbors, chanting “To Small Street, To Small Street” as they advanced. 

The mob tore into the homes pillaging, breaking windows and destroying everything in the tenements including furniture and bedding. Most of the residents already had fled, probably into the adjoining fields and marshes of Moyamensing. Those that remained were severely beaten and an unknown number killed and their bodies mutilated. At one point, the mob captured a Black man and surrounded him, chanting “Kill him – beat him – place him under the pump.” The last call was for the water torturing of a human being. 

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” . . another gap was made in the ranks of the early pioneers.”

5 August 1835 “Bethel Church Minute & Trial Book.” This was two months before his death.

We know that the Corr family survived the invasion and assault. We don’t know what they came back to at #75 Small Street. Sadly, Rev. Corr would succumb to Tuberculosis fourteen months later on October 18th in 1835. He was only twenty-eight-years-old.

Rev. Corr’s funeral service was preached in Bethel Church by Bishop Morris Brown. He quoted from Revelations 14-13: 

“And I heard a voice from heaven saying unto me, Write, Blessed are the dead which die in the Lord from henceforth: Yea, saith the Spirit, that they may rest from their labours; and their works do follow them.” (7)

“EMELINE CORR”

Shortly after burying her husband at Bethel Burying Ground, Ms. Corr moved to the 600 block of South Street on the southern border of the city, according to the 1838 Philadelphia African American Census. It appears that Joseph Corr left four children fatherless, three of whom were attending school in 1838. The Census also reveals that Ms. Corr formerly had been enslaved and gained her freedom for $100. All the children were born in Pennsylvania. 

The 1838 census reported that Ms. Corr was a “dealer.” In my experience, this usually means a baker or a dealer in cakes, pies or confectionary when it refers to a woman. On occasion, it also has meant a proprietor of a used clothing store. Whatever she was “dealing,” it appears that Ms. Corr was very successful. As mentioned above, she reported her personal wealth in 1838 at $600 or $16,200 in present-day currency. A small fortune for a single Black woman during this time.   

The last mention in the public record of Ms. Corr that I can locate is in the 1870 Philadelphia City Directory.

wid = widow

REFERENCES

(1) “History of the African Methodist Episcopal Church” by Daniel A. Payne, p. 59.

(2) Ibid., 43.

(3) Ibid., v.

(4) 1870 Philadelphia City Directory.

(5) Annals of Philadelphia, and Pennsylvania in the olden time; being a collection of memoirs, anecdotes, and incidents of the city and its inhabitants, and of the earliest settlements of the inland part of Pennsylvania by John F. Watson, v.3, p 3.

(5) Poulson’s American Daily Advertiser, 22 August 1832.

(6) Daily Pennsylvanian, 15 August 1834. 

(7) An outline of our history and government for African Methodist Churchmen, ministerial, and lay: in catechetical form: two parts by Rev. Benjamin T. Tanner, p. 159. Below is Rev. Tanner’s full entry on Rev. Cox.

The ten-month-old son of Thomas Miller died this date, October 14th, in 1849 of Hydrocephalus and was buried at Bethel Burying Ground. Mr. Miller worked as a hod carrier, now known as a brick carrier. The 1847 Philadelphia African American Census is the only census information we have on the Miller family. It appears the deceased child had two brothers under five-years-old.

We don’t know Ms. Miller’s first name because the family is not recorded in the 1850 U.S. Census. The reason for this may be that the family changed residences during this period from #25 Prosperous Alley to #18 Burd’s Court. Both were near the southern border of the city. The 1847 Census reported Ms. Miller was employed as a washerwoman. Undoubtedly, the Black families in 19^th century Philadelphia would have “been reduced to utter destitution had it not been for the labor of the mother as a washerwoman.” Almost 50% of the working Black women in 1849 were “engaged in washing and ironing or day work.”*

Washing clothes for a living was a job that taxed 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 this in the wilting heat and freezing cold, while taking care of children, shopping for and preparing the family’s meals, and, on occasion, while pregnant. It was an undertaking for only the strong and strong-willed. 

At some time during 1850, the Miller family moved from Prosperous Alley (yellow arrow) to Burd’s Court (red arrow).

A survey of Philadelphia newspapers of the era shows that Prosperous Alley had become a high crime rate area and also had more incidents of death from contagious diseases. While Burd’s Court, only a city block away, appeared to be a more stable living environment. This may have influenced the family’s move.

The above is a current view of Burd’s Court now Adler Street looking south. It runs from Locust Street to Spruce Street between 10th and 11th Streets. That is Spruce Street in the distance. (Photo by T. Buckalew)

*The Negro Wage Earner by Lorenzo J. Greene and Carter G. Woodson, p.4.

The original death certificate for the child no longer exists. The above is the Board of Heath weekly summary.

The five-year-old child of Lewis and Elizabeth Roberts died this date, October 13th, in 1828 of Bilious Fever.* The child’s first name and gender are not recorded. Nine years later, the 1830 U.S. Census (below) reports that there is a total of seven individuals in the Roberts family and all were not native to Pennsylvania. Mr. Roberts did not appear in the Philadelphia city directories until 1837. 

The 1830 U.S. Census

In 1837, according to the African American Census, Mr. Roberts was employed as a porter while Ms. Roberts was employed as a dressmaker. There was another adult woman in the household who worked as a milliner or a women’s hatmaker. The family lived at #29 Currant Alley, for which they paid $5.50 a month. That amount would be close to what Mr. Roberts would earn in a week. 

Currant Alley (red pin) was located between Spruce and Locust Streets and 10th and 11th Streets.

The star indicates the two-block long Currant Alley.

Ninety-six Black families lived in the densely packed Currant Alley, with a staggering total of three hundred twenty-one Black 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.

Philadelphia Board of Health records show that the Roberts family child was one of 119 Philadelphians to die of Bilious Fever in 1828. Lewis and Elizabeth Roberts buried their child on an Indian Summer day at Bethel Burying Ground.

The 12-hour-old twins of Mary Ann and Isaac Webber were born and died on this date, October 10th, in 1824 and were buried at Bethel Burying Ground. Ms. Webber delivered a boy and girl after only seven months of pregnancy. Sadly, Ms. Webber would die fourteen-months later of Typhus Fever. She was buried at Bethel Burying Ground with her children – see below.

Mary Ann Webber was twenty-five-years-old at the time of her death. Mr. Webber was twenty-eight-years-old. The family lived at 290 South 7th Street.

It appears from census records that Mr. Webb remarried a woman whose first name was also “Mary.” The 1837 Philadelphia African American Census shows this couple living in a room on Osborne’s Court with four other individuals. The family paid approximately $2.85 per month in rent. Mr. Webber worked as a porter, likely making $3-$5 a week. Ms. Webber was employed as a seamstress, likely making around $2 a week.

Only two of the six family members were born in Pennsylvania. There were three children, two of whom were attending school. The family worshipped at Bethel A.M.E. Church.

Although working poor, it appears that Mr. Webber had fought back from filing for “Insolvency” (bankruptcy) in 1830.*

The red pin in the map above shows the location of Osborn’s Court located near both Pennsylvania Hospital and Washington Square. Osborn’s Court is now named Darien Street.

A 1945 photograph of Darien Street.

The 1850 U.S. Census shows Isaac and Mary Webber in their early 50s with six-year-old Mary A. Watson. The child may be a grandchild, named after her deceased maternal grandmother.

I was unable to find death certificates for either Isaac or Mary Webber.

The graves of Mary Ann Webber and her children still exist in the Bethel Burying Ground.

*Philadelphia Inquirer, 12 January 1830.

The nine-month-old unnamed daughter of Susan and Horatio Fleming died this date, September 29th, in 1854 of Marasmus* and was buried at Bethel Burying Ground. Ms. Fleming was thirty-two years of age at the time of her child’s death while Mr. Fleming was thirty-nine-years-old, according to the 1850 U.S. Census. She was born in Pennsylvania while he was born in Delaware. They had another child, Elizabeth, who was born in Pennsylvania and was four-years-old at the time of her sister’s death.

The red pin illustrates the location of the Fleming home in Joy Alley. The red arrow illustrates the location of Bethel A.M.E. Church at 6th and Lombard Streets.

The Fleming family lived in one room on very small Joy Alley, located just off Lombard Street between 10th and 11th Streets. Mr. Fleming worked as a waiter and Ms. Fleming in the home. In 1854, Philadelphians were in the fourth year of a Cholera epidemic. In that year alone, 1,446 adults and children would die from the disease.** It is likely that the Fleming child died from this awful illness.

Philadelphia Inquirer, 24 January 1848

In addition to the wave of deadly disease threatening the Black community, there was the ever-present racial violence. There was organized violence in the form of the large white mobs marauding through the Black neighborhoods, killing and burning Black people’s homes, churches and halls. And then there were neighborhood gangs. The vicious white gangs with the names of ‘Killers’ and ‘Stingers’ who would randomly target Blacks walking home from church, work, or the market. The Flemings’ neighborhood was infamous for the latter. In addition, the 10th and Lombard intersection was the site of numerous pitched battles between the notoriously violent white volunteer fire companies that the police couldn’t or wouldn’t break up. If you are an African American man or women in 1854 with gangs of white men outside your door, knifing and shooting each other, you had to fear for your life and the safety of your family every day.***

The Flemings buried their daughter at Bethel Burying Ground on a fair-weather day in late September 1854. And bizarrely, on the same day, the P.T. Barnum Circus Menagerie paraded through the city, passing through the 10th and Lombard neighborhood. (Philadelphia Inquirer, 30 September 1854)

*Marasmus was a general term for not being able to take in and/or utilize nutrition. 

**A Documentary and Bibliographic Study of Philadelphia’s Growth by Susan E.            Klepp.

***Philadelphia Inquirer, 2 May 1849; Public Ledger, 7 October 1850.

One-year-old Levi Palmer died this date, September 28th, in 1849 from “inward weakness of the lungs” and was buried at Bethel Burying Ground. Doctor Stikes, an herbalist, misspelled the last name. He has it as ‘Pamer.’ Census records have it as ‘Palmer.’ 

The child’s father also was named ‘Levi,’ according to the death certificate. Mr. Palmer was born in Delaware and was in his early 30s at the time of his son’s death, according to the 1860 U.S. Census. There is no record of Mr. Levi participating in the 1850 U.S. Census, so we do not have the name of the child’s mother. In the 1860 Census, Mr. Levi is single. I could find no death certificate for the child’s mother.

The red pin illustrates the location of the Palmer home that is next to the vast open-air Second Street Market.

In 1847, the Palmer family lived in a small room at 162 Lombard Street for which they paid $3.33 a month. Mr. Palmer was employed as a hog (brick) carrier for which he may have earned $4-$5 a week. Ms. Palmer worked as a domestic and may have made $1-$2 a week at the most. Little Levi was their only child. 

The Second Street Market was a vital part of the community. The street-wide two-block long structure ran from Pine Street to South Street. The structure contained designated stalls for everything from fresh produce, meats, bread, cakes, and seafood to household items such as brooms and soaps. However, when the sun went down and the vendors closed up shop, the giant shed turned into a clubhouse for violent criminals and savage white gangs determined to eradicate Blacks from the city. This was occurring at their front door. Law enforcement was irrelevant. The Black community was on its own. 

One-year-old Levi Palmer died on a late day in September where the weather was “fair” with a “drying wind.” The temperature rose to 77 degrees in the afternoon from a low of 57 degrees at sunrise. 

One-hundred-year-old Rebecca Miller died this day, September 23rd, in 1847 of “old age.” The 1837 African American Census shows that she was a widow and worked as a laundress. Ms. Miller was freeborn and worshipped at Bethel A.M.E. Church. There is no indication, from surviving records, that Ms. Miller’s deceased spouse was interred at Bethel Burying Ground. 

Ms. Rebecca Miller lived at #3 Gray’s Alley (red arrow) located near the intersection of 2nd and Walnut Streets very near the Delaware River. 

For many years, Ms. Miller lived in the rear of #3 Gray’s Alley near 2nd and Walnut. The building was the business address of Samuel Moss and Son, a very prosperous import business. Ms. Miller lived in the back of this building in a converted horse stall or pig pen with dirt floors. Ms. Miller is not listed by name in the 1847 Philadelphia African American Census. However, an educated guess puts her sharing a 10′ x 10′ room at #3 Gray’s Alley with Ms. Anna Brown who was employed as a domestic. It appears that, with the addition of Ms. Brown, Ms. Miller started residing in the building after it had been transformed into a tenement. The 1847 Census shows that the women paid $1.45 a month in rent for their room – that was probably more than Ms. Brown earned in a week. There is no evidence that Ms. Miller was still employed at the time of her death.

Rebecca Miller was born in Philadelphia in 1747, forty-two years before George Washington was sworn in as president of the new United States of America. To understand what Ms. Miller experienced is unfathomable. In 1763, when she was twenty-six-years-old, did she see or smell the slave ship Africa with its cargo of one-hundred kidnapped Black men, women, and children from the coast of Guinea sail up the Delaware River? Slaver Thomas Riche of Philadelphia would yearly “import” a quantity of rum, Madeira, sugar, and humans. *

Pennsylvania Journal, 4 October 1763

In 1806, when she was sixty-nine years old, did she see the twelve-year-old enslaved Black boy that was “lightly dressed and barefoot” walking in Philadelphia with a locked iron collar around his neck “and from each side of it an iron bow passed over his head?” Did their eyes meet? As a child, did she pass John Coats’ brickyard in the Northern Liberties District and see all the enslaved Black men locked in iron collars with shackles to keep them from escaping? She surely witnessed the slave auctions at the London Coffee House, only several blocks from her home.**

Philadelphia’s slave market

Rebecca Miller, in her 101st year, died on a late September day in 1847 and was buried at Bethel Burying Ground. The day started out chilly and foggy but, as the day went on, the sun came out and the temperature rose to a comfortable seventy-four degrees.

*Freedom by Degrees: Emancipation in Pennsylvania and its Aftermath by G. Nash and J. Soderlund, p. 26; Pennsylvania Journal, 4 Oct 1764.

**In 1761-1762, the colonial government of Pennsylvania decided to levy a duty on all kidnapped Africans coming into Port Philadelphia. This was done to stymie the trade. To avoid the extra cost, the slave traders would unload their human cargo in Camden, New Jersey, across the Delaware River from Philadelphia. Those who desired to buy the Africans would travel across and then transport the men, women, and children by ferry to Philadelphia’s slave market. In doing this, they would incur the duty themselves. (Documents Illustrative of the History of the Slave by Elizabeth Donnon, vol. III, pp. 453-455.)