It was a warm Saturday morning in early Spring and workers were dismantling the old Bethel A.M.E. Church that had stood since 1805. The congregation had raised the funds to build a larger church to accommodate the growing number of worshippers.
Unfortunately, the workers were making a terrible mistake. They were sawing away the heavy beams that held up the southern half of the church’s roof and the entire southern wall of the large structure. A narrow alley separated the southern wall from three tenements that were home to scores of Black family members. The church wall fell collapsing and burying the apartment buildings. Three people were killed, and scores were severely wounded. Those who lost their lives were buried at Bethel Burying Ground. (1)
The above illustration is a likeness of Bethel Church as it stood in 1841. The red arrow points to the southern wall. The black arrow points to the beginning of the tenements. Ms. Hannah Harrison was in her apartment doing laundry when her building collapsed. She was forty years of age. Tragically, her eleven-year-old son David was with her and was killed. We do not know where seven-year-old Mary Evans was when she was killed. The newspapers reported that there was a group of children playing in the alley shortly before the accident. She could have been one of that group.
The city coroner ruled the incident an accident and no criminal charges were brought. (2)
- National Gazette, 5 May 1841, p.3.
- “Pennsylvania Deaths and Burials, 1720-1999”, , FamilySearch (https://www.familysearch.org/ark:/61903/1:1:H5NM-W3T2 : Sun Mar 10 10:32:30 UTC 2024), Entry for Hannah Harrison, 1 May 1841.