Boston Black Heritage Trail

The Robert Gould Shaw and Massachusetts 54th Regiment Memorial commemorates one of the first African American regiments of the Civil War. Following his Emancipation Proclamation in 1863, President Lincoln called for the raising of Black regiments. Massachusetts Governor John Andrew soon created the Massachusetts 54th Volunteer Infantry and chose Robert Gould Shaw, the son of prominent abolitionists, to serve as its colonel.As home to the African Meeting House and the Abiel Smith School, Smith Court served as a vital center of African American life and culture for much of the nineteenth and earlier twentieth century in Boston. The residences along Smith Court also provide a valuable window into the lives of the African Americans who called this neighborhood home. Residents of 3 Smith Court, James Scott and William Cooper Nell, both sheltered freedom seekers in the 1850s.John J. Smith, a barber, community activist, and state legislator became a leading community activist and ran a barbershop that became a center for abolitionist activity. Smith played a crucial role in helping Shadrach Minkins, a freedom seeker arrested in Boston under the provisions of the 1850 Fugitive Slave Law. In a daring rescue, Black Bostonians freed Minkins from the courthouse where the slave catchers held him and helped him make his way to freedom in Canada. Smith and his wife, Georgiana, also participated in the equal school rights movements of the 1850s. Their daughter, Elizabeth, became the first person of African descent to teach in an integrated public school in Boston. During the Civil War, Smith recruited for the Black Massachusetts regiments and the 5th Calvary. He later served in the Massachusetts House of Representatives for three terms, as well as on the Boston Common Council.

George Middleton and Louis Glapion began constructing this two-family residence at 5 Pinckney Street in 1786. Finished a year later, this building is believed to be the oldest standing home on Beacon Hill. Louis Glapion worked as a hairdresser and may have been from the French West Indies. During the Revolution, George Middleton led a Black militia company called the Bucks of America. While little evidence of this group has survived, they likely guarded the property of Boston merchants during the Revolution. A horse breaker and livery man by profession, Middleton also served in several Black community organizations. He became the third Grand Master of the African Lodge, later known as the Prince Hall Masons. Middleton and others also organized the African Society, a charitable organization dedicated to community service, uplift, and education. As a community leader, George Middleton helped build some of the early institutions and organizations in the long history of Black activism on Beacon Hill.

Built in 1824, this building originally served as the Boston English High School. It became the Phillips Grammar School in 1844, named after Boston’s first mayor, John Phillips. Until 1855, the Phillips School, like most public schools in the city, only educated White students. Black students attended segregated schools nearby, including one in the basement of the African Meeting House and then later at the Abiel Smith School. Equal School Rights activists such as William Cooper Nell, Lewis Hayden, Benjamin Roberts, and others led protests and petition drives that ultimately compelled the state legislature outlaw segregated schools in Massachusetts in 1855. Following this landmark victory, the Phillips School become one of the first public schools in Boston with an interracial student body.

Built in 1807, this building originally housed the Third Baptist Church. In April 1836, member Timothy Gilbert tested the church’s racial segregation policy by inviting several African Americans to join him in his pew. The church immediately expelled Gilbert for this violation. He soon set out with several other members to form the First Free Baptist Church, which became officially recognized in 1839. In 1876, the First African Methodist Episcopal congregation purchased the Charles Street Meeting House. This prompted one historian to note while African Americans once sat in one section of the church, "now they own the building." The Meeting House also served as a forum and gathering place for activists. For example, in 1895 Josephine St. Pierre Ruffin and other Black clubwomen formed the National Federation of Afro-American women, a precursor to the National Association of Colored Women. The AME congregation held services in this location until 1939, becoming the last Black institution to leave Beacon Hill.

The Lewis and Harriet Hayden House served as the preeminent Underground Railroad safe house in Boston during the 1850s. In the 1840s, the Haydens escaped slavery in Kentucky and eventually settled here. They lived in this house by 1850, operated it as a boardinghouse, and turned it into one of the most documented safe houses in the area. The Haydens notably assisted in high-profile Fugitive Slave Law cases, helping William and Ellen Craft as well as Shadrach Minkins on their journeys to freedom. In addition to their Underground Railroad work, Lewis and Harriet played other prominent roles in the community. Lewis served as Grand Master of the Prince Hall Masons, presided over numerous community meetings, and participated in the Equal Schools movement. During the Civil War, he recruited Black soldiers for the Massachusetts regiments. Following the War, Lewis Hayden served as one of the first Black members of the state legislature and, along with Harriet, lent his support in the fight for women’s suffrage.

Clothes dealer and community activist John P. Coburn and his family lived at this home beginning in 1844. In addition to his clothing shop, limited evidence suggests that Coburn may have ran a gaming house for wealthy Bostonians in his house. Coburn served as the treasurer of the New England Freedom Association, an organization dedicated to assisting freedom seekers who escaped slavery and came to Boston on the Underground Railroad. In 1851, authorities arrested, though later acquitted, Coburn for his alleged role in aiding in the courthouse rescue of Shadrach Minkins. Along with other community leaders in the 1850s, Coburn founded the Massasoit Guards, an unsanctioned Black militia. Militia groups such the Massasoit Guards can be considered precursors to the Black Civil War regiments, including the famous 54th Massachusetts. Coburn died in 1873 and his home passed to his son Wendell, whose widow, Mary, lived in the house until the turn of the twentieth century.

The Abiel Smith School opened in 1835 and served as the segregated public school for Black children in Boston for twenty years. Prior to this, Black students attended school at the African School on the ground floor of the African Meeting House. Overcrowded and underfunded, the Smith School became the focal point in the Black community’s ongoing struggle for Equal School Rights in the 1840s and 1850s. William Cooper Nell led the charge against the segregated Smith School, facing opposition from Whites and well as from some in his own community. Over the course of more than 15 years, through a series of local petitions, protests, court cases, and ultimately a state-wide petition, Nell and others successfully convinced the legislature to outlaw public school segregation in 1855. Today, the Smith School houses the Museum Store and exhibition galleries of the Museum of African American History.Built in 1806, the Meeting House stands as the oldest surviving Black church structure in the nation. It first served as the home for the First African Baptist Church. It also housed the African School for a number of years before the Smith School opened next door, and it hosted numerous community lectures, celebrations, and adult education classes. The Meeting House also served as a gathering space for social activism. Maria Stewart, William Cooper Nell, Lewis Hayden, John Smith, John Coburn, and others used its platform to fight for equal school rights, the end of slavery, and for civil rights. During the Civil War, the Meeting House became a recruitment center for the MA 54th Regiment. A Black church and community center until the end of the 1800s, it became a synagogue in 1904. In 1972, the Meeting House was purchased by the Museum of African American History, who continues to own and operate it today.