Amos W. Locke

Quick Facts

Significance:

Collector, Boston Vigilance Committee

Boston collector Amos W. Locke served on the 1850 Boston Vigilance Committee.

Following the passage of the Fugitive Slave Law in 1850, Bostonians formed the third and final iteration of the Boston Vigilance Committee. This organization assisted freedom seekers coming to and through Boston on the Underground Railroad. 

The official broadside of the Vigilance Committee listed Amos W. Locke as a member with his address at 4 Allen Court. The 1851 Boston City Directory recorded Locke at this address and working as a collector. He does not appear in the directory at this address in previous or subsequent years. The only other Boston resident named Amos W. Locke who appeared in the directory during this timeframe worked as an advertising agent and lived on Broadway Street in 1853. It is unclear if this is same person.¹

Though his whereabouts and profession are unknown except during the year 1851, Amos W. Locke served on the 1850 Vigilance Committee. His contributions to the organization, however, remain unknown. 

If you are a researcher or descendant of Amos W. Locke and can provide any further details of his life and work with the Boston Vigilance Committee, please e-mail us. 

Footnotes:

1. "Members of the Committee of Vigilance," broadside printed by John Wilson, 1850, Massachusetts Historical Society; Austin Bearse, Remininscences of Fugitive Slave Law Days in Boston, (Boston: Warren Richardson, 1880), 4; George Adams, Boston City Directory, 1851,154, 1853, 175.