Benjamin W. Gage

Quick Facts

Significance:

Merchant, 1850 Boston Vigilance Committee

Place of Birth:

Charlestown, Massachusetts

Date of Birth:

March 22, 1808

Place of Death:

Charlestown, Massachusetts

Date of Death:

December 27, 1875

Place of Burial:

Cambridge, Massachusetts

Cemetery Name:

Mount Auburn Cemetery

Boston merchant Benjamin W. Gage served on the 1850 Boston Vigilance Committee.

Born in 1808, Benjamin Webster Gage grew up in Charlestown, Massachusetts. In 1836, he married Caroline J. Oakes and had two children with her. After his first wife's death in 1861, Gage later married Anna Roby. A merchant and importer, Gage operated a large crockery-ware store on Washington Street in downtown Boston.¹

In 1850, Gage became involved in the Boston Vigilance Committee. In the wake of the new Fugitive Slave Law, Bostonians gathered at Faneuil Hall and formed this organization to assist those escaping slavery on the Underground Railroad. Although appointed to the committee at this meeting, Gage's specific contributions to the organization remain unknown.²

Gage also showed his support for Underground Railroad activity outside of Boston by donating to the Chaplin Fund. Authorities arrested William L. Chaplin in 1850 for helping two freedom seekers try to escape from Washington, D.C. Abolitionists throughout the country, including Gage, raised money for Chaplin's bail and defense.³

A lifelong resident of Charlestown, Gage passed away at age 67 in 1875. His remains are buried in Mount Auburn Cemetery in Cambridge.⁴

If you are a researcher or descendent of Benjamin W. Gage and can provide further details of his work in the Vigilance Committee, please e-mail us.

Footnotes

1. New England Historic Genealogical Society; Boston, Massachusetts; Massachusetts Vital Records, 1840???1911 Source Information, Ancestry.com. Massachusetts, U.S., Death Records, 1841-1915 [database on-line]. Provo, UT, USA:, New Hampshire, U.S., Marriage Records Index, 1637-1947 [database on-line]. Provo, UT, USA:; Joseph Platt Howard, Abraham Howard of Marblehead, Mass. and his descendants, (New York: Privately Printed, 1897), 54; George Adams, Boston City Directory, 1850-1851, 163. The Directory states Gage's business address as 144 Washington Street, which is in the general area around Old South Meeting House at the time. NPS maps geo-locate Gage at the approximate location of his business.
2. "Fugitive Slave Meeting," Boston Evening Transcript, October 15, 1850, 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.
3. "Collections," Liberator, October 4, 1850, p 3; The case of William L. Chaplin: being an appeal to all respecters of law and justice, against the cruel and oppressive treatment to which, under color of legal proceedings, he has been subjected, in the District of Columbia and the state of Maryland (Boston: Published by the Chaplin Committee, 1851) Pdf, https://www.loc.gov/item/06043475/.
4. "Benjamin Webster Gage," Find a Grave Memorial, accessed August 2024.