Charles B. Adams

Quick Facts

Significance:

Member of the 1850 Boston Vigilance Committee

Place of Birth:

Unknown

Date of Birth:

Unknown

Place of Death:

Unknown

Date of Death:

Unknown

According to the membership roster in Austin Bearse's Reminiscences of the Fugitive Slave Law Days in Boston, Charles B. Adams participated as a member of the Boston Vigilance Committee.¹

Bostonians founded this iteration of the Vigilance Committee in 1850 in response to the passage of the new Fugitive Slave Law. This controversial law empowered enslavers and their agents to capture and return freedom seekers to bondage with the full backing of the federal government. It also mandated the assistance of local and state officials and the public at large. Adams and others in the Vigilance Committee provided funds, shelter, transportation, medical attention, and other assistance to freedom seekers escaping enslavement on the Underground Railroad.

Little is known about the Charles B. Adams mentioned in Bearse's list. He may have been a "stair builder," as the 1850 Boston City Directory and subsequent year directories document a Charles B. Adams with this occupation living at 13 Bridge Street.² According to historian Gary Collison, the Vigilance Committee included many skilled tradesmen such as carpenters and housewrights.³ Though he fits this profile, local newspapers in the 1850s do not appear to mention this Charles B. Adams again. Therefore, we cannot identify any other activity this Adams may have been involved in that indicate his beliefs towards slavery, abolition, or the Fugitive Slave Law.

Even though no newspapers seem to document the Charles B. Adams who lived on Bridge Street, they do reveal a different man with the same name living on Washington Street in 1851. According to a November 17, 1851 Boston Daily Mail article, Charlotte M. Adams, a dressmaker, reported that her husband "Mr. Charles B. Adams of No 379 1-2 Washington street, left home last evening, about quarter past 6 o'clock for the purpose of attending a meeting of the Free Soil party, and has not been heard of since."⁴

The Free Soil Party focused its attention on stopping the expansion of slavery into the western territories of the United States. It is conceivable that an anti-slavery leaning participant in a Free Soil Party meeting may have also been an active member of the Boston Vigilance Committee. The Vigilance Committee represented a diverse cross section of radical abolitionists and more moderate antislavery activists such as members of the Free Soil movement.

This Charles B. Adams eventually made his way home following the Freedom Soil Party meeting. City Directory Records from 1853 show him and Charlotte living at 300 Washington Street.⁵ He lived until 1875 and left his estate to Charlotte, his wife of nearly thirty years. His obituary referred to him as "one of the old merchants of Boston," but mentioned nothing of his political affiliations and possible work in the Vigilance Committee.⁶ According to Collison, however, "By far, the largest and most varied group," of Vigilance Committee members, "consisted of merchants and store keepers."⁷

While these are two promising candidates for the Charles B. Adams listed in Bearse's Vigilance Committee roster, we can not yet confirm this member's story based on evidence uncovered so far.

If you are a researcher or descendent of either of these Charles B. Adams or can provide any further details of a different Charles B. Adams who participated in the Vigilance Committee, please reach out to us at [e-mail].

Footnotes

1. Austin Bearse, Reminisces of the Fugitive Slave Law Days (Warren Richardson, 1880), 3, Archive.org.
2. Boston Directory, 1850-1851 (Boston: Published by George Adams, 1850), Boston Athenaeum, 70. This Adams also appears living at 13 Bridge Street in the 1854, Boston City Directory; Boston Directory, 1854 (Boston: Published by George Adams, 1854), Boston Athenaeum, 17.
3. Gary Collison, “The Boston Vigilance Committee: A Reconsideration,” Historical Journal of Massachusetts 12, no. 2 (June 1984), 110.
4. "News Article," Boston Daily Mail, November 17, 1851, GenealogyBank.
5. Boston Directory, 1853 (Boston: Published by George Adams, 1853), Boston Athenaeum, 48.
6. Boston Daily Advertiser, March 27, 1875.
7. Collison, 110.