Charles List

Quick Facts

Significance:

Secretary of the Boston Vigilance Committee, Lawyer

Place of Birth:

Germany

Date of Birth:

1823

Place of Death:

Melrose, Massachusetts

Date of Death:

April 16, 1856

Place of Burial:

Cambridge, Massachusetts

Cemetery Name:

Mount Auburn Cemetery

A "zealous abolitionist,"¹ Charles List served as the secretary of the 1850 Boston Vigilance Committee.

Born in Germany in 1823, Charles List came to America as a young boy. After finishing his education, List worked as an attorney in Samuel E. Sewall’s law office in Boston.² On June 20, 1848, List married Harriet Winslow of Portland, Maine.³

While in Boston, List grew active in Boston’s abolitionist community.⁴ Additionally, List worked alongside Elizur Wright as an assistant editor of The Commonwealth magazine.⁵

Following the passage of the Fugitive Slave Act of 1850, List served as secretary for the third iteration of the Boston Vigilance Committee.⁶ This organization of Black and white abolitionists provided shelter, money, legal counsel, and other forms of assistance to freedom seekers in Boston to prevent against their arrest and return to slavery. List not only supported the organization as its secretary—he also provided essential legal counsel for freedom seekers and fellow abolitionists.

In 1851, List volunteered alongside Samuel E. Sewall, Ellis Gray Loring, Richard Henry Dana Jr., and Robert Morris to defend the freedom seeker Shadrach Minkins.⁷ As one of the first to arrive to see Minkins after his arrest, List critically advised him to only speak with his lawyers.⁸ After the court had adjourned, Black Bostonians staged a daring rescue and successfully escorted Minkins out of the city to safety. Later, List defended Joseph K. Hayes, Thomas P. Smith, and Lewis Hayden in their trials for "aiding and abetting" in the rescue of Minkins at the courthouse.⁹

Not long after Minkins' rescue, authorities also arrested freedom seeker Thomas Sims in Boston. List devised a plan in an attempt to remove Sims from the United States Marshal’s custody. He filed a complaint against Sims for having assaulted a police officer, hoping the Marshal would surrender Sims to the state.¹⁰ A newspaper commented on List’s plan:

There is a little inconsistency, too, in Mr. List’s conduct. He took part in the proceedings of a meeting last week, where the fugitive slaves were advised to slay their pursuers; and now he comes forth voluntarily and prefers a criminal charge against Sims for doing that which Wendell Phillips counselled on the Common.¹¹

List hoped that this plan would keep Sims in Massachusetts and prevent his return to slavery, even if it meant that Sims would spend time in jail.¹² Ultimately, List’s plan failed—the Marshal refused to give Sims up.¹³

List’s contributions to the abolitionist movement, unfortunately, ended with his premature death in 1856. List died at 33 years old in Melrose, Massachusetts, after battling a lymphatic disease for several years. His obituary in the National Anti-Slavery Standard wrote that List "was a man of much culture and great propriety of character, and had the respect of all who knew him. He leaves a wife, but no children."¹⁴ List's remains are interred at Mount Auburn Cemetery in a plot with his wife Harriet Winslow and her second husband, Samuel E. Sewall.¹⁵
 

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Footnotes

1. Charles List is mapped at his location on the Vigilance Committee broadside, 46 Washington Street. Liberator, April 25, 1856, 3.
2. Ednah D. Cheney and Harriet Winslow Sewall, Poems by Harriet Winslow Sewall with a Memoir by Ednah D. Cheney, (Cambridge: Riverside Press, 1889), xix
3. Massachusetts Ploughman and New England Journal of Agriculture, July 1, 1848, 2
4. National Anti-Slavery Standard, May 4, 1848, 2; National Anti-Slavery Standard, August 31, 1848, 2; “An Appeal for Justice,” National Anti-Slavery Standard, 3; Liberator, December 1, 1848, 2.
5. Liberator, November 28, 1851, 2.
6. Liberator, November 8, 1850, 4; Boston Evening Transcript, November 2, 1850, 1.
7. Austin Bearse, Reminiscences of Fugitive Slave Law Days in Boston, (Boston: Warren Richardson, 1880), 17.
8. Gary Collison, Shadrach Minkins: From Fugitive Slave to Citizen, (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1997), 115-116.
9. Boston Evening Transcript, February 21, 1851, 2; Boston Evening Transcript, February 27, 1851, 2; Boston Evening Transcript, February 28, 1851, 2; Boston Evening Transcript, March 3, 1851, 2.
10. Richmond Daily Times, April 15, 1851, 3; Southern Press, April 11, 1851, 3; The Washington Union, April 16, 1851, 1.
11. Richmond Daily Times, April 15, 1851, 3.
12. Leonard W. Levy, “Sims’ Case: The Fugitive Slave Law in Boston in 1851,” The Journal of Negro History 35, no.1 (1950): 62, https://doi.org/10.2307/2715559.
13. The Washington Union, April 16, 1851, 1.
14. National Anti-Slavery Standard, April 26, 1856, 3.
15. “Charles Lest,” Find a Grave, https://www.findagrave.com/memorial/199900707/charles-lest.