Edmund Quincy

Edmund Quincy, 1875

Massachusetts Historical Society

Quick Facts

Significance:

Boston Vigilance Committee member, abolitionist, author

Place of Birth:

Boston, Massachusetts

Date of Birth:

February 1, 1808

Place of Death:

Dedham, Massachusetts

Date of Death:

May 17, 1877

Place of Burial:

Cambridge, Massachusetts

Cemetery Name:

Mount Auburn Cemetery

As “one of the ablest and most effective contributors to the anti-slavery press,”¹ Edmund Quincy devoted himself to the abolitionist movement in Boston. 

Born on February 1, 1808, in Boston, Edmund Quincy grew up as the second son of politician Josiah Quincy. Quincy’s father served as a United States Representative, the Mayor of Boston, and then president of Harvard University. The “atmosphere of literature and culture”² in Quincy’s home gave Edmund his interest in literature, however, he later pursued law as a student at Harvard College. Despite passing the bar after his graduation, Quincy stopped pursuing the legal profession—rather, he contributed to various literary papers and magazines. Quincy married Lucilla Pinckney Parker in 1833.³

Emboldened by the murder of Elijah Lovejoy in 1837, Quincy, became “one of the earliest and most earnest abolitionists.”⁴ He soon began working as an editor and administrator for various antislavery organizations and papers. Quincy served as secretary to both the Massachusetts Anti-Slavery Society and the American Anti-Slavery Society and published their reports. A close friend of William Lloyd Garrison, he edited The Liberator in times of Garrison’s absence; Quincy also wrote as a weekly contributor to the National Anti-Slavery Standard.⁵

Quincy joined Garrison in supporting non-resistance, the discouragement of using physical violence to resist authority. Alongside Maria Weston Chapman, Quincy edited Non-Resistant, the paper of the Non-Resistance Society.⁶

In 1850, following the passage of a new Fugitive Slave Law, Bostonians formed the third and final iteration of the Boston Vigilance Committee. Quincy served as a member of the organization, which dedicated itself to aiding freedom seekers coming to and through Boston on the Underground Railroad.⁷ 

Quincy used his writing to garner public support and attention to the efforts of the Vigilance Committee. In response to the successful rescue of Shadrach Minkins, a freedom seeker arrested in Boston under the Fugitive Slave Act, Quincy published an editorial in The Liberator about the raid. He compared Shadrach’s rescuers to Massachusetts’ revolutionary figures: 

Well, Mr. Slave-Jailer Riley not keeping his jail fast enough, some fifty, or, at the outside, hundred colored men open the door without hurting anybody, and the Boston Shadrach walks quietly out of the jaws of the fiery furnace...Now there is no question these colored men had violated the law of the United States, and were liable to suffer its penalties, if they could be found out. That, we presume, they knew, and had made up their minds to before they undertook the expedition. Just as Hancock and the ‘brace of Adamses,’ when they undertook to violate the laws of Great Britain, in obedience to the higher law of their generation, knew both what they were doing and the penal consequences of their acts, should they be taken by King George III.⁸

Quincy’s older brother, Josiah, paid Robert Morris’ bail after his arrest for participating in the courthouse raid.⁹

Quincy also dedicated himself to various local cultural institutions, such as the American Academy of Arts and Sciences and Massachusetts Historical Society. Quincy also upheld his deep connections to Harvard College, serving on its Board of Overseers.¹⁰

Quincy passed away on May 17, 1877, in Dedham, Massachusetts. His remains are interred in Mount Auburn Cemetery. While “this gracious gentleman and accomplished scholar” may be “to the public a ‘great unknown,’” Edmund Quincy made critical contributions to the abolitionist movement in Boston.¹¹

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Footnotes

1. “Recent Deaths,” Boston Evening Transcript, May 18, 1877.
2. James Terry White, The National Cyclopaedia of American Biography Volume VI, (New York: James T. White & Company, 1896), 93-94. 
3. James Terry White, The National Cyclopaedia of American Biography Volume VI, (New York: James T. White & Company, 1896), 93-94; Josiah Phillips Quincy, “Memoir of Edmund Quincy,” in Proceedings of the Massachusetts Historical Society, (Boston: Massachusetts Historical Society, 1903), 401-416, https://archive.org/details/jstor-25079913/page/n48/mode/1up?q=%22Edmund+Quincy%22.  
4. “Recent Deaths,” Boston Evening Transcript, May 18, 1877.
5. “Recent Deaths,” Boston Evening Transcript, May 18, 1877; James Terry White, The National Cyclopaedia of American Biography Volume VI, (New York: James T. White & Company, 1896), 93-94; “Note and Comment,” Springfield Daily Republican, May 19, 1877, 4; Josiah Phillips Quincy, “Memoir of Edmund Quincy,” in Proceedings of the Massachusetts Historical Society, (Boston: Massachusetts Historical Society, 1903), 401-416.
6. James Terry White, The National Cyclopaedia of American Biography Volume VI, (New York: James T. White & Company, 1896), 93-94. 
7. Austin Bearse, Reminiscences of Fugitive-Slave Law Days in Boston (Boston: Printed by Warren Richardson, 1880), 5.
8. Bearse, 18-19.
9. Bearse, 20.
10. “Recent Deaths,” Boston Evening Transcript, May 18, 1877, 4. 
11. “Recent Deaths,” Boston Evening Transcript, May 18, 1877, 4; James Terry White, The National Cyclopaedia of American Biography Volume VI, (New York: James T. White & Company, 1896), 93-94; Josiah Phillips Quincy, “Memoir of Edmund Quincy,” in Proceedings of the Massachusetts Historical Society, (Boston: Massachusetts Historical Society, 1903), 401-416.