F. Brimblecom

Quick Facts

Significance:

Member of the 1850 Boston Vigilance Committee

In his Reminiscences of Fugitive-Slave Law Day in Boston, Austin Bearse lists F. Brimblecom in the membership roster of the 1850 Boston Vigilance Committee, an organization dedicated to helping those escaping slavery to and through Boston on the Underground Railroad.¹

"F. Brimblecom" has yet to be found in any Boston based records from the time period. The name does not appear in the 1850 broadside listing the names and addresses of Vigilance Committee members, which may indicate that he joined at a later date. No one named F. Brimblecom appears in Boston newspapers, Boston City Directories, or in the Treasurer's Account Book of the Boston Vigilance Committee. Other than being a member of the Vigilance Committee, Brimblecom's contributions to the organization and Underground Railroad are unknown.

F. Brimblecom is likely Frederic Brimblecom. Born in 1827 in Maine, Brimblecom likely moved to Massachusetts when his father Samuel Brimblecom, an abolitionist and minister, became Reverend of a Universalist Church in Danvers, a town north of Boston, in 1836.² According to Frederic Brimblecom's obituary, "he spent a few years of his life in Boston, where he engaged in business."³ In 1853, he married Abby L. Harrington, and worked as a shoemaker while living in Grafton, Massachusetts, which puts him about 45 miles from Boston during the Fugitive Slave Law years.⁴ A couple years later, Frederic and his wife moved to Illinois where they ran a Sunday School for decades.⁵

Frederic Brimblecom died on January 20, 1901. According to his obituary:

He possessed a very sensitive nature and a high sense of duty, from which he never swerved. He never did an act which was not in some way connected with the happiness of some of his fellow beings. He had a heart warm with love and kindness and charity toward all...⁶

While we cannot confirm with certainty that the F. Brimblecom listed in Austin Bearse's roster is, indeed, Frederic Brimblecom, it is likely him given the abolitionist leanings of his family and proximity to Boston during the years of the Vigilance Committee's existence. Frederic Brimblecom is the brother of Francis Alden Brimblecom, who likely participated in the Vigilance Committee as well.

If you are a researcher or descendent of Frederic Brimblecom or can provide any further details of his life of that of a different F. Brimblecom who participated in the Vigilance Committee, please reach out to us at [e-mail].

Footnotes

1. Austin Bearse, Reminisces of Fugitive Slave Law Days (Warren Richardson, 1880), 3, Archive.org.
2. Harriet Silvester Tapley, Chronicles of Danvers (Old Salem Village)(Newcomb and Gauss: Salem, MA, 1923), 120 and 149, Archive.org.
3. "Obituary of Frederick Brimblecom," Dixon Evening Telegraph (Dixon, Illinois), January 23, 1901.
4. Ancestry.com. Massachusetts, U.S., Marriage Records, 1840-1915 [database on-line]. Provo, UT, USA: Ancestry.com Operations, Inc., 2013.Original data: Massachusetts Vital Records, 1840–1911. New England Historic Genealogical Society, Boston, Massachusetts. Massachusetts Vital Records, 1911–1915. New England Historic Genealogical Society, Boston, Massachusetts.
5. "Obituary of Frederick Brimblecom," Dixon Evening Telegraph (Dixon, Illinois), January 23, 1901.
6. "Obituary of Frederick Brimblecom," Dixon Evening Telegraph (Dixon, Illinois), January 23, 1901.