Henry J. Prentiss

Quick Facts

Significance:

Boston Vigilance Committee member, printer

Place of Birth:

Marblehead, Massachusetts

Date of Birth:

July 17, 1807

Place of Death:

Boston, Massachusetts

Date of Death:

April 22, 1869

Printer Henry J. Prentiss served as a member of the 1850 Boston Vigilance Committee. 

Born in 1807, Henry James Prentiss grew up in Marblehead, Massachusetts as part of a large family. Prentiss’ grandfather fought in the American Revolutionary War as a Lieutenant on the American side.¹

After his father’s death, Prentiss left home at only ten years old to continue his education and begin work. At fourteen, he became an apprentice to a printer in Boston. He then had brief stints of printing work in Salem and New Hampshire, but ultimately business struggles caused him to return to Boston. However, for Prentiss, “[t]his trade was not his own choice, and he never enjoyed it; nevertheless, he learned it thoroughly and became an accomplished printer.”²

While pursuing his career, Prentiss supported the early abolitionist movement in Boston, despite any negative public opinion. He stood for the antislavery cause and joined organizations such as the Massachusetts Anti-Slavery Society.³

In 1850, following the passage of a new Fugitive Slave Law, Prentiss joined the third and final iteration of the Boston Vigilance Committee. The organization dedicated itself to assisting freedom seekers escaping slavery on the Underground Railroad. Members such as Prentiss provided integral support in the form of shelter, clothing, money, passage, and other aid. In 1859, Prentiss’ firm, Prentiss, Sawyer, and Co. donated funds to the committee’s efforts.⁴

Prentiss also joined the Defensive League of Freedom. He served as an officer of the organization with fellow abolitionists Elias Gray Loring, Samuel Cabot Jr., James Freeman Clarke, John A. Andrew, and Samuel G. Howe. The League had a similar mission to the Vigilance Committee—it sought to provide legal defense for freedom seekers in need across Massachusetts.5

Upon Prentiss’ death in 1869, his obituary remembered him as an ardent abolitionist: 

His sense of justice revolted against all wrong-doing. This made him, very early, take part with the abolitionists; and he was no half-way partizan, but put his whole soul into it. No matter how unpopular antislavery was, he never held his tongue about his convictions.⁶

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Footnotes

1. “Henry James Prentiss,” in Memorial Biographies of the New England Historical Genealogical Society, (Boston: New England Historic Genealogical Society, 1905), 329-331, https://archive.org/details/memorialbiograph06newe/page/n349/mode/2up.
2.  “Henry James Prentiss,” in Memorial Biographies of the New England Historical Genealogical Society, (Boston: New England Historic Genealogical Society, 1905), 329-331; “Henry James Prentiss,” Ancestry.com. North America, Family Histories, 1500-2000 [database on-line]. Provo, UT, USA: Ancestry.com Operations, Inc., 2016, North America, Family Histories, 1500-2000 - Ancestry.com. 
3. “Collections,” The Liberator, August 14, 1857, 3; “Pledges,” The Liberator, July 29, 1859, 3. 
4. Prentiss is mapped at his business' location, 11 Devonshire Street. "Members of the Committee of Vigilance," broadside printed by John Wilson, 1850, Massachusetts Historical Society; Francis Jackson, Account Book of Francis Jackson, Treasurer The Vigilance Committee of Boston, Dr. Irving H. Bartlett collection, 1830-1880, W. B. Nickerson Cape Cod History Archives, https://archive.org/details/drirvinghbartlet19bart/page/n3/mode/2up, 65. 
5. “The Defensive League of Freedom,” The Liberator, June 29, 1855, 2; Wilbur H. Siebert, The Underground Railroad From Slavery to Freedom, (New York: Macmillan Co., 1898), 103, https://archive.org/details/cu31924095658005/page/102/mode/2up.  
6. “Death of a Printer,” Boston Evening Transcript, April 23, 1869, 2.