Henry W. Lincoln

Quick Facts

Significance:

Apothecarist, Boston Vigilance Committee

Place of Birth:

Hingham, Massachusetts

Date of Birth:

October 12, 1821

Place of Death:

Boston, Massachusetts

Date of Death:

September 22, 1887

Place of Burial:

Hingham, Massachusetts

Cemetery Name:

NA

Boston apothecarist Henry Ware Lincoln served on the 1850 Boston Vigilance Committee.

Born in 1821, Henry W. Lincoln spent his childhood in Hingham, Massachusetts. He married Sarah Binney in 1844 and had a son with her. He eventually moved to Boston where he worked as an apothecary on Washington Street. He later opened a shop at Chestnut and Charles Street at the foot of Beacon Hill.¹

Following the passage of the Fugitive Slave Law of 1850, Lincoln joined with others in calling for a public meeting at Faneuil Hall to protest the new law and plan their collective response. At this meeting, participants formed the third and final iteration of the Boston Vigilance Committee to assist freedom seekers coming to Boston on the Underground Railroad. Though he served on the committee, Lincoln's specific contributions to the organization, or the larger Underground Railroad network, remain unknown.²

Active with the Massachusetts College of Pharmacy and the American Pharmaceutical Association, Lincoln became known a "community pharmacist."³

Lincoln passed away at age 65 in 1887. Both his wife and son preceded him in death. He is buried in Hingham.⁴

If you are a descendent or researcher of Henry Ware Lincoln and can provide any further details of his work with the Boston Vigilance Committee, please e-mail us. 

Footnotes:

 

1. Emma Forbes Ware, Ware Genealogy : Robert Ware of Dedham, Massachusetts, 1642-1699 and his lineal descendants, (Boston: C.H. Pope, 1901), 101; Charles J. Fox, The history and genealogy of the Prentice, or Prentiss family, in New England, from 1631 to 1852, (Boston: By The Author, 1852) 258; George Adams, Boston City Directory, 1850-1851, 218, Boston directory, for the year 1855 : embracing the city record, a general directory of the citizens, and a business directory, 186.
2. "The Fugitive Slave Law," Liberator, October 18, 1850, 2; "Members of the Committee of Vigilance," broadside printed by John Wilson, 1850, Massachusetts Historical Society; Austin Bearse, Remininscences of Fugitive Slave Law Days in Boston, (Boston: Warren Richardson, 1880), 4.
3. "The Annual Meeting of the Massachusetts College of Pharmacy," Boston Evening Transcript, March 7, 1857; George B. Griffenhagen, 150 Years of Caring: A Pictorial History of the American Pharmaceutical Association (Washington, D.C.: American Pharmaceutical Association, 2002), 239.
4. "Deaths," Boston Evening Transcript, September 23, 1887, 4; "Deaths," Boston Evening Transcript, June 25, 1884, 5; "Deaths," New England Farmer, November 12, 1853, 2; Ware, 101.