Jeptha C. Bruce

Quick Facts

Significance:

Boston Vigilance Committee member

Place of Birth:

Townsend, Massachusetts

Date of Birth:

ca. 1818

Place of Death:

Roxbury, Massachusetts

Date of Death:

May 10, 1857

Place of Burial:

Boston, Massachusetts

Cemetery Name:

Mount Hope Cemetery

According to Austin Bearse's 1880 memoir, Jeptha C. Bruce served on the Boston Vigilance Committee, an organization that assisted freedom seekers on the Underground Railroad.

In the 1850 "Members of the Committee of Vigilance" broadside, Joseph C. Bruce, not Jeptha C. Bruce, is listed along with his business address of 34 Pearl Street. However, in the secretary of the Vigilance Committee, Charles List’s records, Joseph C. Bruce’s name and address are crossed out, replaced with the name Jeptha C. Bruce and an address of 30 Dock Square. According to other records from 1850, the year the Vigilance Committee began, Jeptha C. Bruce operated a hat company in Dock Square.¹

Born around 1818, Jeptha C. Bruce grew up in Townsend, Massachusetts before relocating to Boston where he worked in the retail business. Bruce married his wife Lydia Allen Parker in 1836. While Bruce is listed as a member of the Vigilance Committee, none of the records found to date shed any light on his contributions to the Vigilance Committee or Underground Railroad. Bruce died at only 39 years old in Roxbury in 1857 and his remains are interred in the Mount Hope Cemetery.²

If you are a researcher or descendent of Jeptha C. Bruce or can provide any further details of his participation in the Vigilance Committee, please e-mail us.

Footnotes

1. Austin Bearse, Reminiscences of Fugitive Slave Law Days in Boston, (Boston: Warren Richardson, 1880), 3; "Members of the Committee of Vigilance," broadside printed by John Wilson, 1850, Massachusetts Historical Society. Boston City Directory, 1850-1851, page 102 https://cdm.bostonathenaeum.org/digital/collection/p16057coll32/id/42/; "No. 30 Dock Square," The Liberator, December 27, 1850, 3; All NPS maps geo-locate Joseph C. Butler at the approximate 1850 location of 30 Dock Square in Boston.
2. “Jeptha C Bruce,” Ancestry.com. Massachusetts, U.S., Town and Vital Records, 1620-1988 [database online]. Provo, UT, USA: Ancestry.com Operations, Inc., 2011, Massachusetts, U.S., Town and Vital Records, 16201988 - Ancestry.com; "Died." Liberator, June 5, 1857, 3; “Jeptha C Bruce,” Ancestry.com. Massachusetts, U.S., Marriage Records, 1840-1915 [database online]. Provo, UT, USA: Ancestry.com Operations, Inc., 2013, Massachusetts, U.S., Marriage Records, 18401915 - Ancestry.com; "No. 30 Dock Square," The Liberator, April 4, 1851, 3.