John Lucas Emmons Sr.

Quick Facts

Significance:

Merchant, philanthropist, anti-slavery activist, Boston Vigilance Committee member

Place of Birth:

Concord, New Hampshire

Date of Birth:

August 26, 1803

Place of Death:

Boston, Massachusetts

Date of Death:

April 20, 1894

Place of Burial:

Cambridge, Massachusetts

Cemetery Name:

Mt. Auburn Cemetery

Boston grocer and merchant John Lucas Emmons, Sr. served on the Boston Vigilance Committee, an organization formed in response to the Fugitive Slave Law of 1850.

Born in Concord, New Hampshire in 1803, John Lucas Emmons eventually moved to Boston where he became a merchant. He married Caroline Draper Vose in 1838 and had six children . Though simply listed as a “grocer” in the 1850 federal census, Emmons ran a prosperous business dealing in wholesale West Indian goods from his location at 32 South Market Street in the city.¹

By the early 1840s, Emmons also became involved in the antislavery movement in the city. He served as a marshal in the 1844 celebration marking the anniversary of the end of slavery in the British West Indies. He donated to antislavery organizations including the New England Anti-Slavery Society and the American Anti-Slavery Society. He also participated in the Free Soil party, which dedicated itself to stopping the expansion of slavery.²

In October 1850, he and other Bostonians called for a grand public meeting at Faneuil Hall to discuss their response to the new Fugitive Slave Law. At this meeting, participants formed the Boston Vigilance Committee and appointed Emmons as one of its members. Though Emmons’ specific contributions remain unknown, the Vigilance Committee provided much needed assistance to freedom seekers coming to and through Boston on the Underground Railroad.³

During the Civil War, Emmons’ son served in the 45^th Massachusetts Regiment. Emmons provide funds to outfit the regiment and visited them at the front to find out if they needed anything further. For Emmons’ crucial support of the regiment, the 45^th Massachusetts named him an honorary member.⁴

In addition to his work in the antislavery movement and war, Emmons also dedicated himself to numerous philanthropic causes and social reforms. He played an early and long-term leadership role in the Warren-street Chapel, “a church primarily for children.” Additionally, Emmons held leadership positions at the Boston Asylum and Farm School for Indigent Boys on Thompson Island, which catered to orphans and children of single parents. He also helped develop Boston’s successful system of “tenement-houses for people of moderate means.”⁵ 

Emmons passed away at 90 years old in 1894. One newspaper considered him “truly representative of the old school of tried and true Boston business men of whom there are but few left alive.” Another wrote of him as one “willing to take the lead where other men are apt to be indolent of cowardly” and “A Man Who Did Much for Boston and Humanity.”⁶

His remains are buried in Mount Auburn Cemetery in Cambridge, Massachusetts. 

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Footnotes

1. Emmons' business was located at 32 South Market Street in Boston, as mapped. He lived at 1 Burroughs Place in Boston. “John Lucas Emmons Sr.,” Find a Grave,John Lucas Emmons Sr. (1803-1894) - Find a Grave Memorial; The National Archives in Washington, DC; Record Group: Records of the Bureau of the Census; Record Group Number: 29; Series Number: M432; Residence Date: 1850; Home in 1850: Boston Ward 10, Suffolk, Massachusetts; Roll: 337; Page: 333a, Source Information, Ancestry.com. 1850 United States Federal Census [database on-line]. Lehi, UT, USA: Ancestry.com Operations, Inc., 2009. Images reproduced by FamilySearch, George Adams, Boston City Directory, 1850-1851, 150 and 190, Boston Athenaeum; “An Old-time Boston Merchant,” Boston Evening Transcript, April 20, 1894, 8
2. “Suffolk County,” Liberator, July 26, 1844, 3, Treasurer’s Report,” Liberator, December 22, 1843, 3, “Special Contributions,” Liberator, November 17, 1854, 3, “Boston Freesoil Representative Ticket,” Boston Evening Transcript, November 1, 1849, 2
3. Liberator, October 18, 1850, 2 and 3, "Members of the Committee of Vigilance," broadside printed by John Wilson, 1850, Massachusetts Historical Society
4. “An Old-time Boston Merchant,” Boston Evening Transcript, April 20, 1894, 8
5. “The Late John L. Emmons,” Springfield Republican, May 6, 1894, 5; “Thompson Island Outward Bound History,” Cathleen Stone Island, cathleenstoneisland.org
6. “An Old-time Boston Merchant,” Boston Evening Transcript, April 20, 1894, 8, The Late John L. Emmons,” Springfield Republican, May 6, 1894, 5