Johnson Davie

Quick Facts

Significance:

Mason, abolitionist, member of the Boston Vigilance Committee

Place of Birth:

Plymouth, Massachusetts

Date of Birth:

circa 1799

Place of Death:

Plymouth, Massachusetts

Date of Death:

December 25, 1882

Place of Burial:

Plymouth, Massachusetts

Cemetery Name:

Vine Hills Cemetery

Plymouth-based abolitionist and mason Johnson Davie served on the 1850 Boston Vigilance Committee.

Born in 1799 to Solomon and Jedidah Davie, Johnson Davie grew up in Plymouth, Massachusetts. Johnson Davie became a mason by trade. He married Phebe Finney in 1823 and had six children. He also served as water commissioner in Plymouth. According to one resident, Davie “rendered important service” to the town when he followed “with trowel in hand the laying of the pipe” to confirm “that every foot had a sufficient covering of cement properly mixed and laid.”¹

Davie also became involved in other local and national affairs. In his memoir, Plymouth Memories of an Octogenarian, historian and resident William T. Davis wrote that Johnson Davie “was a man of brains, and used them so that he often found himself encountering public opinion...the opinion of fools.” Perhaps Davis may have said this, in part, referencing Davie’s embrace of abolition. He listed Davie and his family among the “earliest in Plymouth to engage in the movement” against slavery.² In 1841, Davie served as one of the managers of the Plymouth County Anti-Slavery Society. He also donated to the Massachusetts Anti-Slavery Society on several occasions.³

As part of his abolitionist activism, Davie involved himself in the cause of freedom seekers attempting to escape slavery on the Underground Railroad. In 1842, he joined a meeting in Plymouth to protest the arrest and incarceration of freedom seeker George Latimer, held in the Leverett Street Jail in Boston. Attendees at this meeting considered the holding of Latimer in a state facility “an outrage upon our property, our principles of liberty, and our sensibilities as men.” They appointed a committee to petition the legislature to prevent “such abuse in the future” and mandate that “all State officials be enjoined not to aid in the arrest or confinement of person alleged to be slaves."⁴

In 1850, Davie donated money to the Chaplin Fund. Authorities arrested William L. Chaplin in 1850 for trying to help two freedom seekers escape from Washington, D.C. Abolitionists throughout the country, including Davie, raised money for Chaplin’s bail and defense.⁵

Though based in Plymouth, Davie also served on the Boston Vigilance Committee, an organization that assisted freedom seekers coming to and through Boston on the Underground Railroad. Other than appearing on Austin Bearse’s “Doorman’s List,” however, Davie’s contributions to the organization remain unknown.⁶

Davie died on Christmas Day, 1882. His remains are interred at the Vine Hills Cemetery in Plymouth.

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Footnotes

1. "Johnson Davee (1799-1882)" Find A Grave, Johnson Davee (1799-1882) - Find a Grave Memorial; William Thomas Davis, Plymouth Memories of an Octogenarian, (Plymouth: Memorial Press, 1906), p. 233, Plymouth memories of an octogenarian : Davis, William T. (William Thomas), 1822-1907. 1n : Free Download, Borrow, and Streaming : Internet Archive Accessed 6/18/2024
2. Davis, 233 and 242
3. “Plymouth County A.S. Society,” Liberator, July 23, 1841, p 2; “Treasurers Account,” Liberator, January 31, 1840; “Collections at Annual Meeting,” Liberator, February 12, 1841, p.3
4. “Freedom in Plymouth,” Liberator, December 2, 1842, 2
5. “Collections for the Chaplin Fund,” Liberator, December 13, 1850, p. 3; The case of William L. Chaplin: being an appeal to all respecters of law and justice, against the cruel and oppressive treatment to which, under color of legal proceedings, he has been subjected, in the District of Columbia and the state of Maryland. Boston: Published by the Chaplin Committee, 1851. Pdf. https://www.loc.gov/item/06043475/.
6. Austin Bearse, Reminisces of the Fugitive Slave Law Days (Warren Richardson, 1880), 3, Reminiscences of Fugitive-slave Law Days in Boston : Austin Bearse : Free Download, Borrow, and Streaming : Internet Archive Accessed 6/18/24; Dean Grodzins, "Constitution or No Constitution, Law or No Law: The Boston Vigilance Committees, 1841-1861," in Matthew Mason, Katheryn P. Viens, and Conrad Edick Wright, eds., Massachusetts and the Civil War: The Commonwealth and National Disunion (Amherst: University of Massachusetts Press, 2015), 73, n.57.