Joseph Allyne

Quick Facts

Significance:

Abolitionist, Member of the 1850 Boston Vigilance Committee

Place of Birth:

Barnstable County, Massachusetts

Date of Birth:

June 24, 1828

Place of Death:

San Francisco, California

Date of Death:

March 23, 1854

Place of Burial:

Sandwich, Massachusetts

Cemetery Name:

Bay View Cemetery

While not much is known about Joseph Allyne's life, the historical record gives a glimpse into his support of the abolitionist movement; he donated to the Massachusetts Anti-Slavery Society, supported the Boston Free Soil Club, and participated in the Boston Vigilance Committee of 1850.

Born June 24, 1828 to Samuel H. and Sophronia W. Allyne, Joseph Allyne grew up in Barnstable County, Massachusetts with his five younger siblings. From an early age Allyne showed his anti-slavery leanings. At eleven years old, he donated 16 cents to the Massachusetts Anti-Slavery Society. The same year, his parents also donated to the society, which suggests his family's support of the abolition movement.¹ Allyne continued to donate to the Massachusetts Anti-Slavery Society throughout his life.²

According to the Boston Daily News, Allyne later served as a secretary of the Boston Free Soil Club.³ The Boston Free Soil Club supported the Free Soil Party, a political party founded in 1848 by anti-slavery Whigs and Democrats that opposed the expansion of slavery into the new territories won after the Mexican-American War (1846-1848).⁴

According to the membership roster in Austin Bearse's Reminiscences of the Fugitive Slave Law Days in Boston, Joseph W. Allyne also participated in the Boston Vigilance Committee of 1850.⁵ Bostonians founded this iteration of the Vigilance Committee in response to the passage of the new Fugitive Slave Law. Joseph W. Allyne and others in the Vigilance Committee provided funds, shelter, transportation, medical attention, and other assistance to freedom seekers escaping enslavement on the Underground Railroad.

The clearest picture of Allyne's anti-slavery sentiment comes from his obituary, written by friend, S.H. Lloyd.⁶ Both William Lloyd Garrison and Frederick Douglass published Allyne's obituary in their newspapers, the Liberator⁷ and North Star⁸ respectively. In the obituary, Lloyd described Allyne as being "a friend of the slave, and of man everywhere, seeking after justice, and truth, and harmony."⁹

Even though only glimpses of Allyne's life could be found, what has been uncovered so far shows a man who acted upon his abolitionist sentiments through financial support and participation in several key organizations dedicated to the anti-slavery movement.

If you are a researcher or a descendent of Joseph W. Allyne or can provide any further details of his life and anti-slavery work, please reach out to us at [e-mail].

Footnotes

1. Massachusetts Anti-Slavery Society, Board of Managers, Eighth annual report of the Board of Managers of the Mass. Anti-Slavery Society: presented January 22, 1840: with an appendix, (Boston: Dow & Jackson Printers, 1840), lxiv, Boston Public Library Gale "Slavery and Anti-Slavery: A Transnational Archive."
2. "Pledges to the Mass. A. S. Society," Liberator, February 6, 1852, Newspapers.com; Massachusetts Anti-Slavery Society, Eighth annual report of the Board of Managers of the Mass. Anti-Slavery Society.
3. "Local Intellegence," Boston Daily News, September 6, 1852, Genealogybank.com.
4. Susan Martin, "'Free Soil, Free Speech, Free labor, Free Men': Charles Sumner and the Massachusetts Free Soil Party," MassHist, January 25, 2017 accessed, August 3, 2021.
5. Austin Bearse, Reminisces of the Fugitive Slave Law Days (Warren Richardson, 1880), 31. Archive.org; "Members of the Committee of Vigilance," broadside printed by John Wilson, 1850, Massachusetts Historical Society. This broadside identifies Allyne's address as 43 Milk Street. The approximate location of this address is used for National Park Service maps.
6. Potentially Samuel H. Lloyd also listed in Austin Bearse's Reminisces of the Fugitive-Slave Law Days in Boston.
7. S.H. Lloyd, "Mortuary Notice," Liberator, 24 no.37 (September 15, 1854): 147, Genealogybank.
8. S. H. Lloyd, "Died," North Star, 7 no.41, (September 29, 1854), Boston Public Library Gale "Slavery and Anti-Slavery: A Transnational Archive.".
9. Lloyd, "Mortuary Notice," Liberator.