Last updated: July 23, 2024
Person
Samuel Downer Jr.
New York Public Library
Quick Facts
Significance:
Oil manufacturer, Free Soil Party, Anti-slavery advocate, Boston Vigilance Committee member
Place of Birth:
Dorchester, Massachusetts
Date of Birth:
March 8, 1807
Place of Death:
Dorchester, Massachusetts
Date of Death:
September 20, 1881
Place of Burial:
Boston, Massachusetts
Cemetery Name:
Forest Hill Cemetery
Boston manufacturer Samuel Downer, Jr. participated in the antislavery movement as a member of the Free Soil party and the 1850 Boston Vigilance Committee.
Born in 1807 and raised in Dorchester, Massachusetts, Samuel Downer Jr. joined his father in the family business of manufacturing sperm whale oil and candles at age 21. In 1836, he married Mary Melville DeWolf and began a family. According to a family genealogist, Downer “was public spirited and found time to interest himself in the affairs of the city and country.”1
Downer became involved in the antislavery movement, “being led thereto by the shameful treatment which William Lloyd Garrison and his friends received in Boston." Perhaps Downer, like many Bostonians, converted to abolitionism in the aftermath of the Garrison Mob of 1835. He “actively identified with the Free Soil party” which formed to stop the expansion of slavery. He counted among his friends such abolitionists as Charles Sumner, Theodore Parker, and Samuel Gridley and Julia Ward Howe. He donated to the New England Anti-Slavery Convention and served as treasurer of the State Anti-Texas Committee, which viewed the annexation of Texas as a way for slavery to further expand and strengthen in the country.2
With the passage of the Fugitive Slave Law of 1850, Downer joined others in calling for a meeting at Faneuil Hall. At this meeting, Bostonians formed the Vigilance Committee to assist freedom seekers coming to and through Boston on the Underground Railroad. Downer joined this committee and records indicate that he donated funds to the organization. One of his donations helped offset the legal fees of Richard Henry Dana, Jr. for defending the rescuers of Shadrach Minkins, the first freedom seeker arrested in Boston under the new fugitive slave law. When authorities arrested freedom seeker Anthony Burns in 1854, Downer served as a vice-president of the “Great Meeting in Faneuil Hall” quickly called by Bostonians to protest Burn’s arrest and plan a response.3
During and after the Fugitive Slave Law years, Downer continued to work in oil manufacturing, ultimately founding the Downer Kerosine Oil Company. He purchased a large property in Hingham, Massachusetts where, in 1877, he hosted a well-attended and widely covered reunion of the “The Men of ’48...A Notable Gathering of the Original Free-Soilers.”4
Long considered “’a man of practical piety, of sterling sense, of fine business ability, and a benefactor to the community,” Downer passed away in his Dorchester home in 1881.5 Upon his death, the Boston Evening Transcript reported:
Another of the old guard of abolitionism and general “advanced thinking,” coupled with fearless, independent acting, goes to his well-earned rest in Samuel Downer.6
His remains are buried in Forest Hills Cemetery.7
Footnotes
- Downer's location indicates his business Address in 1850 at 100 State Street. David R. Downer, The Downers of America: with genealogical record, (Newark: D.R. Downer, 1900), 83-84, Archive.org; George Adams, Boston City Directory, 1850-1851, 142 Boston Athenaeum; Ancestry.com. Massachusetts, U.S., Town and Vital Records, 1620-1988 [database on-line]. Provo, UT, USA: Ancestry.com Operations, Inc., 2011. Original data: Town and City Clerks of Massachusetts. Massachusetts Vital and Town Records. Provo, UT: Holbrook Research Institute (Jay and Delene Holbrook).
- Downer, 83. Treasurer’s Report,” Liberator, December 22, 1843, 3, “Texas and Slavery,” Liberator, November 21, 1845, 2
- “The Fugitive Slave Law,” Liberator, October 14, 1850, 2, "Members of the Committee of Vigilance," broadside printed by John Wilson, 1850, Massachusetts Historical Society, Francis Jackson, Account Book of Francis Jackson, Treasurer The Vigilance Committee of Boston, Dr. Irving H. Bartlett collection, 1830-1880, W. B. Nickerson Cape Cod History Archives, Archive.org; pages 73 and 45, “Great Meeting in Faneuil Hall,” Liberator, June 2, 1854, 2
- Downer, 84, “The Men of ’48,” Boston Globe, August 10, 1877, 1, For more on Downer’s Hingham property see High Public Library, Local History and Special Collections website, “Samuel Downer,” Samuel Downer · Legendary Locals · Hingham Public Library Digital Exhibitions (omeka.net)
- William Dana Orcutt, Good Old Dorchester, 1630-1893,(Cambridge: The University Press, 1908), 443-444, Archive.org
- “Jottings,” Boston Evening Transcript, September 21, 1881, 4
- “The Funeral of Samuel Downer,” Boston Evening Transcript, September 23, 1881, 8