Person

Samuel May Jr.

Portrait of an older man with small classes and a suit with a high collar.
Reverend Samuel May Jr.

Massachusetts Historical Society

Quick Facts
Significance:
Boston Vigilance Committee member, General Agent of the Massachusetts Anti-Slavery Society, Unitarian minister
Place of Birth:
Boston, Massachusetts
Date of Birth:
April 11, 1810
Place of Death:
Leicester, Massachusetts
Date of Death:
November 24, 1899
Place of Burial:
Jamaica Plain, Massachusetts
Cemetery Name:
Forest Hills Cemetery

Reverend Samuel May Jr. served as an active member of the 1850 Boston Vigilance Committee. 

Born in 1810 as the oldest son of Samuel and Mary (Goddard) May, Samuel May Jr. attended Harvard University’s Divinity School before becoming an ordained Unitarian minister. May preached in a permanent position in Leicester, a town west of Worcester, Massachusetts, for twelve years.1

Eventually, however, May grew estranged from his parishioners and fellow townspeople in Leicester due to his strong anti-slavery convictions. He ultimately suspended his Unitarian ministerial office to dedicate his time fully to the abolitionist cause.2

Abby Kelley Foster helped May become the General Agent, or secretary, for the Massachusetts Anti-Slavery Society in 1845. In this position, May worked closely with William Lloyd Garrison and arranged Lucy Stone’s early anti-slavery lectures. Additionally, he helped organizing hundreds of regular meetings and conventions for the Society.3 May contributed to the cause out of the spotlight. According to one account:

The work of Samuel May was not that of the orator; it was his duty to provide the ways and means for carrying on the struggle. It was not a service that attracted the applause of the multitude.4

Following the passage of the 1850 Fugitive Slave Law, May joined the third and final iteration of the Boston Vigilance Committee. He worked with fellow abolitionists to protect those who came to and through Boston on the Underground Railroad. May became one of the Committee’s more active members—Francis Jackson’s account book documents twenty-seven separate instances of his aid to freedom seekers between 1850 and 1861.5

In these instances, May advanced freedom seekers’ rent money, purchased clothing and groceries, and arranged and paid for their travel to Canada. At times, he even personally accompanied freedom seekers for parts of their passage through the Boston area.6

For example, May assisted William and Ellen Craft as they fled from Boston under the threat of the new Fugitive Slave Law. He accompanied the two during part of their escape to England, writing,

All day long, I have been busy planning a safe way for William and Ellen to leave Boston. We dare not allow them to go on board a vessel, even in the port of Boston ; for the writ is yet in the Marshal's hands, and he may be waiting an opportunity to serve it ; so I am expecting to accompany them to-morrow to Portland, Maine, which is beyond the reach of the Marshal's authority ; and there I hope to see them on board a British steamer.7

May also worked with other Vigilance Committee members such as Austin Bearse, connecting the efforts of the Maritime Underground Railroad to those on land. In 1854, Bearse used his ship, Moby Dick, to intercept Sally Anne in Boston Harbor and rescue a stowaway. Bearse later recalled how May aided the freedom seeker in his passage to Canada once on the mainland:

I made sail for City Point, South Boston. I landed the slave and carried him up to my house, stripped off his old tow suit and dressed him in another so he could not be known…Had just got him ready when Mr. Samuel May, Jr. and Dr. S. Cabot drove up to my house with a carriage, took him and carried him to the Boston Worcester Depot, and Mr. May went on with him to Worcester, and from there he was sent on the underground railway to Canada.8

Additionally, May likely used his home in Leicester to shelter individuals on the Underground Railroad.9 Years later, his obituary remembered:

If it were possible to have an unembellished record of the Leicester home, it would present a truer picture of the struggle for emancipation than will ever find place upon the page of history…The cultured and the unlettered, the philanthropist and the [B]lack fugitive received equal welcome from him.10

Samuel May Jr. died on November 24, 1899, in Leicester, Massachusetts. His remains are interred in the Forest Hills Cemetery in Jamaica Plain.11

Footnotes

  1. “Samuel May of Leicester,” Woman’s Journal, December 9, 1899, 385; John White Chadwick, “Samuel May of Leicester,” New England Magazine, April 1899, The New England Magazine 1899-04: Vol 20 Iss 2 : Free Download, Borrow, and Streaming : Internet Archive, 201-214; “Death of Rev. Samuel May,” Boston Evening Transcript, November 24, 1899, 10.
  2. Ibid.
  3.  A large portion of May’s papers remain in the Boston Public Library’s Anti-Slavery Collection and can be accessed online, as of September 2025, on Digital Commonwealth, Anti-Slavery (Collection of Distinction) - Digital Commonwealth. “Death of Rev. Samuel May,” Boston Evening Transcript, November 24, 1899, 10.  
  4. “Funeral of Rev. Samuel May,” Boston Evening Transcript, November 27, 1899, 3.
  5.  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, https://archive.org/details/drirvinghbartlet19bart/page/n3/mode/2up, 14, 18, 20, 22, 24, 25, 28, 29, 30, 34, 36, 39, 41, 48, 52, 58, 62, 65, 66, 85. 
  6. “Samuel May Jr. House, ID: 15MA02,” Network to Freedom, National Park Service, accessed September 25, 2025, Explore Network to Freedom Listings - Underground Railroad (U.S. National Park Service).  
  7.  William Craft, Running a Thousand Miles for Freedom; or, The Escape of William and Ellen Craft from Slavery, (337 Strand, London: William Tweedie, 1860), https://archive.org/details/runningthousandm00craf/page/88/mode/2up?q=may, 88-92.  
  8. Austin Bearse, Reminisces of the Fugitive Slave Law Days, (Boston: Warren Richardson, 1880) 36-37, Archive.org.
  9. “Samuel May Jr. House, ID: 15MA02,” Network to Freedom, National Park Service, accessed September 25, 2025, Explore Network to Freedom Listings - Underground Railroad (U.S. National Park Service); Brian Lee, “Symbol of Underground Railroad,” Worcester Telegram & Gazette, February 18, 2012, accessed September 25, 2025, Symbol of Underground Railroad; Sarah Barnacle, “Worcester County Wonders: Leicester’s stop on the Underground Railroad,” Worcester Telegram & Gazette, November 24, 2024, accessed September 25, 2025, Worcester County Wonders: Leicester's stop on the Underground Railroad.  
  10. “Samuel May of Leicester,” Woma.Journal, December 9, 1899, 385. 
  11. “Funeral of Rev. Samuel May,” Boston Evening Transcript, November 27, 1899, 3

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Last updated: November 18, 2025