Sylvester Phelps

Quick Facts

Significance:

Boston Vigilance Committee member, bookkeeper

Place of Birth:

Maine

Date of Birth:

July 4, 1807

Place of Death:

Reading, Massachusetts

Date of Death:

January 17, 1889

Place of Burial:

Salem, Massachusetts

Cemetery Name:

Harmony Grove Cemetery

Sylvester Phelps served as a member of the 1850 Boston Vigilance Committee. 

Born in Maine in 1807, Sylvester Phelps moved to Massachusetts and worked in the retail business as a clerk and bookkeeper. Phelps lived in Salem, and there, he grew active in the abolitionist movement. Sylvester Phelps married Abby Wells Rider on November 27, 1842.¹

Phelps participated in and contributed to local, state, and national antislavery organizations such as the Essex County Anti-Slavery Society, the Massachusetts Anti-Slavery Society, the New England Anti-Slavery Convention, and the American Anti-Slavery Society. In 1840, the Massachusetts Anti-Slavery Society appointed Phelps as one of the organization’s officers. Additionally, likely due to his account-handling skills as a clerk, Phelps assisted the Essex County Anti-Slavery Society with their financials as an auditor in 1843.²

By 1845, Phelps had relocated to Boston, where he continued to work in the retail trade. Following the passage of a new Fugitive Slave Law, Phelps joined the third and final iteration of the Boston Vigilance Committee, an organization dedicated to assisting those seeking freedom on the Underground Railroad coming to Boston. While Phelps is listed as a member, any of his direct contributions to the organization remain unknown.³

After the early death of his first wife in 1846, Phelps remarried in 1854 to Laura Wood. They lived together in Boston and towns in the surrounding area until Phelps’ death in Reading, Massachusetts on January 17, 1889. His remains are interred at the Harmony Grove Cemetery in Salem, Massachusetts.⁴

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Footnotes

1. Vital Records of Salem, Massachusetts to the End of the Year 1849, (Salem: Essex Institute, 1924), 257; “Sylvester Phelps,” Ancestry.com. 1850 United States Federal Census [database on-line]. Lehi, UT, USA: Ancestry.com Operations, Inc., 2009. Images reproduced by FamilySearch, 1850 United States Federal Census - Ancestry.com; “Sylvester Phelps,” Ancestry.com. Massachusetts, U.S., Marriage Records, 1840-1915 [database on-line]. Provo, UT, USA: Ancestry.com Operations, Inc., 2013, Massachusetts, U.S., Marriage Records, 1840-1915 - Ancestry.com.
2. “Fourth Anniversary of the Massachusetts Anti-Slavery Society,” The Liberator, January 23, 1836, 2; “A Call to the New-England Anti-Slavery Convention,” The Liberator, May 14, 1836, 4; “The One Dollar Plan,” National Anti-Slavery Standard, September 2, 1841, 2; “Essex County A.S. Society,” The Liberator, July 22, 1842, 2; “Quarterly Meeting of the Mass. A.S. Society,” The Liberator, March 29, 1839, 2; “Eighth Annual Meeting of the Massachusetts Anti-Slavery Society,” The Liberator, January 31, 1840, 2; “Ninth Annual Meeting of the Essex Co. (Mass.) A.S. Society,” Herald of Freedom, July 21, 1843, 4.  
3. Stimpson’s Boston Directory, (Boston: Stimpson and Clapp, 1845), 400; The Boston Directory, (Boston: Sampson and Murdoch Co., 1850), 262; "Members of the Committee of Vigilance," broadside printed by John Wilson, 1850, Massachusetts Historical Society; “Sylvester Phelps,” Ancestry.com. 1850 United States Federal Census [database on-line]. Lehi, UT, USA: Ancestry.com Operations, Inc., 2009. Images reproduced by FamilySearch, 1850 United States Federal Census - Ancestry.com.  
4. Boston Cultivator, July 25, 1846, 289; “Sylvester Phelps,” Ancestry.com. Massachusetts, U.S., Marriage Records, 1840-1915 [database on-line]. Provo, UT, USA: Ancestry.com Operations, Inc., 2013, Massachusetts, U.S., Marriage Records, 1840-1915 - Ancestry.com; “Sylvester Phelps,” Ancestry.com. Massachusetts, U.S., Death Records, 1841-1915 [database on-line]. Provo, UT, USA: Ancestry.com Operations, Inc., 2013, Massachusetts, U.S., Death Records, 1841-1915 - Ancestry.com; “Sylvester Phelps,” Find A Grave, https://www.findagrave.com/memorial/234951286/sylvester-phelps.