Last updated: January 16, 2023
Person
William Blakemore
Our Old Home: Episodes in the Lives of Members of a Branch of the Merrill Family, 1932
Quick Facts
Significance:
Member of the Boston Vigilance Committee, abolitionist, japanner
Date of Birth:
May 7, 1806
Date of Death:
May 16, 1882
William Blakemore served in the Boston Vigilance Committee, an organization that provided essential services to freedom seekers coming to and through Boston on the Underground Railroad.
In a broadside of its members published by the Boston Vigilance Committee, William Blakemore is listed as residing on 4 May Street. The 1849-1850 Boston City Directory lists him as a "japanner" living at this address.1 A jappaner worked in the decorative arts, often finishing or ornamenting wood, leather, metal and other surfaces. One newspaper said the japanned furniture by Blakemore "attract[ed] much attention; they are very beautiful and are quite a novelty."2
In a self-published family history, Blakemore's granddaughter, Emma E. Butler, wrote that that William had been born in Birmingham, England where he met and married his wife Letitia. They soon moved to the Philadelphia for a few years before establishing themselves in Boston. According to Butler:
During the antislavery days in Boston, Grandmamma and Grandpapa were vitally interested. They left the Methodist Church during these years because of its stand on the slavery question. Their home was one of the stations of the “Underground Railway” and many a poor slave blessed them for shelter and protection on his way north...he [William] would lead us to talk of this glorious land - “The land of the free and the home of the brave,” to close with the remark, “Yes years ago I came to America to find freedom and one of the first things I saw when I reached Boston, was Anthony Burns marched between soldiers down State Street, his hands chained, being carried back into slavery. I would not boast too loudly of this free land.”3
Though we do not have further verification whether the Blakemore's home served as a safe house, we do know from newspaper records that the couple engaged in antislavery work, in addition to William's membership in the Vigilance Committee. For example, Letitia participated in the Liberty Fair as a member of the Massachusetts Female Emancipation Society in 1847. Later, she served as a Boston agent of the Voice of the Fugitive, published in Canada by freedom seeker Henry Bibb.4 In 1847, William co-signed the public letter "Slaves Should Have The Bible" along with other Bostonians, including Timothy Gilbert, later president of the Vigilance Committee, and John Gove, a future member of the Vigilance Committee as well. The letter called for distributing Bibles to the more than three million enslaved people of African descent in the country, and carried a strong abolitionist tone:
If Slavery cannot endure the circulation of the Scriptures, then Slavery ought to withdraw from the field...If the free circulation of the Scriptures should prove the means which God will bless for emancipating the Slaves, can we expect emancipation to be effected in any safer, easier or more salutary way, than through the instrumentality of the Bible?5
William Blakemore died in West Roxbury in 1882 at age 76. His wife Letitia followed him in 1894.6 His granddaughter remembered him as "gentle, brave, firm, true, just and noble." She concluded "May his grandchildren ever prove worthy of the example he set."7
Footnotes:
- "Members of the Committee of Vigilance," broadside printed by John Wilson, 1850, Massachusetts Historical Society. And 1849-1850 Boston City Directory, pg 75 https://cdm.bostonathenaeum.org/digital/collection/p16057coll32/id/23
- “Mechanics Exhibition” Daily Atlas. 20 September 1847
- Emma E. Butler. “Our old home: episodes in the lives of members of a branch of the Merrill family.” Norwood, MA: Plimpton Press. 71-75 Full text of "Our old home : episodes in the lives of members of a branch of the Merrill family" (archive.org)
- “Liberty Fair Address” Emancipator and Republican 28 July 1847 and “The Underground Railroad in Massachusetts, 1783-1865”, National Park Service. page 23
- “Slaves Should Have the Bible.” Emancipator and Republican. 10 February 1847
- Boston Journal May 19 1882, Boston Herald Feb 26 1894
- Emma E. Butler. “Our old home: episodes in the lives of members of a branch of the Merrill family.” Norwood, MA: Plimpton Press. 71-75 Full text of "Our old home : episodes in the lives of members of a branch of the Merrill family" (archive.org) pg 78