William H. Jameson

Quick Facts

Significance:

Piano Manufacturer, Deacon, Civil War, Boston Vigilance Committee member

Place of Birth:

Saco, Maine

Date of Birth:

May 1, 1818

Place of Death:

Brooklyn, New York

Date of Death:

May 15, 1887

Place of Burial:

Cambridge, Massachusetts

Cemetery Name:

Mount Auburn Cemetery

Piano manufacturer and deacon William H. Jameson served on the 1850 Boston Vigilance Committee. 

Born in 1818, William H. Jameson grew up in Maine. He moved to Boston where he worked for and eventually partnered with Timothy Gilbert in the piano manufacturing business. In 1845, he married Gilbert's daughter, Mary, and began a family with her.¹

Jameson involved himself in numerous religious and reform associations and work. He served as a deacon at Tremont Temple, a church co-founded by his father-in-law. He worked closely with the Boston Young Men's Christian Association and served as its president for a time. Jameson also participated in the temperance and abolition movements and helped organize the Suffolk Liberty Party, an anti-slavery political party.²

In response to the Fugitive Slave Law of 1850, Jameson joined with others in calling for a public meeting at Faneuil Hall to protest and organize against it. Here, they formed the Boston Vigilance Committee to assist freedom seekers coming to Boston on the Underground Railroad. Jameson's father-in-law served as its President. Jameson's specific contributions to the organization, however, remain unknown.³

He continued to live in Boston and work as a piano maker until the early 1860s. During the US Civil War, he enlisted and served as a paymaster, and Major, and Brevet Lieutenant Colonel.⁴

By 1870, Jameson and his family had moved to Brooklyn, New York, where he worked as a bank clerk. He passed away there in 1887.⁵

His remains are buried in Mount Auburn Cemetery in Cambridge, Massachusetts.⁶

^Footnotes:

1. "Major William Henry Jameson," Find a Grave Memorial; George Adams, Boston City Directory, 1850-1851, 201; The National Archives in Washington, DC; Record Group: Records of the Bureau of the Census; Record Group Number: 29; Series Number: M432; Residence Date: 1850; Home in 1850: Brookline, Norfolk, Massachusetts; Roll: 331; Page: 63b, Massachusetts, U.S., Town and Vital Records, 1620-1988 [database on-line].
2. "Annual Meeting of the Boston Young Men’s Christian Association," Christian Watchman & Reflector, May 26, 1853; "Church Action," Emancipator and Republican, August 26, 1841; "The Temperance Convention at Lowell," Boston Courier, June 22, 1854, 6; "Liberty Men of Boston Moving," Emancipator and Republican, September 23, 1846.
3.  "Rocking of the Old Cradle of Liberty," Liberator, October 18, 1850; "Members of the Committee of Vigilance," broadside printed by John Wilson, 1850; Massachusetts Historical Society, Austin Bearse, Remininscences of Fugitive Slave Law Days in Boston, (Boston: Warren Richardson, 1880), 4.
4. The National Archives in Washington D.C.; Record Group: Records of the Bureau of the Census; Record Group Number: 29; Series Number: M653; Residence Date: 1860; Home in 1860: Brookline, Norfolk, Massachusetts; Roll: M653_514; Page: 788; Family History Library Film: 803514, U.S., Register of Civil, Military, and Naval Service, 1863-1959 [database on-line]. "Mr. Wm. H. Jameson," Boston Evening Journal, May 16, 1887, 4.
5.  Year: 1870; Census Place: Brooklyn Ward 6, Kings, New York; Roll: M593_948; Page: 259A.
6.  "Major William Henry Jameson," Find a Grave Memorial.