William Waterson Marjoram

Quick Facts

Significance:

Confectioner, abolitionist, Boston Vigilance Committee

Place of Birth:

Yarmouth, England

Date of Birth:

April 16, 1806

Place of Death:

Boston, Massachusetts

Date of Death:

October 19, 1857

Place of Burial:

Jamaica Plain, Massachusetts

Cemetery Name:

Forest Hills Cemetery

Boston confectioner William Waterson Marjoram served on the 1850 Boston Vigilance Committee.

Born in 1806, William W. Marjoram grew up in England. By the mid-1830s, he immigrated to the United States. Once in Boston, he established a confectionery business at 13 Marshall Street. He married Sarah Lilly in 1837. They had one son, who died shortly after birth.¹

Marjoram also became involved in the antislavery movement. He served in the Massachusetts Anti-Slavery Society. He participated in the Free Soil Party, which sought to stop the expansion of slavery. He also solicited donations of sugar and other ingredients to make ice cream to support various abolitionist events including the annual Anti-Slavery Bazaar at Faneuil Hall.²

Following the passage of the 1850 Fugitive Slave Law, Marjoram joined the Boston Vigilance Committee, which assisted freedom seekers coming to Boston on the Underground Railroad. He served on the Finance Committee of this group, soliciting and receiving funds “for the relief of fugitive slaves who have fled hither for safety.” He also donated to the group himself.³

Following the successful courthouse rescue of freedom seeker Shadrach Minkins in 1851, Marjoram posted $3000 bail for John Foy, an African American laborer whom authorities alleged had participated in the rescue.⁴

Marjoram passed away from typhus in 1857. His remains are interred in Forest Hills Cemetery in Jamaica Plain, Massachusetts.⁵

Footnotes:

1.  “William Waterson Marjoram (1806-1857),” Find a Grave Memorial; George Adams, Boston City Directory, 1850-1851, 227; “Married,” Zion’s Head, February 15, 1837, 27.
2. “Eleventh Annual Meeting of the Massachusetts Anti-Slavery Society,” National Anti-Slavery Standard, February 16, 1843; “Great Free Soil Rally!!,” Daily Chronotype, November 11, 1850, 2; “Abolitionists!” Liberator, December 25, 1846, 3.
3. "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), 6; “Fugitive Slave Matters,” Boston Evening Transcript, November 1, 1850, 2; 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, 85.
4. “Another Arrest on Account of the Rescue,” Daily Republic, February 21, 1851, 1.
5. “William Waterson Marjoram (1806-1857),” Find a Grave Memorial.