Four Cummington Abolitionists
This page highlights the activism of four Cummington abolitionists, William Packard, Levi Kingman, Melissa Everett Dawes, and Hiram Brown. They were not famous nor rich nor especially powerful, had little to gain for their convictions, and are all but lost to history. Yet in the end they made a difference. Their efforts along with thousands of other abolitionists contributed to the political pressure that ultimately led to the Civil War and the abolition of slavery in the United States.
William Packard (1791-1870)
William Packard's journal
William Packard was one of Cummington’s early supporters of abolition. In 1835, he organized a petition asking the United States Congress to abolish slavery and the slave trade in Washington D.C. 132 Cummington men signed the petition including former slave Brister Pierce. Packard recorded in his diary that he attended several abolition meetings in Northampton in the 1830s an 1840s and probably helped start the Cummington abolitionist society. Abolition sentiment was strong in the Packard family. His uncle Rev. Theophilus Packard (a Cummington native who moved to West Brookfield) was a vice president of the Massachusetts Antislavery society in the 1830s. Packard, a descendant of an early pioneer family, was an important man in town. Like his father he was a surveyor and justice of the peace, served 44 years as town treasurer and as clerk, and treasurer of the First Congregational society. While for much of his life as a farmer her earned very little money, some years only breaking even, he was part of a core of upstanding Cummington male citizens who influenced some of their peers to support the abolitionist cause.
Melissa Everett Dawes (1820-1893)
Melissa Everett Dawes was an ardent abolitionist who along with her husband, Francis H. Dawes, sheltered fugitive slaves on the underground railroad on their farm in Cummington. In this letter she describes one such slave.
"One dark night in the Eighteen fifties there was brought to our house on the underground railroad a very sweet voiced beautiful blue eyed blond girl with flaxen hair and such winning ways any king might be proud to call his child. Her mother and grandmother were white. Her father, a rich and extensive slaveholder who held an important office in government affairs, helped make the laws of the land. We wanted to clasp her to our hearts as our own child but there loomed up before us the thousand dollars fine and six month imprisonment and we had to let her pass on." (Letter from M.E. Dawes to W. Siebert, 1886?)
In her letters to her nephew she passionately expressed her antislavery views:
"There is not a man on earth that has the right to another man. The slave-holder is a thief and a robber. He has not only stole what has never had any right to, for God never gave him any right to the man, but he steals from him everyday that keeps him, and robs him of everything that is worth living for. Now, I would not pay the slave-holding thief a single penny. No I would not. When he proves that he has a right to the man, when he brings a bill of sale from the Almighty, we will see about paying the thief for his stolen property." (letter to nephew Peter Bryant, April 28, 1854)
Melissa Everett Dawes (1820-1893)
Melissa Everett Dawes was an ardent abolitionist who along with her husband, Francis H. Dawes, sheltered fugitive slaves on the underground railroad on their farm in Cummington. In this letter she describes one such slave.
"One dark night in the Eighteen fifties there was brought to our house on the underground railroad a very sweet voiced beautiful blue eyed blond girl with flaxen hair and such winning ways any king might be proud to call his child. Her mother and grandmother were white. Her father, a rich and extensive slaveholder who held an important office in government affairs, helped make the laws of the land. We wanted to clasp her to our hearts as our own child but there loomed up before us the thousand dollars fine and six month imprisonment and we had to let her pass on." (Letter from M.E. Dawes to W. Siebert, 1886?)
In her letters to her nephew she passionately expressed her antislavery views:
"There is not a man on earth that has the right to another man. The slave-holder is a thief and a robber. He has not only stole what has never had any right to, for God never gave him any right to the man, but he steals from him everyday that keeps him, and robs him of everything that is worth living for. Now, I would not pay the slave-holding thief a single penny. No I would not. When he proves that he has a right to the man, when he brings a bill of sale from the Almighty, we will see about paying the thief for his stolen property." (letter to nephew Peter Bryant, April 28, 1854)
Levi Kingman (1789-1880)
Levi Kingman's barn at the Kingman Tavern Museum
Levi Kingman was an abolitionist in Cummignton who was purported to sport a white kerchief around his neck to demonstrate his support for the antislavery cause. Levi Kingman was part of the underground railroad network. Arthur Hill, of Northampton, recalled his father Samuel Hill transporting fugitive slaves to Cummington in the 1850s:
The fugitives were brought from Southampton, the nearest station south of us, during the night or early in the morning, were fed and put to bed. The next evening they were sent to the next station north, sometimes to Cummington, sometimes to Whately.*
“Our deliveries were usually made to a little circle of abolitionists at Cummington, Mass. Eighteen miles northwest of Florence, of which circle Kingman was one of the centers.” (Letter to W.H.Siebert from Arthur G. Hill, July 18, 1896). While there were several Mr. Kingman’s in Cummington at that time, Hill’s letter identified Kingman as being Richmond Kingman’s father, “whose father’s house at Cummington, MA was one of the stations north of us, at whose door we most frequently left our tourists.”
*(from Unpublished manuscript by the Son of Samuel Hill ca. 1912 “Antislavery Days in Florence” by Arthur G. Hill).
The fugitives were brought from Southampton, the nearest station south of us, during the night or early in the morning, were fed and put to bed. The next evening they were sent to the next station north, sometimes to Cummington, sometimes to Whately.*
“Our deliveries were usually made to a little circle of abolitionists at Cummington, Mass. Eighteen miles northwest of Florence, of which circle Kingman was one of the centers.” (Letter to W.H.Siebert from Arthur G. Hill, July 18, 1896). While there were several Mr. Kingman’s in Cummington at that time, Hill’s letter identified Kingman as being Richmond Kingman’s father, “whose father’s house at Cummington, MA was one of the stations north of us, at whose door we most frequently left our tourists.”
*(from Unpublished manuscript by the Son of Samuel Hill ca. 1912 “Antislavery Days in Florence” by Arthur G. Hill).
Hiram Brown (1803-1897)
Hiram Brown
Hiram Brown (was a vocal abolitionist in the 1850s in Cummington. Brown is most renowned in Cummington for being excommunicated along with family members from the Village Congregational Society in 1854 for his antislavery views. While the minister and most members of the church was not proslavery, Brown and others were critical that the church refused to publicly condemn slavery. In his autobiography, "A Running Sketch of My Life," Brown recounts being harassed by townspeople for his views:
“He [Francis Bates of Village church] remarked that Dea Brown has a large family and if he nor his can get no work they will be compeld to leave Town and peace will once more return ot our borders—the Vote was tried, and Cared and they kept their covinent to the letter for from that day to this I have not ahd a single piece of work to do for a single member of the Church or Society.”Hiram Brown along with fellow abolitionist John Stafford was instrumental in organizing annual antislavery conventions in Cummington in the 1850s and 1860s that attracted the most famous abolitionist of the time including William Lloyd Garrison, who spearheaded the national movement, former slave Sojourner Truth and Parker Pillsbury. People from miles around attended these conventions. As Arthur Hill wrote:
Cummington was another of the little storm centers where it was safe to fire off the anti-slavery guns, as there were quite a number of people living there who favored the cause. Several conventions were held there in an abandoned Baptist church. At one convention there on Sunday, quite a delegation from Florence attended by the original Florence Brass Band took a pilgrimage thither. We younger people who had never been in and therefore could not truthfully be called come-outers, nevertheless had a very jolly time.
Unpublished manuscript by the Son of Samuel Hill ca. 1912
“Antislavery Days in Florence” by Arthur G. Hill
“He [Francis Bates of Village church] remarked that Dea Brown has a large family and if he nor his can get no work they will be compeld to leave Town and peace will once more return ot our borders—the Vote was tried, and Cared and they kept their covinent to the letter for from that day to this I have not ahd a single piece of work to do for a single member of the Church or Society.”Hiram Brown along with fellow abolitionist John Stafford was instrumental in organizing annual antislavery conventions in Cummington in the 1850s and 1860s that attracted the most famous abolitionist of the time including William Lloyd Garrison, who spearheaded the national movement, former slave Sojourner Truth and Parker Pillsbury. People from miles around attended these conventions. As Arthur Hill wrote:
Cummington was another of the little storm centers where it was safe to fire off the anti-slavery guns, as there were quite a number of people living there who favored the cause. Several conventions were held there in an abandoned Baptist church. At one convention there on Sunday, quite a delegation from Florence attended by the original Florence Brass Band took a pilgrimage thither. We younger people who had never been in and therefore could not truthfully be called come-outers, nevertheless had a very jolly time.
Unpublished manuscript by the Son of Samuel Hill ca. 1912
“Antislavery Days in Florence” by Arthur G. Hill
