Robert Purvis: A life
spent fighting slavery

By Dr. Harry C. Silcox
and Jack McCarthy
For the Times

Prior to the Civil War, Byberry was home to one of America’s most active and important abolitionists, Robert Purvis. Purvis’ farm near the Byberry Friends Meeting was the location for abolitionist meetings, the Underground Railroad and women’s rights activities.
Robert Purvis’ father William, a white man and a native of England, made his fortune selling cotton in Charleston, S.C. His mother Harriet Judah was a free-born Negro.
Robert was born in Charleston on Aug. 4, 1810. Prejudice in Charleston dictated a move to the north and the family settled in Philadelphia in 1819. Plans for sailing to England with their three sons ended with William’s death in 1826.
Soon after her husband’s death, Harriet married William Miller, an African cleric from New York. The Purvis brothers inherited the wealth that their father had accumulated in Charleston. Robert and his brother Joseph liked Philadelphia and were left to grow up with James Forten, a charismatic African-American business leader and abolitionist. They were treated like members of the family, and both would eventually marry Forten daughters.
On James Forten’s advice, Robert Purvis attended Amherst College in Massachusetts, and through his association with New England abolitionists, he became committed at age 20 to the anti-slavery cause. He contributed to the launching of William Lloyd Garrison’s abolitionist newspaper, The Liberator, helped form the American Anti-Slavery Society, was known in Philadelphia as president of the Underground Railroad, founded the Pennsylvania Anti-Slavery Society and traveled to England during that country’s debate over slavery.
Robert’s brother Joseph did not become active in the anti-slavery movement. He married Sarah Forten and bought a farm in Bensalem, Bucks County.
About the same time, Robert Purvis married Harriet Forten, making James Forten a happy man. Robert had become like a son to Forten as they worked on anti-slavery causes in Philadelphia. In the summer of 1842, Robert Purvis, his wife and their abolitionist colleagues organized a temperance march and a celebration of the anniversary of the emancipation of African-Americans in the British Empire. When the black marchers paraded next to the Irish neighborhood at 7th and Bainbridge streets, rocks were thrown from the crowd.
The disruptions of the parade were traumatic for organizers Robert and Harriet Purvis. They were told that their home had been marked for attack. That night Robert took his wife and three children to his brother Joseph’s house in Bensalem. He returned to Philadelphia the next day to protect his property. In the two days that followed, a full-scale riot broke out; mobs of whites burned black homes and churches. Purvis sat inside his front door, a rifle across his knee, waiting for the mob to enter his house.
The mob came, loudly shouting his name, but a large fire on the next block distracted them. They gathered again the next day but were dissuaded from attacking the Purvis home by a local Catholic priest, Father Patrick Moriarty. When Sheriff Lewis Morris visited Purvis the next day and told him he no longer could guarantee his safety in the city, Purvis immediately sold his house and went to live with his brother Joseph.
In 1843, Robert Purvis purchased a 104-acre farm in Byberry Township, adjacent to the Byberry Friends Meeting House. It remained the family home for the next 30 years. Purvis had no difficulty purchasing such a large estate because he had derived the major portion of his income from investments in real estate. He and his wife raised eight children on their farm. His daughter Hattie never married and lived most of her life there. Hattie knew the Quakers in the nearby meetinghouse, the many abolitionists who lived on nearby farms, and the many prominent visitors to the Purvis house. In later years, she escorted one of these visitors, Susan B. Anthony, to England.
Purvis proved to be a good neighbor. In 1846 he built Byberry Hall at his own expense, to be used by the community and for anti-slavery meetings. In 1854, Purvis conveyed the Byberry Hall property in trust to his neighbors Emmor Comly, James Thornton and Joshua Newbold. Later, Purvis sold the Quaker Meeting one acre of land for $200 for use as a graveyard. Called the "new graveyard," it is still in use today.
Farming proved a great help for Robert in pursuing his anti-slavery agenda. A trip to the city with farm produce usually resulted in a return trip with a straw-covered wagon hiding runaway slaves.
The Purvis farm thrived in the mid-19th century. The main emphasis was on cereal production and dairying, but they also sold meat and apples to the Philadelphia market. Harriet was as interested in farming as Robert and was a good judge of horses. The Purvises were especially interested in competing in local fairs in animal husbandry and selective breeding.
Their participation was not always welcome by some of their Byberry neighbors, however. Harriet and Robert had learned long ago that wealth could not shield them from racism. In 1846 there was a move to expel Robert from the Bensalem Horse Race Co., an association of livestock breeders, on the basis of race. A few years later, after winning a string of prizes for his poultry at the fair, he was told that black people no longer could show their livestock.
In their Byberry home, Harriet and Robert entertained abolitionists and reformers from throughout the United States and abroad. Harriet was a gracious hostess. A cultured woman, she enjoyed music and art. She was well-read and refined and took pleasure in discussing the novels of the Bronte sisters and the poetry of Byron. She also fed and housed guests whose presence she carefully kept a secret. As they had done in their Philadelphia house, she and Robert had a special room constructed at Byberry to accommodate runaway slaves.
In 1847 and 1854, Purvis battled the local school board to allow his children to enter school. The Purvises paid the second-highest school tax in Byberry only to find their children barred from the local schools and forced to attend a "miserable shanty" in the nearby village of Mechanicsville. The Purvises preferred to educate their children at home and threatened to withhold school taxes.
During the Civil War, the Purvises threw their energies into helping to free slaves. Harriet continued working with the Philadelphia Female Anti-Slavery Society, organizing fairs and raising funds to assist the freed men and freed women. Robert worked at recruiting black troops for the Union Army. In September 1863, as "aide-de-camp" to Maj. Stearns of the recruiting service of the Army, Purvis worked at Camp William Penn in Cheltenham and represented the African-American community of Philadelphia.
After the war, Harriet remained active in the feminist movement while Robert became active in getting the vote for blacks in Pennsylvania. Harriet became ill in the 1870s and Robert stayed near her to comfort her. She died June 11, 1875 in Byberry. On March 5, 1878, Robert married Tacie Towsend, a white abolitionist 17 years his junior, in a Quaker ceremony in Bristol, Pa.
Her father had been a neighbor of the Purvises in Byberry, and the two families had been friends for years. Tacie was a favorite of the Purvis children; they and the family responded well to the marriage. The marriage and the fact that his children were grown and had left home led Robert Purvis to sell the farm and leave Byberry.
In 1878, he and his wife moved to Mount Vernon Street in North Philadelphia. It was there that he died of a stroke, with his wife Tacie at his side, on April 15, 1898. ••
To reach Harry C. Silcox, send e-mail to silcoxh@axs2000.net