Contents |
Samuel Blackwell, a sugar refiner and abolitionist, was born on 6 Feb 1790 in Worcester, Worcestershire, England, United Kingdom, and baptized there on 15 Feb 1790 at the Angel Street Congregational Church.[1] [2] He was the son of Samuel Blackwell, a Bristol cabinetmaker,[3] and his wife Elizabeth Stokes,[4] who moved their family from Worcester to Bristol about 1811.[5]
Samuel was the father of Dr. Elizabeth Blackwell, M.D., the first woman awarded a medical degree in the United States.[6]
He was trained as a sugar-boiler at the Counterslip Sugar Refinery on Bath Street in Bristol and became a partner in the firm about 1815.[5] He became a leader in Bristol's large non-comformist (non-Anglican) population.
Samuel Blackwell married Hannah Lane on 27 Sep 1815 in St. James Parish in Bristol.[7] Samuel is said to have met Hannah while they were both teaching Sunday school.[8]
Hannah Lane was born about 1792, probably in Bristol, where she lived as a child and young woman. Her parents were [unknown] Lane and possibly Hannah Browne.[9]
Samuel and Hannah were Congregationalists, "protestant Dissenters from the established Church of England, advocates of education, temperance, hard work and self-improvement, staunch Whig reformers and early antislavery activists."[3]
With the proceeds of Samuel's business creating a comfortable middle class life for their family, Samuel and Hannah went on to have nine children who lived to adulthood. At least three more did not survive childhood.[10]
In Bristol, the growing family lived in a terraced house at Wilson Street and Lemon Lane. [3]
In 1828, the Blackwell Counterslip Sugar Refinery caught fire (not unusual in the business), but the blaze was put out before it reached the valuable sugar stores. Since the refinery was fully insured and buildings leased, Samuel moved his business to a new site. He ran the Nelson Street Refinery until immigrating to the United States in 1832.[5][11]
Despite its initial success, Samuel's Bristol sugar refinery business faced a downturn, with the failure of his Dublin office and the bankruptcy of the Bristol shipping firm, Bevan and Yates, which owed Blackwell nearly £7,000.
The Blackwell family, including the children's two maiden aunts, Mary and Lucy (Aunt Barbara would join them later), a governess, and two maids, packed up and immigrated to the United States on the merchant ship Cosmo, arriving in New York City on 5 Oct 1832.[10]
They first lived In New York, where Samuel used his remaining capital to set up a New York sugar refinery. He also joined the recently formed Anti-Slavery Society of New York. As a sugar refiner and abolitionist, Samuel was greatly interested in pursuing beet sugar as an alternative to cane sugar to eliminate the sugar industry's dependence on slavery.
To pursue the sugar beets venture, the family in 1838 moved 640 miles west to Cincinnati, Hamilton County, Ohio, where Samuel J. Brown, his wife's relative and leading citizen, convinced him that it was a favorable location for beet sugar production.[5] Samuel Blackwell had sold his New York refining operation and invested his money into producing a quality sugar beet product.
Within two months of their arrival in Cincinnati, Samuel, aged 38, died there of malaria on 7 Aug 1838[12] and was buried in the family cemetery of Samuel J. Browne, Hannah's relative. His dream to be an innovator in the beet sugar industry was thwarted by the recession of 1837 and sickness.[5][13]
Samuel's wife Hannah survived him 32 years, and died in 22 August 1870, aged 78, in Rockaway, Queens, New York City.[14] She was buried in Green-Wood Cemetery, Brooklyn, Kings, New York.[15][16]Hannah had been living with her daughter Marian in Hempstead, Queens, according to the 1870 census. [17]
Have you taken a DNA test? If so, login to add it. If not, see our friends at Ancestry DNA.
Samuel is 22 degrees from Emeril Lagasse, 22 degrees from Nigella Lawson, 23 degrees from Maggie Beer, 44 degrees from Mary Hunnings, 28 degrees from Joop Braakhekke, 26 degrees from Michael Chow, 24 degrees from Ree Drummond, 24 degrees from Paul Hollywood, 22 degrees from Matty Matheson, 24 degrees from Martha Stewart, 29 degrees from Danny Trejo and 26 degrees from Molly Yeh on our single family tree. Login to find your connection.