Person

John T. Hilton

Historic plaque on a brick wall identifying the home of John T. Hilton at 12 Belknap Street.
The site of John T. Hilton's former home at 12 Belknap Street. Full text of plaque in footnotes.

NPS Photo/Pollock

Quick Facts
Significance:
Abolitionist, Equal Schools Activist
Place of Birth:
Pennsylvania
Date of Birth:
April 1801
Place of Death:
Brighton, Massachusetts
Date of Death:
March 5, 1864

A pillar of the Black community on the north slope of Beacon Hill, John Telemachus Hilton dedicated his life to advocating for civil rights causes, including the anti-slavery movement and the right to equal schools.

Little is known about Hilton's early life in Pennsylvania. Born April 1801, he moved to Boston in the 1820s, marrying his wife Lavina Ames in 1825.1 As they built their life together, Hilton worked as a barber and clothing seller.2 For the next 30 years they lived on Beacon Hill at various homes, including 12 Belknap (later 73-75 Joy) Street, 18 Myrtle Street, and 24 Southac Street, among other addresses.3 Here, they became active members of Reverend Thomas Paul's congregation at the African Baptist Church, today known as the African Meeting House.4 Throughout his life, Hilton's firm religious beliefs helped frame his political arguments.

Hilton's role as a leader in the Beacon Hill community took shape in the late 1820s into the 1830s. He participated in several movements, such as anti-colonization and temperance, and played an active role in local organizations.5 In 1826, he helped found the Massachusetts General Colored Association, a group "dedicated to fighting slavery and elevating free blacks."6 He also participated in the African Grand Lodge, a fraternal organization that supported the Black community. In 1827, Hilton called for a "Declaration of Independence" for African American Freemasonry, arguing that these lodges should stand alone and not require oversight by White Masonic authorities.7 Over the following decades, Black Freemasonry continued to evolve, with the Prince Hall Grand Lodge established in 1847 and John Hilton named as its first Grand Master.8

Hilton forged strong relationships with other local leaders and activists, both Black and White, such as David Walker and William Lloyd Garrison. In 1828, Hilton supported Walker when Walker became a local agent for the New York based paper Freedom's Journal, the first newspaper in the nation owned and operated by African Americans.9 Hilton also endorsed the abolitionist newspaper The Liberator, edited by Garrison, writing a letter of support published in an early edition of the paper.10 Hilton recognized the importance of the written word and saw it as a tool to advocate for social justice causes.

For example, inspired by Walker after his death, Hilton wrote "An Appeal to the Free Colored Citizens of the United States."11 Published in The Liberator, this "Appeal" asserted Hilton's belief that newspapers, such as this one, could help make change. By comparing abolitionists to the apostles and using other religious analogies, Hilton called upon the Black community to support The Liberator in the fight against slavery:

We therefore assert, that the Liberator is principal in the present agitation and awakening of the nation to this all-important topic, to which they were, before its existence, in a deep sleep. The Liberator has also caused the formation of numerous Anti-Slavery Societies, in almost every part of the country, and their numbers are daily augmenting.12

Hilton's anti-slavery work went beyond supporting The Liberator. He wrote petitions, organized meetings, and joined anti-slavery organizations. Motivated by his integrationist beliefs, Hilton argued that White allies, such as Garrison, played a crucial role in the anti-slavery movement. At a meeting held in the African Meeting House in 1848, John Hilton, Robert Morris, William Wells Brown, and others opposed the movement to create all-Black anti-slavery organizations.13

In 1850, after the passage of the Fugitive Slave Law, Hilton joined the Boston Vigilance Committee, a largely White committee that provided support for freedom seekers escaping slavery on the Underground Railroad.14 In 1851, The Committee Treasurer's account book noted that Hilton posted "bills describing Kuphart the Slave [Catcher]."15

While a staunch abolitionist, Hilton also fervently supported the right to equal education and school desegregation. In the 1840s, he helped organize the equal schools movement alongside fellow Beacon Hill activists William C. Nell, Robert Morris, and Jonas Clark, among others. These Black activists called for the closure of the Abiel Smith School, the all-Black school on Belknap Street in Beacon Hill, due to the treatment of the students by the teachers and lack of resources provided to the school.16 Hilton wrote petitions to the school committee, led meetings on the issue, and even offered classes in his home on Belknap Street in an effort to boycott the school.17 In an 1849 meeting, Hilton and others called the school "a GREAT PUBLIC NUISANCE, which should be immediately annihilated."18

In 1850, the Massachusetts Supreme Court ruled in favor of school segregation in the case of Roberts v. City of Boston. In response, Black activists gathered to reassert their dedication to the cause. Hilton presided over an April 1850 meeting during which they declared, "We pledge to each other our unceasing efforts, till the struggle results in victory."19

During the movement to desegregate schools, Hilton moved his family to Cambridge, where his children could attend an integrated school. Here, his children thrived, with The Liberator reporting that Hilton's daughter "carried away the school honors from the white children."20

Hilton's dedication to the equal school and anti-slavery movements left a profound mark on the Black community of Boston. Upon his death in 1864, William Cooper Nell wrote an obituary for Hilton in The Liberator stating, "He was one of the first colored Americans to greet the Anti-Slavery movement, which received, to his last day, the most devoted, unwavering affection and support."21

The Prince Hall Grand Lodge also remembered Hilton, reflecting:

That in his death the Masonic Fraternity has lost an ardent supporter; our race a wise counsellor and an uncompromising friend; the church an exemplary Christian, and the community an estimable citizen.22

Today, a plaque marks John T. Hilton's home at 12 Belknap (73-75 Joy) Street on Beacon Hill.23

Footnotes

  1. Kathryn Grover and Janine V. Da Silva, "Historic Resource Study: Boston African American National Historic Site," Boston African American National Historic Site, (2002), 47; Franklin A. Dorman, Twenty Families of Color in Massachusetts (Boston: New England Historical Society, 2010), 117.
  2. Grover and Da Silva, "Historic Resource Study," 47; "Great Clothes Cleaning Establishment," Boston Post, April 14, 1834. 
  3. Grover and Da Silva, "Historic Resource Study," 45, 46, 95.
  4. James Horton and Lois Horton, Black Bostonians: Family Life and Community Struggle in the Antebellum North (New York: Holmes & Meier Publishers, Inc., 1999), 42-43; Stephen Kantrowitz, More Than Freedom: Fighting for Black Citizenship in a White Republic, 1829-1889 (New York: Penguin, 2012), 21.
  5. Grover and Da Silva, "Historic Resource Study," 46-47; Horton and Horton, Black Bostonians, 98-99. 
  6. Kantrowitz, More Than Freedom, 22; Grover and Da Silva, "Historic Resource Study," 47.
  7. Kantrowitz, More Than Freedom, 30-31.
  8. Kantrowitz, More Than Freedom, 146; Horton and Horton, Black Bostonians, 30.
  9. Grover and Da Silva, "Historic Resource Study," 43; Kantrowitz, More Than Freedom, 23.
  10. The Liberator (Boston, Massachusetts), August 20, 1831.
  11. Kantrowitz, More Than Freedom, 30-31.
  12. "An Appeal to the Free Colored Citizens of the United States," The Liberator, Feb 14, 1835.
  13. Horton and Horton, Black Bostonians, 110-111.
  14. Austin Bearse, Reminisces of the Fugitive Slave Law Days (Warren Richardson, 1880), 4, Archive.org. 
  15. 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, 10.
  16. Kantrowitz, More Than Freedom, 125-127, 130; Horton and Horton, Black Bostonians, 77-78; Paul Kendrick and Stephen Kendrick, Sarah’s Long Walk: The Free Blacks of Boston and How Their Struggle for Equality Changed America (Boston: Beacon Press, 2004) 51, 80-84.
  17. Horton and Horton, Black Bostonians, 78-81; Kendrick and Kendrick, Sarah’s Long Walk, 80-85.
  18.  "Meeting of Colored Citizens," The Liberator, August 10, 1849, 3.
  19. Kendrick and Kendrick, Sarah’s Long Walk, 179.
  20. Grover and Da Silva, "Historic Resource Study," 46; Kantrowitz, More Than Freedom, 127; Horton and Horton, Black Bostonians, 81; "The Smith School," The Liberator, August 2, 1844, 2.
  21. "Died," The Liberator, March 25, 1864, 3.
  22. "Resolutions of Condolence," The Liberator, April 22, 1864, 2.
  23. Full text of plaque reads "12 Belknap Street | John Telemachus Hilton, 1801-1864 | Grand Master, Prince Hall Masons, a founder of Massachusetts General Colored Association, member of Boston Vigilance Committee, member Board of Managers, Anti-Slavery Society, trustee First Independent Baptist Church off Belknap Street, staunch African American integrationist. | The Heritage Guild, In., 1999."

Boston African American National Historic Site

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Last updated: November 26, 2024