Colonel George Middleton, David Walker and Mariah Stewart were three civil rights activists on Beacon Hill in the late 18th and early 19th centuries who made an indelible mark on Boston’s history.
“Middleton was a striver. [I mention] Walker and Stewart because they were so brash, especially Walker,” said Kathryn Woods, a tour guide for the Freedom Trail Foundation. “I always admire people who get their toes stepped on and say, ‘Get the hell off my foot!’”
Middleton (1735–1815) was successful as a violinist, horse breaker, and coachman, which enabled him to purchase a home at 5 Pinckney Street.
During the war, he served as commander of the Bucks of America, one of only two all black units in the Revolution. The Bucks were a Massachusetts military company that protected the property of Boston merchants, according to Woods. At the end of the war, John Hancock presented Middleton with a flag, which is now housed at the Massachusetts Historical Society.
In 1796, Middleton founded the African Benevolent Society, which provided financial assistance and job placement for black widows and orphans.
David Walker (1796–1830) lived a block away at 81 Joy Street and ran a used clothing store in the North End. An outspoken supporter of the abolition movement, in 1829 Walker published his Appeal to the Coloured Citizens of the World, a rousing and controversial document modeled after the Constitution that challenged the notion of black inferiority.
The distribution of the appeal was outlawed, so Walker sewed pamphlets into the lining of the used clothes he sold to sailors.
“He was a crafty man,” Woods said, seen by politicians and slave owners as “dangerous.”
A $10,000 reward was issued for Walker’s arrest and $3,000 for his murder, Woods said. Walker died suddenly in 1830, supposedly of natural causes.
Walker lived next door to Mariah Stewart (1803–1879), who was among the first black women to deliver speeches promoting women’s rights.
“She was tired of seeing how people were being treated and spoke up,” Woods said. But given that she was a female orator with bold opinions, “Her lectures weren’t taken to very well.”
Stewart went on to publish her lectures, teach, and ultimately become head matron of the medical school at Howard College in Washington, D.C.
