Samuel Snowden (1850) was an African-American

abolitionist Abolitionism, or the abolitionist movement, is the movement to end slavery. In Western Europe and the Americas, abolitionism was a historic movement that sought to end the Atlantic slave trade and liberate the enslaved people. The British ...

and pastor of the May Street Church, one of the first black

Methodist Methodism, also called the Methodist movement, is a group of historically related denominations of Protestant Christianity whose origins, doctrine and practice derive from the life and teachings of John Wesley. George Whitefield and John's b ...

churches in

Boston Boston (), officially the City of Boston, is the state capital and most populous city of the Commonwealth of Massachusetts, as well as the cultural and financial center of the New England region of the United States. It is the 24th- mo ...

, Massachusetts. Under Reverend Snowden's direction from 1818 to 1850, the May Street Church congregation supported the

Underground Railroad The Underground Railroad was a network of clandestine routes and safe houses established in the United States during the early- to mid-19th century. It was used by enslaved African Americans primarily to escape into free states and Canada. T ...

; members included several prominent abolitionists, such as David Walker from North Carolina. Snowden was born into slavery in the South, but later reached the North and began his career as a pastor.

Pastoral life

Prior to 1818, Reverend Snowden served as the pastor of the Chestnut Street Church in

Portland, Maine Portland is the largest city in the U.S. state of Maine and the seat of Cumberland County. Portland's population was 68,408 in April 2020. The Greater Portland metropolitan area is home to over half a million people, the 104th-largest metropol ...

. As the African-American community in the Bromfield Street Methodist Episcopal Church in

grew, they petitioned their bishop to establish a separate black Methodist church and to appoint Reverend Snowden as their pastor. While smaller than the prominent First African Baptist Church in Boston, they had a kind of independence. The bishop accepted their petition, and in 1818 he appointed Reverend Snowden as pastor of the newly established May Street Church. With Reverend Snowden at the helm, the May Street Church community grew too large for their facilities, and they built a new church nearby in 1824, the Revere Street Church. Snowden served as pastor until his death in 1850.

Abolitionist activities

While pastor of the May Street and Revere Street churches, Reverend Snowden was deeply involved in the antislavery movement. David Walker, leading abolitionist and author of ''An Appeal to the Coloured Citizens of the World,'' was a member of the May Street Church. Snowden's "powerful personality and antislavery activism" is likely what attracted Walker to his church, and the men lived across the street from each other on the north side of Beacon Hill in the late 1820s. Although his congregation supported the church as a stop on the Underground Railroad, Snowden and his family also aided fugitive slaves at their own homes. Snowden and his daughters, Isabella and Holmes, were known for welcoming fugitive slaves into their houses, offering them shelter, food, and clothing. Additionally, Reverend Snowden worked closely with

William Lloyd Garrison William Lloyd Garrison (December , 1805 – May 24, 1879) was a prominent American Christian, abolitionist, journalist, suffragist, and social reformer. He is best known for his widely read antislavery newspaper '' The Liberator'', which he found ...

, donating money to the cause of abolition and allowing Garrison to use his church's facilities for events.

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Snowden, Samuel African-American abolitionists African-American Methodists Abolitionists from Boston 1850 deaths Year of birth uncertain 18th-century American slaves Fugitive American slaves Methodist abolitionists People of colonial Massachusetts People from colonial Boston