America's Black Founders: Revolutionary Heroes & Early Leaders with 21 Activities
in Philadelphia Benjamin Chew was a friend of George Washing ton and John Adams Pennsylvania's famous Penn family hired his law services However Chew dis agreed with the political stance of Benjamin Franklin Chew did not support the signing of the Declaration of Independence During his early years in the Chew household Richard Allen probably saw important political figures helped prepare for the flurry of polit ical activities and overheard heated discussions In 1767 there were nearly 1 400 slaves living in the city of Philadelphia This meant that about one out of every five households owned slaves Benjamin Chew’s large family of 10 usually had about 12 work ers in their home at any given time These workers were paid employees indentured servants or slaves These workers probably kept out of sight Break fast was cooked and the table prepared while the Chew family dressed in their bedrooms When the family came in to eat the workers went to the bed rooms to tidy the rooms Positions at the household usually included a coachman maids and menservants a cook a washer woman and a nurse for the children Younger slaves such as Richard helped out in any way they could There were always jobs such as carrying wood for the fireplace stuffing straw in a mattress or helping the sons and daughters of Benjamin
The Slave Mother BY FRANCES ELLEN WATKINS HARPER Heard you that shriek It rose So wildly on the air It seemed as if a burdened heart Was breaking in despair Saw you those hands so sadly clasped The bowed and feeble head The shuddering of that fragile form That look of grief and dread Saw you the sad imploring eye Its every glance was pain As if a storm of agony Were sweeping through the brain She is a mother pale with fear Her boy clings to her side And in her kyrtle vainly tries His trembling form to hide He is not hers although she bore For him a mother's pains He is not hers although her blood Is coursing through his veins He is not hers for cruel hands
May rudely tear apart The only wreath of household love That binds her breaking heart His love has been a joyous light That over her pathway smiled A fountain gushing ever new Amid life's desert wild His lightest word has been a tone Of music round her heart Their lives a streamlet blent in one Oh Father must they part They tear him from her circling arms Her last and fond embrace Oh never more may her sad eyes Gaze on his mournful face No marvel then these bitter shrieks Disturb the listening air She is a mother and her heart Is breaking in despair A slave
Courtesy of the Library of Congress Prints Photographs Divi sion LC USz62 2582 A kyrtle is a woman's long skirt or dress A Summer Home When Richard Allen was two years old a yellow fever epidemic swept through the city of Phil adelphia Dr Benjamin Rush a local doctor described the terrors of 1762 in his papers As an active physician in the city he documented as many as 20 deaths a day from August through December When the fever was over about one sixth of Phil adelphia's population had died This horrible outbreak of yellow fever probably prompted Benjamin Chew to purchase land in Ger mantown six miles from Philadelphia For the next four years he built a summer home called Cliveden on this plot with plans of moving his family away from the city to stay there during the hottest months each year Cliveden was expensive to build Chew's records show he paid large sums of money to build this majestic mansion By 1767 with the completion of Cliveden Benjamin Chew sold some of his
