Collect Day #29, OLIVER CROMWELL GILBERT
O God of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob who called your people out of bondage and death into life and freedom: we lift up today Oliver Cromwell Gilbert who bravely escaped the evils of slavery in America to begin a new life as an educator, musician, husband and father; may we like those who helped Oliver to find safety to pursue his courageous battle against racism also never waiver in our responsibility to speak out against all forms of oppression; this we ask in the Name of Jesus Christ who calls us all from death to life. Amen
DAY #29, March 19, 2018
Lee
OLIVER CROMWELL GILBERT
(c. 1828–1912)
Jody Fernald
No tunnels, secret rooms or painted chimneys appeared in Oliver Cromwell Gilbertʼs description of his journey in 1852 from slavery in Maryland to the home of the Cartland family in Lee, NH.
Gilbert appeared at the Cartland homestead on a snowy April night, bearing a letter of introduction from abolitionist William Lloyd Garrison of Boston. The members of The Boston Vigilance Committee, both Black and White playing different roles, had housed and employed Gilbert during his stay in Boston at a time when slaveholders came looking to recover their property under the protection of the second Fugitive Slave Act. His story reveals much about the journey many took to escape a life of enslavement and fight for a life in freedom.
Oliver Gilbert was born into slavery on Marylandʼs western shore around 1828. He had served primarily as a household servant and escaped in 1848 with a group of young men including some of his siblings. Gilbert left a record of his journey detailing the help he received from Quakers, free Blacks and others through Pennsylvania, New York, New Jersey and Boston. While in Boston, Garrison and others helped him reconnect with one of his sisters who also escaped from slavery.
Gilbert was sent to the Quaker Cartland family in Lee, NH. The Cartlands were no ordinary rural farmers. They were educators and political and social activists who worked across the Northeast, including Pennsylvania and New York. While in Lee, Gilbert lectured to the students of the Cartlandsʼ Quaker school, as well as to sympathetic local residents. He did not hide in the basement although he certainly was not considered a social or intellectual equal. His story was compelling and his oratorical and musical talents made him an effective teacher about the evils of slavery. But Lee lacked a community of Black people of similar experiences, so Gilbert moved back to Boston when it appeared safe to do so.
Gilbert went on to lecture throughout the Northeast, as well as perform with his Gilbert Family Singers. He moved to New York where he ran the Gilbert House hotel in Saratoga Springs in a community of free and formerly enslaved Blacks. Gilbert took his wife and children to the 1876 exposition in a Philadelphia and was so impressed that the family moved there shortly thereafter. He continued to correspond and visit with the Cartlands and their descendants and remained forever grateful for the assistance they gave him.
Gilbert never went to Canada although that was his original intention. Instead, he found supportive communities among his people and continued to work for their benefit. He died in Philadelphia with little financial resources, but he had contributed immensely to expanding later knowledge of those who had survived their enslavement and the ways in which they navigated the difficulties of a culture steeped in racial prejudice.
For more details on Oliver Gilbertʼs life see:
Fernald, Jody “in Slavery and In Freedom: Oliver C. Gilbert and Edwin S. Warfild.”
Maryland Historical Magazine, Summer 2011, p141-161.
Fernald, Jody and Gilbert, Stephanie, “Oliver Cromwell Gilbert: A Life” (2014). University Library Scholarship. Paper 75.
