Collect Day #24 HAYWOOD B. BURTON
O God of light and dark, who often moves unseen in the lives of your faithful disciples, we remember to the “Black Mayor of Portsmouth” Deacon Haywood B. Burton, who moved quietly in the lives of many in the community as a witness to your love for all; may we honor Haywood by seeing in him your guiding hand in his willingness to build not only a community of faith but to labor for the good of all as a houseman, pastor, teacher and Justice of the Peace; through Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen.
DAY #24, April 2, 2019
PORTSMOUTH, NH
HAYWOOD B. BURTON (1878-1954)
Valerie Cunningham
Deacon Burton always opened Sunday School by calling out a question. He knew everybody’s favorite was, “Who got saved from the fiery furnace?” to which every child and adult in the room would shout in unison, “Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego!” Burton would grin his approval and then take attendance.
Burton could have found work in the tobacco fields of North Carolina, where he grew up, so maybe something more than employment compelled him to leave home. Perhaps it was the hopeful spirit he found in the letters sent back home from folks who already had migrated. Their daily lives seemed exciting, and even in hard times they seemed confident of better times ahead. Whatever brought him to travel North, Haywood Burton helped shape the history of Black Portsmouth.
Arriving just as People’s Baptist Church was formally established in 1893, young Burton would become deeply involved in the church he helped create. He led fundraising to buy church real estate; led the choir for 19 years; rose to the rank of senior deacon while serving as chairman of the church corporation; and for more than 40 years, was Superintendent of the Sunday School.
During his first years in town, Burton worked as coachman for a physician. Then he began a long career as the janitor of Portsmouth Hospital. Everyone in Portsmouth knew him by sight, if not by name. In 1944, in recognition of his eighteenth year work anniversary, the local newspaper noted Burton for “not being absent a single day for sickness or accident.” The news story referred to Burton as the hospital’s “houseman.”
When Burton died in 1954, he was the last surviving founder of People’s Baptist Church. The general secretary of the state’s Baptist Convention conducted the well-attended funeral service. Also present were representatives of other local churches, including the Rev. Robert H. Dunn of St. John’s Episcopal Church. There were delegates from the Council of Church Women, a former principal of Portsmouth High School, the general secretary of the YMCA and, from Portsmouth Hospital, trustees, the nursing supervisor, and representatives of the Nurses’ Alumnae Association.
Many of those White attendees knew Burton from the hospital and remembered him – along with his wife, Mary — as caterer-of-choice for society people’s weddings and galas. Everybody present would have heard some version of a story involving Burton being called upon to notarize an important document, preside as Justice of the Peace for a wedding, or quietly resolve a Black sailor’s “situation” while on shore duty. Some might even recall the cafe he ran on Ladd Street for a number of years.
But probably only members of the city’s African American community, including the dozen active and honorary pallbearers, knew that he was often referred to, in that community, as the Black mayor of Portsmouth.
