Speaker 1: Welcome to Stuff You Missed in History Class, a production
Speaker 1: of I Heart Radio. Hello, and welcome to the podcast.
Speaker 1: I'm Holly Fry and I'm Tracy V. Wilson. And when
Speaker 1: I started researching today's topic, I was several days in
Speaker 1: and I kept second guessing myself because it seemed absolutely
Speaker 1: impossible that we had not already covered this person. I've
Speaker 1: had the same phenomenon happened to me. Yeah, we're talking
Speaker 1: about James Forton today. And he's one of those figures
Speaker 1: that has really emerged as an icon in the abolitionist movement.
Speaker 1: He's someone people love to write about. Um. As a
Speaker 1: child and a young man, he was part of the
Speaker 1: British colonies as they were rebelling against rule from the throne,
Speaker 1: and he both saw and participated in the Revolutionary War
Speaker 1: that led to the US gaining independence. And as an
Speaker 1: adult he turned his influence to the causes of abolition
Speaker 1: and civil rights. And it was one of those things
Speaker 1: where I kept going and I was working, and I
Speaker 1: was several thousand pages into writing, and I pink, Tracy went,
Speaker 1: we didn't do this already, did we? Because how could
Speaker 1: we not have? Yeah? Well, and uh, and his name
Speaker 1: may sound familiar because of previous name drop, which will
Speaker 1: get to you in the episode, But yeah, I did
Speaker 1: the same thing where I was like, did did did we? No?
Speaker 1: I fully expect to find some weird hidden thing that
Speaker 1: for some reason we couldn't find in any of our
Speaker 1: indexes or archive lists. So I'll be like, oh, yeah,
Speaker 1: totally previous host did this, and I'll be like, how
Speaker 1: did I never find it? When you've been writing podcasts
Speaker 1: for seven years, it's easy to not remember anymore what
Speaker 1: you've done. Yeah, I don't. I always feel bad when
Speaker 1: we do a live show, which I missed desperately. That
Speaker 1: is truly one of the things I am missing the
Speaker 1: most during this pandemic. That people will ask a question
Speaker 1: about something that one of us has researched like two
Speaker 1: years prior, or sometimes even less than, and I'll be like,
Speaker 1: I don't remember any of this. I'm so sorry. Sometimes
Speaker 1: I don't even remember that we did that episode. Oh yeah.
Speaker 1: There are times we've both experienced where we go through
Speaker 1: the archives or we're talking about something and we don't
Speaker 1: remember ever doing it, and like one of us will
Speaker 1: be like, I don't remember ever doing this, and it'll
Speaker 1: be like you wrote it, but it happens. It's a lot. Again,
Speaker 1: if you're doing a research paper essentially every single week
Speaker 1: for seven years, yeah, you can't retain all of it. No,
Speaker 1: your brand gets a little crowded. So today's subject, who
Speaker 1: we're pretty sure we haven't done an episode on previously
Speaker 1: is James Morton. Uh. He was born on September two,
Speaker 1: seventeen sixty six and Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. And sometimes you'll find
Speaker 1: his family's name listed as Fortune f O R t
Speaker 1: U N E rather than Forton. And James was part
Speaker 1: of the fourth generation of his family to live in
Speaker 1: North America. The Fortin's had been in Pennsylvania for three
Speaker 1: of those generations. His grandfather had been from West Africa
Speaker 1: and was taken to Philadelphia as an enslaved man in
Speaker 1: the six teen eighties. Although we do not know a
Speaker 1: whole lot more than that about him. We do not
Speaker 1: even know his name. That great grandfather had a child
Speaker 1: with an enslaved woman that was James Morton's grandfather. And
Speaker 1: although there's no clear information on exactly how it happened,
Speaker 1: Forton's grandfather was able to secure his own freedom. Uh.
Speaker 1: That is, according to James's accounts, Yeah, there's no record
Speaker 1: of that. We don't know what kind of manumission or
Speaker 1: freedom happened, just that it was something James told everybody. Yes,
Speaker 1: my grandfather gained his own freedom. Uh. Forton's parents are
Speaker 1: a little bit mysterious as well in terms of the
Speaker 1: details of their life. His father, who is sometimes referred
Speaker 1: to as Thomas Fortune, was, according to James, born a freeman.
Speaker 1: Thomas was educated enough to read and write. He was
Speaker 1: a sailmaker by trade that will come up again, and
Speaker 1: he worked for a man named Robert Bridges. Bridges was
Speaker 1: born to Irish parents in the Colonies, and over time
Speaker 1: he became quite wealthy in his business, and so he
Speaker 1: both employed free black craftsman at least we know of
Speaker 1: Thomas and then later on we'll talk about his relationship
Speaker 1: with James, but he also had enslaved black people working
Speaker 1: in his sale offt as well. We also don't have
Speaker 1: a lot of information on James's mother, Margaret. It's believed
Speaker 1: that she was in her mid forties when James was born,
Speaker 1: and we don't know anything else about her. We don't
Speaker 1: know whether she was ever enslaved. No biography there. Yeah,
Speaker 1: the background is not there. It's interesting because she lived
Speaker 1: for quite a while and lived with James, but it
Speaker 1: was all of her story is pretty much focused on
Speaker 1: on James's story, and so we don't know what her
Speaker 1: personal life was like before she became a wife and mother.
Speaker 1: But as a child, James sometimes accompanied his father when
Speaker 1: he went to Bridges's shop to work in the sale loft,
Speaker 1: and James would have been given assorted tasks. They're like
Speaker 1: sweeping and sometimes sorting scraps for potential recycling, like to
Speaker 1: see if they were big enough to use for a patch.
Speaker 1: He also may have prepared be wax for the sailmakers
Speaker 1: to run their sewing thread through. But eventually young James
Speaker 1: did learn to sew sales, and the idea in all
Speaker 1: of this was that James was going to be completely
Speaker 1: prepared to support himself through a stable and lucrative trade.
Speaker 1: This was all very deliberately done by his father, Thomas,
Speaker 1: thinking about his family's financial stability. Also went way beyond
Speaker 1: teaching James a trade. Thomas also took small commissions for himself,
Speaker 1: and when we say small, we mean jobs that involved sales,
Speaker 1: literally small enough that he could work on them at
Speaker 1: home without the benefit of a large loft space to
Speaker 1: lay out all of the cuts of canvas he would need,
Speaker 1: and then Thomas used the money that he earned through
Speaker 1: his side work to set up a lending business so
Speaker 1: that he could be paid back with interest uh when
Speaker 1: he loaned money to clients, and then he could further
Speaker 1: grow his holdings that way. In late seventeen seventy three
Speaker 1: or early seventeen seventy four, when James was still just seven,
Speaker 1: his father died. The details of the ill us that
Speaker 1: led to this death are unknown, but Margaret then left
Speaker 1: to figure out how to provide for her children. James
Speaker 1: and his younger sister, Abigail, reached out to her husband's
Speaker 1: acquaintances and business associates to try to pull together a
Speaker 1: plan to get James educated and to keep food on
Speaker 1: the table. From seventeen seventy three to seventeen seventy five,
Speaker 1: James attended a Quaker school, the Friends African School, But
Speaker 1: then when James was just nine, the school ran into
Speaker 1: an array of problems. There was financial issues and the
Speaker 1: failing health of the school's teacher, so it had to
Speaker 1: close often. It kept up kind of a sputtering schedule. Meanwhile,
Speaker 1: the family needed James to work to help support them,
Speaker 1: and his time in school ended because of that. James
Speaker 1: continued to be a voracious reader long after his formal
Speaker 1: schooling with the friends ended though. Yeah, that was a
Speaker 1: kid that loved books. And Margaret was working. She was
Speaker 1: doing like taking and mending and stuff, but like to
Speaker 1: support the three of them and pay their rent, it
Speaker 1: was just not enough. So James started working for a shopkeeper.
Speaker 1: And because he was still just a boy at this point,
Speaker 1: remember he's like nine, this work was kind of like
Speaker 1: cleaning the store, stalking the shelves. It's been theorized that
Speaker 1: he probably served as an occasional clerk. And of course,
Speaker 1: all of this upheaval in James's personal life was happening
Speaker 1: as the colonies were going through their own upheaval. Yeah,
Speaker 1: James was a boy in Philadelphia as the Revolutionary War
Speaker 1: was brewing. He was still just nine when he heard
Speaker 1: the Declaration of Independence being read publicly for the first
Speaker 1: time on July eight, seventeen seventy six. When the British
Speaker 1: marched into Philadelphia and took possession of the city on
Speaker 1: September seventeen seventy seven, James witnessed that as well, yeah,
Speaker 1: there has been. I saw an interesting discussion of this
Speaker 1: in in one of the pieces I was reading about
Speaker 1: why his why some families, particularly black families did not
Speaker 1: leave and and there's a story and that's like they
Speaker 1: didn't have anywhere to go. Um, a lot of people
Speaker 1: just did not have the means, both black and white,
Speaker 1: to leave the city when they knew that this occupation
Speaker 1: was going to happen, so they kind of just hunkered
Speaker 1: down and waited it out. But after the British moved
Speaker 1: out of the city, Philadelphia became a rallying spot for privateers,
Speaker 1: and this meant that the shipyards once again became very
Speaker 1: busy as investors set about outfitting existing ships for privateering
Speaker 1: or commissioning new ships to be built specifically for that purpose.
Speaker 1: And because of the ongoing war, which had deeply impacted
Speaker 1: the import of goods from Europe, this was also a
Speaker 1: time that inflation was a very intense problem, so James
Speaker 1: and his family would have needed all of the money
Speaker 1: they could get just to make ends meet. As he
Speaker 1: reached his team years and was able to take on
Speaker 1: more demanding work, James joined the crew of a privateering vessel.
Speaker 1: This was the Royal Louis. He was fourteen at the time.
Speaker 1: Because he knew about sale, construction and repair, he was
Speaker 1: really an asset for the Louise captain, which was Stephen Decatur.
Speaker 1: James's mother, Margaret, wasn't exactly enthusiastic about the smooth but
Speaker 1: she did consent to it. The plan was that the
Speaker 1: Royal Louis, which left Philadelphia with a crew of two
Speaker 1: hundred men, would take other ships and then deploy members
Speaker 1: of the crew to sail those ships. James was one
Speaker 1: of twenty black crew members, and at this point the
Speaker 1: British held both New York and Charleston, and Decatur had
Speaker 1: been commissioned to cruise along the coast between the two
Speaker 1: cities in search of British vessels. The Royal Louis took
Speaker 1: four other ships with very little resistance, although the times
Speaker 1: that there were firefights definitely left an impression on Forton.
Speaker 1: Uh There is some discrepancy in Forton's memories, as relayed
Speaker 1: to a family friend later in life, versus historical record
Speaker 1: regarding which ship put up a fight, but the primary
Speaker 1: takeaway was that James saw both shipmates and the crew
Speaker 1: of the other ship killed. Although he himself was uninjured.
Speaker 1: This first voyage was both lucrative for Forton and gave
Speaker 1: him a sense of pride at having helped the colonies
Speaker 1: in their fight against British rule. The Louis had intercepted
Speaker 1: British vessels that were carrying military dispatches, and so that
Speaker 1: disrupted the flow of information that was vital to British planning.
Speaker 1: James once again set out as a member of the
Speaker 1: Royal Louis crew in October seventy one, as the Siege
Speaker 1: of Yorktown was underway, but this time the Royal Louis
Speaker 1: was captured by the British ship Amphion. That happened almost
Speaker 1: immediately after they left port, and James became a prisoner.
Speaker 1: He was naturally worried, recounting later that his mind was
Speaker 1: quote harassed with the most painful forebodings from a knowledge
Speaker 1: that rarely were prisoners of his complexion exchanged. They were
Speaker 1: sent to the West Indies, and they're doomed to a
Speaker 1: life of slavery. But that did not happen. Instead, James
Speaker 1: Forton was assigned by the captain of the Amphion, which
Speaker 1: was John. Basically, he was assigned to be a companion
Speaker 1: to the captain's twelve year old son, Henry. This may
Speaker 1: have started out essentially as a babysitting assignment for a
Speaker 1: kid who was at See for the first time, but
Speaker 1: according to Forton's account, he and Henry became real friends
Speaker 1: and Captain Baisley started to treat him more and more
Speaker 1: as his child's friend and less like a prisoner. Yeah,
Speaker 1: there was one particular incident that's recounted where the two
Speaker 1: boys were playing marbles and James made this particularly amazing
Speaker 1: move and so Henry was like, everybody, come look at this,
Speaker 1: it's amazing, And later he would kind of jest that
Speaker 1: being good at marble's had saved his life. But James
Speaker 1: Forton did end up on a prison ship for a
Speaker 1: while though, and we're gonna pause here for a sponsor
Speaker 1: break before we get into that part of his story.
Speaker 1: So when the Ampion regrouped with a British prison ship,
Speaker 1: Captain Baisley actually gave James Swarton the opportunity to instead
Speaker 1: travel to England with his son Henry. James turned down
Speaker 1: the offer by saying that he had quote been taken
Speaker 1: prisoner for the liberties of my country and never will
Speaker 1: prove a traitor to her interest. He was then listed
Speaker 1: on the prison ship Jersey as prisoner number forty one
Speaker 1: O two, carrying with him a letter from Captain Baisley
Speaker 1: to the Captain of the Jersey asking that James quote
Speaker 1: not be forgotten on the list of exchanges. While aboard
Speaker 1: the Jersey, James made a deal with a Continental Navy officer.
Speaker 1: At one point that officer was to be exchanged for
Speaker 1: a bit of British officer, and the steal was so
Speaker 1: James could hide in the man's sea chest and be
Speaker 1: exchanged along with them. But when the moment actually came,
Speaker 1: James gave his spot away to a boy who was
Speaker 1: two years younger than he was. That was Daniel Bruton.
Speaker 1: And Daniel made it to safety and would become James
Speaker 1: Morton's friend for life. This was a huge sacrifice, aside
Speaker 1: from the fact that there were horrible sanitary conditions in
Speaker 1: the prison ship. One thing I read said something like
Speaker 1: eight men died every single day just from the overcrowding
Speaker 1: and the bad hygiene. The British didn't even consider privateer
Speaker 1: as continental prisoners. They didn't recognize the letters of mark
Speaker 1: that had established those privateering ships as working for the
Speaker 1: Continental Congress, and so that made James and his fellow
Speaker 1: crew members pirates in the eyes of their captors, and
Speaker 1: so James was in a really precarious situation. Simultaneously, even
Speaker 1: on the continental military side, privateers were not valued the
Speaker 1: same way. They were not considered equal exchanges for red coats.
Speaker 1: Despite all of the odds against him, James survived long
Speaker 1: enough for his name to make its way up the
Speaker 1: exchange list, and after seven months as a captive, he
Speaker 1: was released. He was dropped in New York and walked
Speaker 1: to Trent And barefoot before getting food and assistance. When
Speaker 1: he made it back to Philadelphia, he was not in
Speaker 1: good health. He was thin and malnourished, to the point
Speaker 1: that a lot of his hair had fallen out. But
Speaker 1: to his mother and sister, who really thought he had
Speaker 1: died at sea, his reappearance probably seemed like a miracle.
Speaker 1: And also at this point he was still just a teenager. Yeah,
Speaker 1: I don't even know if he had turned fifteen yet
Speaker 1: at this time. This all happened in a very short
Speaker 1: period of time. But a year later, the war was
Speaker 1: over and James was physically recovered and he was working,
Speaker 1: probably in the sail loft of Robert Bridges again to
Speaker 1: keep the family housed and fed. During this time, James's
Speaker 1: sister Abigail, married a sailor named William Dunbar, who left
Speaker 1: almost immediately after the wedding to sail to London aboard
Speaker 1: a ship called the Commerce, which was run by a
Speaker 1: merchant named Thomas Truxton, and James went with him. When
Speaker 1: Jamesporton arrived in London, he was seventeen. William Dunbar went
Speaker 1: back to Philadelphia aboard the Commerce as soon as the
Speaker 1: cargo was unloaded and the new cargo brought on. But James,
Speaker 1: knowing that he now had a brother in law who
Speaker 1: could help look after the family, decided to stay in
Speaker 1: England for a while. As a young man who was
Speaker 1: able to make and repair sales, he could easily pick
Speaker 1: up work along the docks and in the shipyards of London.
Speaker 1: For James, this was definitely not an instance of a
Speaker 1: young man who was looking to sew his wild oats
Speaker 1: or enjoy some unrestrained party time. He is often described
Speaker 1: as pious. He never drank and was really quite disdainful
Speaker 1: of alcohol. He would say later in his life that
Speaker 1: he had never had a drop, and he seems to
Speaker 1: have spent his free time kind of walking around the city,
Speaker 1: observing the social and political norms of life in London
Speaker 1: at the time, particularly in regard to race. While he
Speaker 1: was less likely to stand out in the city because
Speaker 1: of the color of his skin, James certainly witnessed the
Speaker 1: racism involved in a city where black loyalist refugees from
Speaker 1: the war were being referred to as an infestation. This
Speaker 1: was also when the idea had started to take hold
Speaker 1: of a colony in Sierra Leone where the British government
Speaker 1: could ship unwanted black refugees. We will come back to
Speaker 1: this later, but the truth is we actually don't really
Speaker 1: know what James Forton thought or saw when he was
Speaker 1: in London. Specifically, it is unclear whether he had always
Speaker 1: intended that this would be a temporary visit, or if
Speaker 1: he had actually at some point thought he might relocate
Speaker 1: there and then later changed his mind for some reason.
Speaker 1: There is no real record even of what ship he
Speaker 1: sailed back to Philadelphia on. There has been speculation that
Speaker 1: he once again met up with the Commerce and took
Speaker 1: it back because it was making regular runs back and forth,
Speaker 1: but we do not know for certain. All we know
Speaker 1: is that he did return home to Philadelphia in Once
Speaker 1: he was in Pennsylvania again, his next line of work
Speaker 1: wasn't on the water. He officially became a sailmaker's apprentice
Speaker 1: under Robert Bridges. Bridges was a lot more than a
Speaker 1: boss to James. He was a mentor perhaps even a
Speaker 1: father figure. Although a lot of the specifics of their
Speaker 1: relationship are pretty speculative, it appears, based on records that
Speaker 1: Forton lived with Bridges for a while, which was not
Speaker 1: unusual for an apprentice, and that means that he would
Speaker 1: have been a free black man in a home where
Speaker 1: enslaved people made up the household staff. Yeah. This also
Speaker 1: gets into the discussion that I didn't really delve into
Speaker 1: here of the indenture of an apprentice, and there is
Speaker 1: some discussion there to be made about whether or not
Speaker 1: you're still a free person at that point. Certainly, indentures
Speaker 1: were not in trade learning crafts exclusive to black people
Speaker 1: at this point. Um. But it's just another kind of
Speaker 1: nuance to consider in all of this. Um. And we
Speaker 1: have also talked on the show before about the inherent
Speaker 1: conflict of stories like this. A person, specifically a black
Speaker 1: person that participates or lives in a system that enslaves
Speaker 1: other black people. Uh Forton's family had its own complicated
Speaker 1: history with slavery, although the Fortins or Fortunes, depending on
Speaker 1: which historical record you're reading and which one any given
Speaker 1: individual in that family favored. Although they were black, James
Speaker 1: had an aunt who purchased enslaved people. This was not
Speaker 1: exactly uncommon in Philadelphia and other cities. Enslaved labor was
Speaker 1: so much a part of the cultural and economic norms
Speaker 1: at the time that almost anyone with any kind of
Speaker 1: financial stability or wealth was probably involved in enslavement. Back
Speaker 1: to the relationship between Robert Bridges and James Parton. Bridges
Speaker 1: even purchased a house in James Parton's name, and he
Speaker 1: trained Forton to become an expert in designer and sailmaker.
Speaker 1: This was all pretty unusual for a number of reasons
Speaker 1: other than the ones that we've just mentioned. First, Forton
Speaker 1: was the only free black person working in the sail loft.
Speaker 1: Other black men worked there, but they were all enslaved. Additionally,
Speaker 1: Robert Bridges and his wife Jemima, had children of their own,
Speaker 1: and if things had progressed in the usual way, one
Speaker 1: of the Bridge's sons would have been the one taking
Speaker 1: over the family business, but that did not happen. In
Speaker 1: six Bridges promoted James Forton to foreman and then he
Speaker 1: was made junior partner. And in part this was because
Speaker 1: Robert Bridges, who had done very well for himself over
Speaker 1: the years, he had made additional money in privateering by
Speaker 1: uh purchasing privateering ships, even though he himself did not
Speaker 1: ever sail on them. He was kind of angling for
Speaker 1: his sons to become merchants and not tradesmen. He wanted
Speaker 1: to push them up the socioeconomic ladder, and so, in
Speaker 1: wishing to advance the position of his children, Robert had
Speaker 1: created a space where James was the one that was
Speaker 1: on a path to take over the business one day.
Speaker 1: But to be clear, James was a hard worker. He
Speaker 1: was very good at what he did. The time he
Speaker 1: spent on the sea informed his work with practical knowledge
Speaker 1: and experience that even Robert Bridges didn't have. And as
Speaker 1: he took on greater and greater responsibility, the loft clients
Speaker 1: recognized that James Sporton knew what he was talking about.
Speaker 1: Although some accounts of his life include mentioned that he
Speaker 1: patented a sale management system. There are no records to
Speaker 1: indicate that that was actually the case now, but he
Speaker 1: was undisputably like the sale expert um because he understood
Speaker 1: like what it even meant to like lift a sale,
Speaker 1: which a lot of salemakers didn't really know from personal experience.
Speaker 1: Like they would hire in sailors sometimes to do extra
Speaker 1: sewing who were like on land for a little while,
Speaker 1: but there weren't people designing these sales who had really
Speaker 1: been at sea very often at all, And so James
Speaker 1: was like miles ahead of everyone in terms of experiential knowledge.
Speaker 1: As the eighteenth century was coming to a close, James
Speaker 1: reached a new transition point in his life in Robert
Speaker 1: Bridges retired and Forton took over the salemaking company. With
Speaker 1: the help of Robert Bridges, he had become both a
Speaker 1: homeowner and a business owner, both of which were very
Speaker 1: unusual for black residents of Philadelphia in the late seventeen hundreds.
Speaker 1: This transition was pretty simple in terms of property, but
Speaker 1: the workforce was a little different. While the apprentices stayed
Speaker 1: trusting that James Forton could train them, the men who
Speaker 1: had finished their apprenticeships weren't really as willing to stay
Speaker 1: under this new ownership. While they had been answering to
Speaker 1: James for quite some time as their supervisor, they had
Speaker 1: some concerns that as a business owner, a black man
Speaker 1: would automatically lose clients because of prejudice. There was a
Speaker 1: concern about financial stability as well. James was the only
Speaker 1: black person in Philadelphia at the time who owned a
Speaker 1: business the size of this sail loft, and none of
Speaker 1: the employees knew what was going to happen. Allegedly, Robert
Speaker 1: Bridges moves things out, although whether that was through a
Speaker 1: financial guarantee or just by reiterating the good reputation that
Speaker 1: James Sporton had with all the other captains and the
Speaker 1: shipowners in town, like, that's really unclear. Yeah, we don't know.
Speaker 1: If he kind of made like a cash reserve and
Speaker 1: said like, look, guys, you're gonna get paid. This reserve
Speaker 1: is here in case anything goes wrong, or if he
Speaker 1: just was like, are you fools. Every captain knows that
Speaker 1: this is a person you go to. They're not going
Speaker 1: to go somewhere else because you're not going to get
Speaker 1: the same level of service, And Bridges was by the way,
Speaker 1: absolutely right. Uh. Thomas Willing, a banker in one of
Speaker 1: the city's wealthiest men, really kind of became one of
Speaker 1: Forton's first really like consistant champions and patrons in this regard.
Speaker 1: He regularly patronized the loft, and Forton eventually named one
Speaker 1: of his sons after the businessman. His third son was
Speaker 1: named Thomas Willing. Francis Forton Bridges died two years after
Speaker 1: the business changed hands, so he did not get to
Speaker 1: enjoy his retirement very long. But if anyone had been
Speaker 1: worried about James Forton continuing the firm's prosperity without his
Speaker 1: mentors kind of standing by in the wings, they really
Speaker 1: did not need to have been concerned. James Forton and sons,
Speaker 1: as it eventually came to be known, continued to have
Speaker 1: success and to be a well respected business with a
Speaker 1: dedicated clientele. And this was all the case, we should
Speaker 1: point out. While the country's economic situation was not all
Speaker 1: that stable. Up to this point in his life, James
Speaker 1: had been taking care of his mother and sister, but
Speaker 1: he also wanted a family of his own, and we'll
Speaker 1: talk about that after we have a little sponsor break.
Speaker 1: If I of years after acquiring the salemaking business, James
Speaker 1: met a young woman named Martha Batty who went by Patty,
Speaker 1: and not a whole lot is known about her life before.
Speaker 1: She and James married on November tenth of eighteen oh three,
Speaker 1: but unfortunately, their newly wed bliss lasted less than a
Speaker 1: year before Martha died. Seven months later. She became ill
Speaker 1: and passed, and the cause of her death is unknown.
Speaker 1: James did not really ever want to talk about her
Speaker 1: very much at all for the rest of his life,
Speaker 1: so we don't really know much about their relationship or,
Speaker 1: like I said, her, what caused her passing. Not long
Speaker 1: after Patty died, his sister Abigail also lost her husband,
Speaker 1: so from that point on, James took care of Abigail
Speaker 1: and her children for the rest of their lives. Forton
Speaker 1: got married again, this time on December tenth, eighteen o five.
Speaker 1: His bride was Charlotte Van Deen, who was twenty at
Speaker 1: that time. There was another death in the family and
Speaker 1: May of the following year, James's mother, Margaret, died at
Speaker 1: the age of eighty four. When James and Charlot it
Speaker 1: welcome to their first child in September of eighteen six.
Speaker 1: They named her Margaretta in honor of the deceased matriarch
Speaker 1: of the family. James and Charlotte had nine children's total,
Speaker 1: there was Charlotte who died in childhood, Harriet James Jr.
Speaker 1: Robert Bridges, Sarah Louisa, Mary, Isabella, Thomas Willing, and William. Yeah,
Speaker 1: many of those names you will recognize because he often
Speaker 1: would name people after Patron's mentors, people who were important
Speaker 1: to him and his family. Forton's business model as he
Speaker 1: ran the sail loft in support of his growing family,
Speaker 1: was really progressive. He hired both black and white employees
Speaker 1: to work in his loft, and there was no separation
Speaker 1: along race lines, and his business flourished for the first
Speaker 1: nine years, so much so that he was sometimes referenced
Speaker 1: in the press and in travelogs as this example of
Speaker 1: black prosperity in Philadelphia, which of course ignores the fact
Speaker 1: that like he was a complete outlier. Um they kind
Speaker 1: of used him like, no, you could have the their
Speaker 1: dreams full filled, and it's like, well, yes, but one
Speaker 1: dream Like there were a lot of people not given
Speaker 1: the sort of lucky breaks that he had had. Then
Speaker 1: the Embargo Act of eighteen o seven really meant that
Speaker 1: trade came to a standstill, so ships sales were not
Speaker 1: in demand anymore. Things picked back up in eighteen ten
Speaker 1: when the foreign trade restrictions were lifted, and then the
Speaker 1: War of eighteen twelve once again put everything into a
Speaker 1: really perilous state, particularly during a blockade of the Delaware River.
Speaker 1: The trade continued through Philadelphia as supplies were moving inland,
Speaker 1: a lot of business owners just didn't make it through
Speaker 1: with their livelihoods. Intact, James was, as one biographer put it,
Speaker 1: luckier or perhaps more prudent than many. He did experience
Speaker 1: some losses during all of this economic upheaval, but he
Speaker 1: was really careful with his business, and he stayed financially stable,
Speaker 1: and he was able to expand his fortunes once all
Speaker 1: of that instability had kind of settled down a little bit.
Speaker 1: He also whether to real estate bubble in a city
Speaker 1: and a panic in eighteen nineteen, and like his father,
Speaker 1: he put his money to work by lending, and he
Speaker 1: also made real estate investments. Over the years of working
Speaker 1: on the waterfront, Forton rescued a dozen people from drowning.
Speaker 1: In eighteen twenty one. He was recognized for having saved
Speaker 1: so many with a certificate of heroism from the Humane
Speaker 1: Society of Philadelphia. The certificate remained one of his most
Speaker 1: prized possessions for the rest of his life. He framed
Speaker 1: it and displayed it in the sitting room of his home. Yeah,
Speaker 1: there are varying accounts of whether the number was actually
Speaker 1: twelve or not. Some go as low as four, and
Speaker 1: some are like it could have been even more. This
Speaker 1: is a port city where people were always falling in
Speaker 1: the water. Um usually twelve is where the consensus lands.
Speaker 1: As Philadelphia was struggling to find its footing as it
Speaker 1: was surpassed as a port city by New York. James
Speaker 1: and his sons had to work really, really hard to
Speaker 1: keep the business going, and it was not easy, but
Speaker 1: they managed to continue to be respected and seen as
Speaker 1: a great success. Visitors would come to the Sale loft
Speaker 1: to marvel at Forton's success and his integrated workforce, which
Speaker 1: was often touted as being about fifty fifty black and white,
Speaker 1: was written about in the Anti Slavery Record in eighteen
Speaker 1: thirty four. Of course, in spite of all the press
Speaker 1: and interest from the general public, many of whom openly
Speaker 1: praised Forton's business, the Journeyman's Sailmaker's Benevolent Society of Philadelphia,
Speaker 1: only had white members. In thirty eight, Philadelphia's trade register
Speaker 1: showed nineteen black sailmakers in the city. All but one
Speaker 1: was working at James Forton and Sons, and three were
Speaker 1: James and his sons, James Jr. And Robert. Though he
Speaker 1: was running a very successful business, you would think very
Speaker 1: busy with all those children, James Forton still made time
Speaker 1: to participate in church and community efforts as well. As
Speaker 1: a member of the African Episcopal Church of St. Thomas,
Speaker 1: James put his business acumen to work and he spearheaded
Speaker 1: fund raising efforts to help black men and women in
Speaker 1: Philadelphia get educations. He also advised both the church itself
Speaker 1: and other members of the church in business affairs, and
Speaker 1: he would help them when they needed assistance with legal
Speaker 1: matters as well. But even more than that, he emerged
Speaker 1: as a leader in the abolition movement and a champion
Speaker 1: of civil rights for black citizens. He had been connected
Speaker 1: from a very early age to people in Philadelphia who
Speaker 1: were abolitionists. Anthony Beneze, who was a well known abolitionist
Speaker 1: and educator, had known James's father, and it helped James's mother, Margaret,
Speaker 1: arranged for James to attend the Friends African School as
Speaker 1: a boy. Beneze was one of the founders of the
Speaker 1: Society for the Relief of Free Negroes Unlawfully Held in Bondage,
Speaker 1: which evolved into the Pennsylvania Abolition Society. Pennsylvania had passed
Speaker 1: the Gradual Abolition Act in March of seventeen eighty, when
Speaker 1: James was still thirteen, and though this is widely touted
Speaker 1: as a big step in abolition history, and it was
Speaker 1: the first of many said steps that were pushed for
Speaker 1: by abolitionists, it also meant that James, at a very
Speaker 1: impressionable age, saw firsthand how legislators were trying to appease
Speaker 1: in slavers with this law by grandfathering in their right
Speaker 1: to continue to keep people as property so long as
Speaker 1: they registered them each year. And even as freedom was
Speaker 1: afforded to more and more black residents, it didn't really
Speaker 1: provide for a transition out of poverty once they were free,
Speaker 1: and James saw that as the number of free black
Speaker 1: inhabitants of the city grew, so did the hostility from
Speaker 1: Philadelphia's white population. Forarton worked in the abolitionist cause from
Speaker 1: an early age. He was one of the abolitionists who
Speaker 1: petitioned Congress to change the seventeen ninety three Fugitive Slave
Speaker 1: Law in the early eighteen hundreds, and once he had
Speaker 1: a family, James was more passionate than ever about abolition
Speaker 1: and equality. He wrote the pamphlet Letters from a Man
Speaker 1: of Color in eighteen thirteen, and its desire for his
Speaker 1: children to have all the same rights as any other
Speaker 1: citizen is clear in the text He wrote to implore legislators, quote,
Speaker 1: are you a parent? Have you children around whom your
Speaker 1: affections are bound by those delightful bonds that none but
Speaker 1: a parent can know? Are they the delight of your
Speaker 1: prosperity and the solace of your afflictions? If all this
Speaker 1: be true to you, we submit our cause the parents
Speaker 1: feelings cannot air. In that same pamphlet, Forton wrote about
Speaker 1: the obvious inequality between the white and black residents of Philadelphia,
Speaker 1: particularly on holidays. He spoke specifically about the Fourth of
Speaker 1: July and the contradictory nature of celebrating liberty when you
Speaker 1: compared the experiences of Philadelphia's black and white residents. He wrote, quote,
Speaker 1: it is a well known fact that black people, on
Speaker 1: certain days of public jubilee dare not be seen after
Speaker 1: twelve o'clock in the day upon the field to enjoy
Speaker 1: the times. For no sooner do the fumes of that
Speaker 1: potent devil liquor mount into the brain than the poor
Speaker 1: black is assailed. Is it not wonderful that the day
Speaker 1: set apart for the festival of liberty should be abu
Speaker 1: used by the advocates of freedom in endeavoring to sully
Speaker 1: what they professed to adore. So if the name James
Speaker 1: Barton has been sounding familiar to you on this podcast,
Speaker 1: it might be because we did mention him in our
Speaker 1: episode on Paul Cuffey. The two men had a number
Speaker 1: of things in common. They both became wealthy through maritime interests.
Speaker 1: Cuffey had started to turn a profit in a shipping business,
Speaker 1: and like Forton, invested in real estate. You may recall
Speaker 1: that Cuffey was a supporter of relocation of Africans and
Speaker 1: people of African descent in the United States to Sierra Leone,
Speaker 1: and we referenced this idea earlier in this episode. Although
Speaker 1: it going on in Great Britain, but of course that
Speaker 1: also was an idea that spread across the Atlantic, and
Speaker 1: in the Paul Cuffee episode, we talked about the failed
Speaker 1: efforts that preceded Cuffe's involvement in the movement, which started
Speaker 1: in eighteen ten. Forton initially supported Cuffey's work in this area,
Speaker 1: but he, like so many others, eventually backed away from
Speaker 1: this idea and renounced it. He had that change of
Speaker 1: heart largely after arranging a number of meetings where people
Speaker 1: discussed the realities of this plan, and he came to
Speaker 1: realize that for most people that he talked to you,
Speaker 1: this is just not something they wanted to do. Many
Speaker 1: of them, of course, had no immediate ties to Africa
Speaker 1: and had never even been there. They considered themselves Americans,
Speaker 1: and they didn't want to abandon that. Being a sailmaker
Speaker 1: and an abolitionist also came with some tricky choices to navigate.
Speaker 1: Fabric made in the United States became a bigger issue
Speaker 1: as the country gained the ability to manufacture textiles, specifically duck,
Speaker 1: which is a heavy duty canvas that's used in sailmaking.
Speaker 1: This was part of an effort to get away from
Speaker 1: the reliance on European goods, but it also meant that
Speaker 1: the cotton industry, which was intertwined so deeply with slavery,
Speaker 1: was also flourishing. We do not know James Forton's thoughts
Speaker 1: on this, If he ever recorded any, they are lost,
Speaker 1: but we do know that he did continue to use
Speaker 1: cotton duck and cotton duck that was manufactured in the
Speaker 1: United States. But we also know that his daughter, Harriet,
Speaker 1: for example, who was married to Robert Purvis, was an
Speaker 1: active participant in the Colored Free Produce Association, which chewed
Speaker 1: the use of anything that had been produced by enslaved people.
Speaker 1: So there was almost certainly an awareness of how success
Speaker 1: in his field was tied, at least in some way
Speaker 1: to enslavement, although he also leveraged his own success to
Speaker 1: combat the institution of slavery. And it's also said that
Speaker 1: he refused to make or repair sales for any ship
Speaker 1: that he believed to have been involved in slave trade,
Speaker 1: So the ethics of his business do appear to have
Speaker 1: mostly been aligned with his anti slavery views. Forton routinely
Speaker 1: used his wealth to promote the idea of freedom of
Speaker 1: enslaved people and the rights of free black people, and
Speaker 1: his money was likely used to purchase the freedom of
Speaker 1: several people. Because of his many connections with mariners, business leaders,
Speaker 1: and lawyers who camped his business affairs, James also had
Speaker 1: a network of people who he could turn to in
Speaker 1: order to stay informed and occasionally to leverage his influence.
Speaker 1: Forton's own influence actually had a very lengthy reach. There
Speaker 1: is a specific story about a relative of his, so,
Speaker 1: through a series of bad events, one of his nephews
Speaker 1: sons had ended up enslaved in New Orleans when the
Speaker 1: man that the ten year old was apprenticed to sold him,
Speaker 1: and that boy, Amos did not immediately mention that he
Speaker 1: had a wealthy uncle in Philadelphia. He was kind of
Speaker 1: too terrified to say much of anything, by the way
Speaker 1: the account reads. But once he did actually say this,
Speaker 1: the story goes that Robert Layton, who was the man
Speaker 1: that had enslaved him through purchase, recognized the name James
Speaker 1: Forton and looked into the matter, and ultimately this led
Speaker 1: to Amos Dunbar being returned to his family. In eighteen thirty,
Speaker 1: Forton was part of the first National Negro Convention. He
Speaker 1: spoke out against the American Colonization Society At that event
Speaker 1: and the years that followed, he once again urged government
Speaker 1: reform and asking Pennsylvania State legislature to forego restricting free
Speaker 1: black people to immigrate into the state. The Forton children
Speaker 1: also got very much involved in the cause, and as
Speaker 1: they aged into adulthood, they wrote, and they spoke, and
Speaker 1: they helped form abolitionist groups. His daughters, in particular, were
Speaker 1: really really good writers. James and Charlotte Forton's home became
Speaker 1: a hub of abolitionist activity, both for work and for planning,
Speaker 1: as well as just for socializing. Parton was one of
Speaker 1: the driving forces that got The Liberator, which was the
Speaker 1: abolitionist paper run by William Lloyd Garrison, off the ground.
Speaker 1: Not only did Forton use his own money to finance
Speaker 1: its publishing, but he also raised funds from other donors
Speaker 1: to ensure its ongoing printing. Forton also frequently wrote letters
Speaker 1: to the press speaking out against slavery and for civil rights,
Speaker 1: although he usually used a pen name for this. He
Speaker 1: favored signing off as a colored Philadelphian or a man
Speaker 1: of color as the two most common ones, but in
Speaker 1: a lot of cases include In his eighteen thirteen pamphlet
Speaker 1: most of Philadelphia knew that these writings were the work
Speaker 1: of James Forton. In eighteen forty, the Philadelphia Board of
Speaker 1: Education planned to close the only public high school for
Speaker 1: black students in Philadelphia, and Forton intervened and rallying his
Speaker 1: friends to promise to aid in the school's enrollment numbers
Speaker 1: and support, Forton managed to save the Lombard Street School.
Speaker 1: There is sort of a sad irony there where the
Speaker 1: school board ended up closing another school because they were
Speaker 1: afraid that the numbers were so low, because these two
Speaker 1: schools were splitting enrollment, and the school they closed had
Speaker 1: been the one that he had sent his kids to,
Speaker 1: and so so he kind of doomed one school to
Speaker 1: save another. But um then, beginning in eighteen forty one,
Speaker 1: James started to feel unwell, and over that summer he
Speaker 1: really started to have difficulty breathing. There has been speculation
Speaker 1: over the years that he may have had tuberculosis, but
Speaker 1: there are no medical records to consult, and it's just
Speaker 1: as possible that the various filaments and chemicals that he
Speaker 1: was exposed to throughout his career of sailmaking had damaged
Speaker 1: his lungs. James Forton died in March of eighteen forty
Speaker 1: two at his Philadelphia home at Third and Lombard. On
Speaker 1: the day of his funeral, a huge crowd of people,
Speaker 1: hundreds of them, followed the hearse through the city streets
Speaker 1: to show their respect for him. It was really unprecedented
Speaker 1: for a black man to receive that kind of a
Speaker 1: funeral procession, not just a number, but because the crowd
Speaker 1: was made up of both black and white citizens walking together.
Speaker 1: Particularly surprising because Philadelphia really remained mired and a lot
Speaker 1: of conflicts stemming from racist attitudes of its white inhabitants.
Speaker 1: J Miller McKim, who was an associate and a friend
Speaker 1: through the Pennsylvania Anti Slavery Society, wrote this about the
Speaker 1: funeral procession. Quote, the vast concourse of people of all
Speaker 1: classes and complexions, numbering from three to five thousand, that
Speaker 1: followed his remains to the grave bore testimony to the
Speaker 1: estimation in which he was universally old. James Sporton's widows, Charlotte,
Speaker 1: lived for more than forty more years after James died,
Speaker 1: and was just a few days shy of her hundredth
Speaker 1: birthday when she died in the eighteen eighties, His surviving
Speaker 1: children continued both his business and his activism. He had
Speaker 1: stipulated in his will that the money he left his
Speaker 1: daughters was theirs and would not become part of any
Speaker 1: husband's fortunes. Yeah. I kind of love that detail. That
Speaker 1: he was also a little bit of a feminist. Um. Yeah,
Speaker 1: he's such a cool figure, and I it's one of
Speaker 1: those things. This is a long ish episode, but I
Speaker 1: had to cut so many cool things about him to
Speaker 1: work because there are a cajillion stories that people would
Speaker 1: tell about him and their encounters with him. So, as
Speaker 1: our our usual apology, if I left your favorite out,
Speaker 1: I'm sorry. Um but yeah, like I said, I can't
Speaker 1: believe we never talked about it before. Yeah. Yeah, I'm
Speaker 1: glad you chose this one because from the brief references
Speaker 1: to him in the Paul Cuffey episode, it was like
Speaker 1: I knew the parts about being involved in the abolition movement. Um,
Speaker 1: I knew about his shifting support for the colonization plans
Speaker 1: of sending people to Sierra Leone. I did not know
Speaker 1: any of the stuff about privateers or sailmaker. Yeah. Uh yeah.
Speaker 1: There's one particular, really really good biography of him and
Speaker 1: it goes into so much detail about sailmaking that I
Speaker 1: was like down a rabbit hole of kind of delights
Speaker 1: like sewing. Talk Um, but I will shift gears to
Speaker 1: do a little bit of listener me if that's cool
Speaker 1: with you. That seems good to me. This is from
Speaker 1: our listener. I don't know she pronounces her name Lara
Speaker 1: or Laura, but writes Hi, Tracy and Holly. I often
Speaker 1: think I'm gonna write you after listening to an episode,
Speaker 1: such as after your episode back in about John Harvey Kellogg.
Speaker 1: My great grandparents trained as nurses at Battle Creek under Kellogg,
Speaker 1: with my great grand father being part of an effort
Speaker 1: to open a similar sanitarium in Wisconsin before he married
Speaker 1: my great grandmother, and then both of them after marriage
Speaker 1: working as nurses in Mexico, opening a health food store
Speaker 1: and hydrotherapy clinic in Washington, d C. And then moving
Speaker 1: to homestead in Alberta, Canada, where they were the main
Speaker 1: medical personnel in a prairie community. Lara, please write that story,
Speaker 1: so um, I want all of that information. But she
Speaker 1: goes on. But it was the Isabella Bird episode that
Speaker 1: finally prompted me to write I so appreciated the episode.
Speaker 1: I first learned about her on my honeymoon to Kauai
Speaker 1: in two thousand three, when I bought her book about
Speaker 1: the Hawaiian Islands in a gift shop, and then I
Speaker 1: became really fascinated with her and read many of her
Speaker 1: other books. I checked my bookshelf and found ones about
Speaker 1: the Rockies, Japan, Malaysia, and Tibet. Embellished or not, some
Speaker 1: of the things she did were unusual for a woman
Speaker 1: of her time, and I found that aspect of her
Speaker 1: writing interesting, including the details of how she traveled, what
Speaker 1: she packed, et cetera. But over time I found her
Speaker 1: writing more problematic for many the reasons you mentioned in
Speaker 1: the podcast. I love the podcast, and I really appreciate
Speaker 1: the diversity of subjects you cover. There have been several
Speaker 1: times over the past couple of years that a friend
Speaker 1: has posted a link to something on Facebook about a
Speaker 1: historical event, usually a news article looking back at an event,
Speaker 1: with a comment along the lines of I had no
Speaker 1: idea about this until recently, and I've been able to say, Hey,
Speaker 1: if you want to know more about this, you should
Speaker 1: check out this episode of stuff he was newstry Glass.
Speaker 1: Thanks Laura you're like our little, um personal pr person,
Speaker 1: which I appreciate. Um, thank you again for one. I'm
Speaker 1: really really fascinated about your great grandparents and I really
Speaker 1: do hope you write that book. And also, yeah, Isabella
Speaker 1: Lucy Bird is an interesting creature. I think a lot
Speaker 1: of people who maybe were exposed to her writing, you know,
Speaker 1: at one point in their lives, as they go through it, uh,
Speaker 1: realize over time that it remains fascinating, but it is
Speaker 1: also problematic in its way. Yeah. When we um, when
Speaker 1: we first put that episode on our social media, there
Speaker 1: was a surprising to me, like a surprisingly large number
Speaker 1: of people who were like, oh, no, I just started
Speaker 1: reading this book and now I'm afraid I'm going to
Speaker 1: learn all the like, all the problematic things about her.
Speaker 1: And I was like, I'm surprised that there are this
Speaker 1: many people who listen to our show who are reading
Speaker 1: her books right now, who don't know right right like
Speaker 1: I could see picking up one of her books, but um, yeah,
Speaker 1: and um, it's hard to avoid all of the problematic parts. Yeah. Well,
Speaker 1: and like I said in that episode, I kind of
Speaker 1: take for granted that that's going to be the case
Speaker 1: of any nineteenth century traveler we talk about right absolutely.
Speaker 1: I mean we've seen it happen over and over and over.
Speaker 1: But if you would like to write to us, you
Speaker 1: can do so. You can do that at History podcast
Speaker 1: at iHeart radio dot com. You can also find us
Speaker 1: on social media at missed in History. If you would
Speaker 1: like to subscribe to the show, it is easiest pie
Speaker 1: to do so. You can do that in the iHeart
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