Crusade Against Slavery: Edward Coles, Pioneer of Freedom

12. The Aging Historian

167 12 The Aging Historian F anny Trollope visited Philadelphia in 1827. She went on and on about the market. It is, she said, the very perfection of a setting for the serious householder to engage in the important office of caterer. Every aspect of it (the dairy, the poultry yard, the spoils of forest and river) produced the effect of rhapsody.1 The Philadelphia city market was, in the 1830s, a well-groomed celebration of abundance. It started almost at the public landing on the Delaware River and ran seven blocks up the middle of High Street (later named Market Street) to Eighth Street; almost a mile of open-air stalls. Ann Newport Royall was every bit as complimentary as Mrs. Trollope: “Nothing can exceed the whiteness of the benches and stalls. . . . The butchers wear a white linen frock, which might vie with a lady’s wedding dress.”2 This Philadelphia was home to Edward Coles during his final thirtyseven years of life. It was a gay and exuberant urban hub, the very picture of plenty and industry, especially for those close to the top of the social order. The bustling city of 189,000 people in 1830 grew commerce , government, and salons. A few streets west of the market area, where the noise and dust were not quite so overwhelming, fine homes surrounded a smaller market, a diverse collection of churches and the U.S. Mint at Penn Square. In this neighborhood, Edward Coles first made his Philadelphia life. Edward Coles’s two-decade search for a wife ended when he married Sally Logan Roberts, a cousin of Roberts Vaux. Probably Coles met her after 1826. They were married on 28 November 1833by Bishop William PART TWO 168 Heathcote DeLancey. The couple then toured the Atlantic coast where Coles introduced his bride to friends and relatives.3 Portrait of Edward Coles by J. Henry Brown, 1852. Courtesy Winterthur Museum. Portrait of Sally Logan Roberts Coles (1809–83) by J. Henry Brown, 1853 . Courtesy Winterthur Museum. THE AgINg HISTORIAN 169 Sally Roberts was the daughter of Hugh Roberts of Pine Grove, a suburb of Philadelphia.4 The family was firmly tethered to the luminous upper reaches of Philadelphia society. Hugh Roberts’s sister Elizabeth, for instance, married William Rush, the son of Dr. Benjamin Rush, a signer of the Declaration of Independence, originator of the first antislavery society in America, and one of the best-known physicians of the time. Hugh Roberts’s aunt (his father’s sister) had married Richard Vaux, whose son was Roberts Vaux, the busy Quaker philanthropist who had assisted Coles in the struggle in Illinois and who was a leading citizen of the city. His son, Richard, would become mayor of Philadelphia. Sally Roberts was a sixth-generation Philadelphian; in 1682, her greatgreat -great grandfather, Hugh Roberts, had come to America with William Penn, settling at Merion, Pennsylvania, just a few miles from Philadelphia . The Roberts’s rested firmly and comfortably, close to the top of Philadelphia social strata. Rise and Decline Coles was restless in Philadelphia. For a few years, his letters hinted at returning to Illinois.5 He had business interests in land and would make occasional trips to Edwardsville to protect those interests. But his political prospects had evaporated, and his friendships in Illinois had withered especially after Morris Birkbeck’s death in 1824. His connections with Illinois began to fade. With the birth of his first child, in 1835, all thoughts of returning to Illinois vanished. Mary Coles was born on 2April 1835. The Coles were living on Chestnut Street, directly across from the U.S. Mint.6 It was a busy part of town. Services of all types were close at hand: shops, churches, and liveries . All manner of lively enterprises provided an animated setting for a family in the city. The main city market was a short walk, six blocks, from their doorstep. Sally gave birth to Edward Coles Jr. on 26 March 1837. The Coles family had moved just a block away, a little closer to the market, to the northeast corner of Thirteenth Street and Clark Street. One more Coles joined the family: Roberts Coles on 14 November 1838. The domestic scene surrounding Coles was a hive of family warmth and activity. Coles provided a rare glimpse of domestic arrangements in 1846 (Mary now eleven years of age) when he wrote to Matt Singleton...