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Divertimento Abraham and Elizabeth Brien A braham and Elizabeth Brien lived on a small farm just south of Gettysburg along the Emmitsburg Road. Abraham was born a slave in Marylandin1804 ,butin1840helivedinGettysburgwithhisfirst wife, Harriet, and three children. Most likely he was a runaway, but maybe he was emancipated . Prior to purchasing the farm in 1857, Abraham lived in town and worked as a handyman and hostler, that is, someone who tends horses at an inn. Elizabeth,Pennsylvania-born,wasAbraham’sthirdwife;hewasatwo-timewidower . The 1860 census lists them with two children: William, fourteen, and Francis, eleven. Daughters by Abraham’s previous marriages were grown and gone. The four Briens lived in a small, frame weatherboard house, twenty and onehalf feet by fifteen feet, with one and one-half floors. It had two rooms downstairs and a garret. Their farm was a similarly austere twelve acres divided into two parcels along the Emmitsburg and Taneytown Roads with a barn, wagon shed, corncrib, orchard, and tenant house. The Briens always had a horse and a cow, often two of each, and wheat, barley, hay, and grass for a meadow grew in their fields. Their last name was spelled a variety of ways (Brien, Bryan, Brian, O’Brien), and Abraham sometimes was “Abram,” evidence of their illiteracy and low standing in the community. Alfred Palm, his common-law wife, Margaret “Mag” Divit, and their oneyear -old son Joseph occupied the tenant house. Palm was a bridle-maker, and the census taker listed Margaret as “mistress-harlot.” Perhaps this mother of a small child practiced the world’s oldest profession, but more likely her listing reflects the enumerator’s thoughts about her race and common-law circumstances. Once kidnappers attempted to kidnap Divit and carry her into slavery, but she was large and with the help of a white man who heard the scuffle she protected her freedom. According to legend, Mag wore a blue 1812-vintage officer’s military coat, bought a musket, and assisted runaways. The Briens were members of the AME Zion congregation. Elizabeth belonged to a class supervised by Eden Devan, also a hostler, and she contributed towards the pastor’s salary. For much of his life, Abraham was less interested in religion. 100 Divertimento Once authorities arrested him for fathering a child out of wedlock, and another time he lost favor with his class for something unspecified. Had he been active in the congregation, Elizabeth’s donation would have come under his name instead. But as Abraham entered his most mature years, his faith grew, he became more involved, and eventually the Zion made him chair of the board of trustees. It could have been worse. Abraham was born into slavery, and from his farm the South’s institution loomed almost literally just over the horizon. But the Border North was just a little better for African Americans. The Briens were free, and, moreover, they owned land. Their humble farm yielded a small income and little influence in the larger community, but real estate, no matter how unassuming, bequeaths the self-esteem of property holding. Their children attended school. Life was a struggle for Abraham and Elizabeth, but they nevertheless advanced. Likewise, the religious home of the Briens, the AME Zion congregation, subsisted on the periphery of Gettysburg’s social structure. Small, financially strapped, and excluded from community events like Evergreen Cemetery and union prayer meetings, it persisted, providing dignity and independence for its members. This was the future of American race relations: freedom without equality. ...

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