Lewis Holmes Smith III
1790-1861 in Franklintown 

"Life of a Slave"

        It is difficult to truly imagine what the life of a slave in the South would have been like.  The slave owner would whip the slaves with horse’s whips because they wouldn’t work.  Slaves were usually sold when they were little and their parents would be sold to another plantation.  Yet the slave owners could not stop the slaves from wanting what all people want-- freedom.  Slaves like Richard Allen, Peter Williams, Prince Hall, and Absalom Jones gained their freedom and helped other slaves get out of slavery.  The Underground Railroad also helped slaves escape.  The main people that structured the Underground Railroad were Harriet Tubman and Henry “Box” Brown.  All these people and more helped slavery be abolished and the struggle of African Americans be known.
            Richard Allen and Absalom Jones worked together to free slaves.  Richard Allen got permission from his Master to join the Methodist Church.  This is where Allen learned to read and write.  Allen soon began to preach at the church.  Allen begged to have one church meting at his Master’s house.  His Master agreed and the sermon for that day was ‘Thou are weighed in the balance and found wanting."  Later that day Allen’s Master converted and realized that slavery was evil.  He would let Allen go if he could get 2,000 dollars.  Five years later Allen was free and started to preach all overt the country.  Allen preached to blacks and whites in Maryland, Delaware, New York, New Jersey, and Pennsylvania.  In 1787 Allen and Jones organized the Free African Religious Society.
    Jones was born a slave in Delaware, but later moved to Philadelphia where he worked in a grocery store.  Jones received some pay but not much.  In 1784 Jones bought his freedom for his master with the money that he had saved from the grocery store.  Jones became a lay preacher at St. George’s where he met Allen who was also a lay preacher.  One day Jones was on his knees praying at the front of the church a white man came up to him and told him that he needed to move to the back of the church so white people can see.  In 1787 Jones and Allen led black members of the church in a walkout protesting a church policy that made blacks sit at the back of the church.  Jones founded St. Tomas African Episcopal Church, the first Episcopal Church for blacks in the United States.
    The Underground Railroad was not where trains would go underground, but where blacks would travel house to house at night. They would travel together.  Most of the time they did not get caught, but when they did a lot of them would get caught and run away so only one or two would get caught.