Join us on August 27 at 6:00 for a free webinar discussing the “Free Henry Hypothesis” and Philadelphia Freedom
Here is a link to the free webinar hosted by the African American Museum in Philadelphia (the AAMP).
Earlier this year a historic marker was installed in Philadelphia to honor Miss Dalley’s boarding house, otherwise known as the “Constitution House.” Gouverneur Morris (the “Penman of the Constitution”), Alexander Hamilton (“Publius”) and Elbridge Gerry (the “Federal Farmer”) boarded with Miss Dalley while attending the Constitutional Convention in 1787. But who else resided with Miss Dalley during the time spanning from the Revolutionary War through the First Federal Congress?
The Regarding Free Henry Hypothesis proposes that the Henry who worked for Miss Dalley in 1780 was Henry Stewart. If so, Henry was a colleague of Absalom Jones and Richard Allen and a co-founder and trustee of St. Thomas’ African Episcopal Church of Philadelphia. In the later part of the 18th century, Henry Stewart would become a leader of the African Free Society, possibly the first organization of its kind in American history.As an emissary of the free African American community in Philadelphia, Henry Stewart traveled to Boston in 1789 to meet with Prince Hall, “the first Grand Master of Colored Masons in the United States.”