Harrisburg Historical

The Chester Family Oyster House: Serving up a Legacy of Activism

2024-07-10T00:16:45+00:00

Like all great historical figures, the story of Harrisburg's civil right leader, T. Morris Chester, was not created in a vacuum. Chester's parents, George and Jane Chester, and their Oyster House on Market Street, were channels for abolitionism and activism in nineteenth-century Harrisburg and influenced their children to pursue civil rights efforts in the city, state, and country.

On May 11, 1834, a child was born in the second-story apartment above an oyster shop on Market Street. That child was Thomas Morris Chester, who became one of Harrisburg’s most prominent civil rights leaders. Chester is remembered for his role as the United States’s first Black war correspondent, his advocacy for Black citizenship, and many other contributions. Today, Chester is the centerpiece of many Harrisburg initiatives to honor local Black history and advocacy, including this civil rights tour. Chester’s legacy begins with his parents, George and Jane Chester. The Chesters were activists in their own right, as well as the owners and operators of an oyster house that served as a locus of abolitionist activity in the mid-nineteenth century. The exact location of the Chesters’ oyster house and restaurant is difficult to identify. In the 1840s, the restaurant was situated in the basement of a building that, according to local historian George F. Nagle, “flanked the county property . . . to the east.” This means that the restaurant was in some way connected to the county courthouse of Harrisburg — the very place where Frederick Douglass was egged after giving an abolitionist speech in 1847. Additionally, records indicate that by 1856 the restaurant sat on the corner of Third and Market Streets. Historians believe either that the building in question was one long structure, extending all the way to this corner from the Courthouse property, or that the Chester family relocated to the building on the corner in 1856. This house hosted freedom-seeking people of all kinds. Not only did it function as a social spot for civil rights activists but also as a stop on the Underground Railroad for those escaping slavery. The house on Market Street belonged to George Chester, the patriarch of the family. Little is known about George. He was born in 1784 and was someone deeply involved in fighting for Black Americans’ civil rights. He was Harrisburg’s only agent of the Liberator, an abolitionist newspaper published by William Lloyd Garrison, which ran from 1831 to 1865 and was the most widely circulated publication of its kind. It is also known that George was present when a young woman named Jane arrived in York, Pennsylvania, after escaping from enslavement in Maryland. Jane M. Chester, Thomas’s mother, was born into slavery and, according to later accounts, was possibly enslaved four different times before she escaped from Maryland in 1825. Though the journey from Maryland to Pennsylvania may seem like a comparatively small distance, there was no Underground Railroad at this point to aid Jane. To make matters more dire, slavery was still occurring in Pennsylvania at the time, the last recorded case in the state ending in 1847. Upon arriving in York, she met George Chester, and the two went on to wed and settle in Harrisburg. Together, they had twelve children, but only seven survived into adulthood. In Harrisburg, Jane worked with her husband to provide a safe place for freedom seekers and activists. George and Jane capitalized on the relatively lucrative, high-demand business of oystering in order to build a successful life for themselves and to help make it possible for their fellow African American peers to endure. At the time, there was a relative boom in demand for seafood, and working as an oysterman was one of the most profitable jobs a Black man could hold. Because of this position of marginal privilege, the Chesters’ restaurant connected many patrons to the abolitionist movement and the fight for civil rights. Following George’s death in 1859, Jane moved her residence and the catering business to a home she bought on 305 Chestnut Street. It was rare for either women or African Americans to own homes in the city during this time, let alone someone who belonged to both categories. Considered one of the best caterers in Harrisburg, Jane catered more than three hundred wedding ceremonies and cooked for many prominent people in the state capital, including several governors. In short, Jane carried on the family business of serving the community by promoting justice while supplying delicious food. It is no wonder, then, that Jane passed on to her children her passion for serving the community and fighting for civil rights. After her death, this legacy of Chester hospitality continued as Jane’s daughter, Eliza Zedericks, lived in the Chestnut Street home with her husband into the twentieth century. Like her mother, she utilized the family home to organize and provide hospitality to people traveling through the city. Tragically, Jane outlived most of her children, dying on March 19, 1894, at age ninety-two. Thomas Morris Chester had passed away just two years earlier on September 30, 1892. However, the pain of burying her beloved children did not stop her from fighting for what she believed in. An obituary in the Harrisburg Telegraph reveals the impact that Jane had on the community amid her continuous struggle for justice:

During the later years of her life she was in the habit of going about among the business offices and hotels selling her famous home-made taffy, which was always in demand. She was the principal caterer twenty-five years ago and no great feast or fashionable entertainment was complete without her presence and assistance. She was a consistent Christian and had many friends among all classes of citizens. During her life she saw many famous men, and . . . she could relate interesting incidents of the visits of distinguished public men to [Harrisburg]. Jane set an example for her children by hosting, serving, and providing for those fighting for their rights. Significantly, her house served as the epicenter of this. She opened her home to the downtrodden, served the community from her kitchen, and welcomed with open arms those who turned to her. The Chester family business may have changed locations, but the legacy of the Chester Oyster House remained the same. Currently, Market Street boasts a historical marker where all can pay witness to that legacy that inspired so many to follow in her footsteps in the past, and still has the power to do so today.

A full list of the resources used in this story can be found here.

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Harrisburg's African Methodist Episcopal Churches: The Road to Emancipation

2023-10-24T20:35:55+00:00

During the nineteenth century, the African American churches of Harrisburg were much more than houses of worship; they were agents of enfranchisement and liberation.

It was January 1, 1863. To many residents of Harrisburg, it was likely just a typical New Year's Day, but to the city's African American community, it held far greater significance as it marked the day the newly passed Emancipation Proclamation took effect. That evening, three chosen men met at the Bethel African Methodist Episcopal (AME) Church on Short Street to write a response to this momentous occasion. Not only did they encapsulate the joy and approval that African Americans felt, but also the anger and frustration that stemmed from two centuries of racial discrimination and dehumanization, warranting such a proclamation in the first place. By the end of that night’s worship service, the response was approved via a vote, simultaneously celebrating a win for African Americans worldwide while also acknowledging that work was far from over — work that Black churches in Harrisburg had already been doing for decades and would continue in the years ahead. The resolution composed by schoolteacher John Wolf, prominent community member Samuel Bennett, and Reverend David Stevens of the Wesley Union AME Zion Church may have captured what Harrisburg’s African American community felt about slavery, but their actions spoke louder. Despite its small stature, under the leadership of Reverend Mifflin Gibbs, the Bethel AME Church “included many of those who did man's work by day and the Lord's work by night, maintaining an active presence in that shadowy operation known as the Underground Railroad.” Understanding the difficulties that resulted from escaping slavery, the church provided housing for freedom seekers and found them employment in the local coal, iron, and steel industries, helping them settle into their new lives in the North, whether Harrisburg was their final home or merely a stop on the way. Later, following the ratification of the Fifteenth Amendment in 1870, Bethel AME took things a step further by registering new voters and offering classes in civic education, ushering in a new era of voting rights for the city. Although the Short Street church played a crucial role in the antislavery movement and in advancing the rights of African Americans, it was not alone. At the corner of Third and Mulberry Streets sat the small log building that housed the Wesley Union Church. Its neighborhood of “Judy’s Town” was a key spot for African American social and spiritual life, so it is unsurprising that it became the first of Harrisburg’s regular Underground Railroad stops, becoming the epicenter of the movement in the city by 1829. As at Bethel AME, many freedom seekers found refuge at Wesley Union, a direct result of the sermons that congregants heard during worship services, filling them with a sense of love and duty that inspired them to put everything on the line to help total strangers. One early Wesley Union congregant, William “Pap” Jones, was known for being one of the most effective Underground Railroad conductors in the area, using his extensive knowledge of northern routes to create guides for freedom seekers. Another congregant, Harriet McClintock Marshall, assisted freedom seekers by providing them with shelter, food, and clothing before ushering them to their next stops on their journeys to freedom; her husband’s status as a formerly enslaved man likely strengthened her resolve to help others on their journeys to freedom. In fact, Harrisburg’s African American community was participating in Underground Railroad activities long before the Underground Railroad was established. For instance, Reverend David Stevens of Wesley Union Church encouraged his congregation to “strive for self-reliance and community,” a mission they fulfilled by assisting the needy in every way possible. The “needy,” of course, included enslaved people who had escaped from their bonds and were settling in the North. These actions led to the formation of a sort of network that connected different members of the Harrisburg African American community throughout the 1820s and 1830s under a common goal. Stevens and fellow African American minister Jacob D. Richardson publicly denounced slavery and opened the church to anti-slavery meetings and events, even attempting to start their own anti-slavery newspaper — Zion’s Wesleyan Connection — in 1841. The church continued to grow until their small log building in Judy’s Town was no longer big enough, leading founding pastor Stevens to seek out a new location at the corner of Tanner’s Alley and State Street, east of the Capitol building, where the congregation moved in its entirety in 1839. The construction of new buildings on the same site in 1862 and then again in 1894 demonstrates Wesley Union's success throughout the nineteenth century as it continued to flourish in spite of adversity. Churches such as Bethel AME and Wesley Union played a pivotal role in organizing Harrisburg’s Underground Railroad. From holding recruitment meetings for Black Civil War regiments to hosting national-scale anti-slavery speakers, houses of worship stood at the forefront of the city’s efforts to resist slavery and to support freedom seekers. Indifferent or discriminatory residents of Harrisburg may have viewed these African American men and women as "radicals" or lawbreakers, but in reality, they were fighting for justice and human dignity as children of God.
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