2 - Ira Aldridge (1860)

Summary

Nearly half a century ago—in 1816–17, to wit—there sailed from the port of New York, in one of the Liverpool packets, as steward thereof, a tall black man named Brown. He belonged to a class which, at that time and for years afterwards, even to this present day, occupied a respectable and responsible position. The steward was then, next to the captain, the most important personage in the ship. Dressed in his brilliant-colored morning-gown and red slippers, he was wont to receive passengers with a “stately courtesy,” which was duly reciprocated by those who went down to the sea in ships. The stewards of the different lines of packets vied with each other in their style on board ship, and in their private houses. They were all colored, and sailed to every port, at home, or abroad—Liverpool, Canton, Bremen, Charleston, New Orleans, Savannah, &c. There are yet among us, in a flourishing old age, some of the stewards of that good old time: Henry Scott, the retired merchant, whose name is an analogue for probity, and George Lawrence, Senior, and of a somewhat later day, Benjamin Fisher, the “bluff salt” who reigns in the Vanderbilt “skimmer of the seas.”—And of those that shipped on their last long voyage, Bowser, Mack, Burchell, Portee, Harry Brown, Moses Sheppard, George B. Williams, and a hundred others;

“Quae regio terris?”

What part of the earth does not bear witness to their presence?

In 1816–17, Mr. Brown, steward of a Liverpool liner, gave up following the sea, and hired a house on the north side of Thomas Street, (nearly opposite that since made famous by the Helen Jewett tragedy), and fitted up a tea-garden in the rear of the lot. In the evening he made the garden attractive by vocal and instrumental music. His brother stewards and their wives, and the colored population generally, gave him a full share of patronage. Among his artistes were Miss Ann Johnson, since Mrs. Allen, the mother of an excellent cantatrice of the present time, and James Hewlett. These evening entertainments were not dry affairs; brandy and gin-toddies, wine-negus, porter and strong ale, with cakes and meats, enabled the audience to gratify several senses and appetites at the same time.