George Parkman
George Parkman was a prominent businessman and philanthropist in Boston. He is best known for donating land to Harvard Medical College (now part of MGH) and his murder in that very location.
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Era: West Boston(~1780-1880)
Black Community on Beacon Hill, Brahmins on the flat
Samuel Parkman
Samuel Parkman, Esquire, was a prominent businessman in Boston. Samuel commissioned a notable portrait of George Washington, the bell of Old South Church, and a Bulfinch mansion.
John Osborn
John Osborn was a painter, paint dealer, and member of the Ancient & Honorable Artillery Company who purchased the first Harrison Grey Otis House from Otis when he moved to Mt. Vernon Street in 1801.
William Cooper Nell
William Cooper Nell, the United States’ first Black historian, was an intellectual and abolitionist who became an integral part of The Liberator’s staff and advocate for Black rights. He was also the first Black person to serve in the federal civil service, and was deeply involved in desegregating Boston schools.
Dr. and Elizabeth Mott
Elizabeth Mott and her husband, Dr. Richard Dixon Mott, were nineteenth-century British immigrants who established a botanical medicine practice at the Otis House, located in today’s West End.
Colonel George Middleton
Col. George Middleton was an African American Revolutionary War soldier, a “Prince Hall Freemason,” and civil rights activist, who’s home is now part of the Black Heritage Trail. He was born in 1735 and died in 1815.
Lewis Hayden
Lewis Hayden was an escaped slave who became an active abolitionist and assisted many other escaping slaves through the underground railroad.
Prince Hall
Prince Hall was a leader in Boston’s free black community on the North Slope and Copp’s Hill. He was one of the United States’ most vocal early abolitionist voices and a founder of Prince Hall Freemasonry. Hall advocated for black education and equality, running a school and making a wide array of arguments in service of bringing the fundamental promises of the Revolution to all Americans.