[4] After attending Hosea Easton's vocational school, he went on to become the owner of a large and successful blacksmith shop in Boston, which employed both black and white mechanics.
[4] In the years before the Civil War, he lived at 4 Southac Street in Boston's West End.
[6] In 1836 he was elected president of the Adelphic Union for the Promotion of Literature and Science, another group founded by Nell; also known as the Adelphic Union Library Association,[7] the group held weekly lectures and debates at the Abiel Smith School on Belknap Street.
The Adelphic Union rented a hall in the center of town, rather than in a predominantly black neighborhood, to encourage white Bostonians to attend their lectures and pave the way for black Bostonians to attend lectures at white institutions.
[7] A moderate, he opposed the use of violence, believing it would only reinforce white stereotypes of blacks as uncivilized.