Nathan Johnson (abolitionist)

1797-1880) was an African-American abolitionist who sheltered fugitive slaves, most notably Frederick Douglass, and was a successful businessman in New Bedford, Massachusetts.

The Nathan and Polly Johnson House is on the city's Underground Railroad Tour and has been recognized as a National Historic Landmark.

[4] He claimed to have purchased his freedom and was described by Daniel Ricketson as a "tall and dignified in person, and dark in complexion, a marked African of the finest type".

[4] He married widowed Mary J. Mingo Durfee, called Polly, in New Bedford on October 24, 1819.

[3] Born a free person of color in 1784 of Black and Pocasset Wampanoag ancestry in Fall River, Massachusetts, her parents were Isaac and Ann Mingo.

A trial was held and Johnson and the others were found not guilty after it was learned that the man was in town to gather information about people who escaped from slavery.

[4] In 1832, Nathan represented Massachusetts in Philadelphia at the second annual convention of free people of color.

The Johnsons most famously gave shelter in 1838 to Frederick Douglass when he escaped slavery and his wife Anna Murray-Douglass at their house on 21 Seventh Street.

[5][a] Johnson...lived in a neater house; dined at a better table; took, paid for, and read, more newspapers; better understood the moral, religious, and political character of the nation, —than nine tenths of the slaveholders in Talbot county Maryland.The couple were in the employ of Charles Waln Morgan, a prominent whaling captain, as domestic servants.

[4][2] Morgan, who had lived in Philadelphia, moved to New Bedford and married Sarah Rodman in June 1819.

[1][2] Polly sold free labor candy, meaning that there were no slaves involved in growth or manufacturing of sugar.

The shop, located at 23 Seventh Street, sold candy sticks, ginger snaps, spruce gum, John Brown's Bullets, and Jackson Balls.

[6] Nathan stayed along the Pacific Coast, living in Oregon and Caribou, British Columbia until the early 1870s.

[4][14] Her will stipulated that Nathan could have "a maintenance" for the rest of his life from her estate if he returned to New Bedford within two years of her death.

"[4] Polly and Nathan Johnson are buried in the old section of the Oak Grove Cemetery of New Bedford.

Patience Durfee and Thomas P. Buchanan and their daughters, Elizabeth and Mary, were buried at the cemetery.