F. A. Brimblecom

Quick Facts

Significance:

Member of the 1850 Boston Vigilance Committee

In his Reminiscences of Fugitive-Slave Law Day in Boston, Austin Bearse lists F. A. Brimblecom in the membership roster of the 1850 Boston Vigilance Committee, an organization dedicated to helping those escaping slavery to and through Boston on the Underground Railroad.¹

"F. A. Brimblecom" has yet to be found in any Boston based records from the time period. This name does not appear in the 1850 broadside listing the names and addresses of Vigilance Committee members, which may indicate that he joined at a later date. No one named F.A. Brimblecom appears in Boston newspapers, Boston City Directories, nor in the Treasurer's Account Book of the Boston Vigilance Committee. Other than being a member of the Vigilance Committee, Brimblecom's contributions to the organization and Underground Railroad are unknown.

F.A. Brimblecom could be Francis Alden Brimblecom. Born in 1828 in Maine, Brimblecom moved to Massachusetts in 1836, the same year his father Samuel Brimblecom, an abolitionist and minister, became Reverend of a Universalist Church in Danvers, a town north of Boston.² He left for California in 1852 and soon began a business selling eggs, butter, poultry, and other items with his younger brother Henry. Together, the brothers helped establish the Republican party in California. At a convention in San Jose in 1856 they called upon others "to unite with us, in the great National effort now being made to maintain the true principles of our institutions — NON-INTERVENTION WITH AND NON-EXTENSION OF SLAVERY."³

Brimblecom briefly moved back east in 1857 but returned to California in 1860 where he lived until his death in 1912.²

While we cannot confirm with certainty that the F.A. Brimblecom listed in Austin Bearse's roster is Francis Alden Brimblecom, it is likely him given the abolitionist leanings of his family and proximity to Boston during the early years of the Vigilance Committee's existence. His later work with the emerging Republican party, dedicated to the non-extension of slavery, also suggests that it may be him. Francis Alden Brimblecom is the brother of Frederic Brimblecom, who likely participated in the Vigilance Committee as well.

If you are a researcher or descendent of F. A. Brimblecom and can provide any further details of his life or that of a different F. A. Brimblecom who participated in the Vigilance Committee, please e-mail us.

Footnotes

1. Austin Bearse, Reminisces of Fugitive Slave Law Days (Warren Richardson, 1880), 3, Archive.org.
2. J. M. Guinn, A. M, History of the State of California & Biographical Record of Coast Counties, California (The Chapman Publishing Co., Chicago, 1904), 383-385, transcribed by Marie Hassard 10 August 2014; "FRANCIS ALDEN BRIMBLECOM" (rootsweb.com), Accessed 10/26/2022, https://freepages.rootsweb.com/~npmelton/genealogy/scbbrim.htm; Harriet Silvester Tapley, Chronicles of Danvers (Old Salem Village)(Newcomb and Gauss: Salem, MA, 1923), 120 and 149, Archive.org.
3. J. M. Guinn, History of the State of California & Biographical Record of Coast Counties, California.
4. J. M. Guinn, History of the State of California & Biographical Record of Coast Counties, California; "Francis Alden Brimblecom," Ancestry.com. U.S., Find a Grave Index, 1600s-Current [database on-line]. Lehi, UT, USA: Ancestry.com Operations, Inc., 2012. Original data: Find a Grave. Find a Grave. https://www.ancestry.com/discoveryui-content/view/59483204:60525.