Gettysburg Connection is pleased to publish today the first in a series of articles called The Black Influence. The series focuses on the African American experience in and around Gettysburg, traveling back to the 1780s and expanding to the present time, each article providing descriptions of local African American people and events that shaped Gettysburg and Adams County.
This week’s article is by Gettysburg Connection contributor Jenine Weaver.
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In 1780, Pennsylvania lawmakers passed “An Act for the Gradual Abolition of Slavery.” The Act stated people born into slavery in 1780 and after, would be freed when they turned 28 years old. However, people born into slavery before 1780 were still enslaved for life. For the time, this was a progressive step, but don’t let this cloud the view of the Black reality. Local people still owned slaves, those that were free lived restricted, segregated lives, and very few slave owners were willing to give them up, even when they turned 28. Slavery did not end in Adams County until the 1840s.
Known as the first African American resident of Gettysburg, Sydney O’Brien was freed from slavery in 1833. She purchased a home on South Washington Street. She was born the slave of Isabelle & James Gettys Sr., the founder of the Borough of Gettysburg. Sydney is recorded as being “mulatto”, but her parentage is not traceable. It’s rumored she could be the child of James Gettys Sr. and his wife’s slave “Old Doll”. It is also rumored that her daughter, Getty Ann, could have been the child of James Gettys Jr. With limited records, the truth is not known. *Important note: do not romanticize a relationship between slave owners and their slaves. Most mixed race children born to female slaves were the result of rape and abuse of power by the slave owner.*
Although it is recorded that African American children in Gettysburg attended schools as early as 1824, the Pennsylvania Free School Act required schools for African Americans. The 5th school in Gettysburg was designated as the Colored school, on the corner of… Read article in The Gettysburg Connection