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Daniel Payne

1811 - c.1893

Name: Daniel Payne

Occupation: Clergyman, Educator

Residence: NY, PA, OH

Abolitionist Involvement: As a young man, Payne was already preparing himself to fight openly as an abolitionist. In 1839, just prior to his ordination, he presented a heated attack on slavery before the Franckean Synod Lutherans at Fordsboro, NY. He further organized and headed a self-improvement organization in Troy, NY, called The Mental and Moral Improvement Association, which often sponsored public lectures on various topics, including the subject of abolition.

He became Bishop of Bethel African Methodist Church in Philadelphia, and was a strong temperance advocate, constantly urging the churches under his authority to form temperance associations. While there, he became a member of the Philadelphia Vigilance Committee, headed by David Ruggles, and personally assisted fugitives as a member of that group between 1838 and 1844, when the group disbanded. After that date, Payne continued to give aid to escapees on an individual basis, and harbored them in his churches wherever he was pastor.

In 1850, he made a pilgrimage to the grave of the fugitive slave movement martyr, Charles Torrey, at Auburn Cemetery in Cambridge Massachusetts, to pay his respects.

Later in life, Payne became the first president of Wilberforce University in Ohio, which was the first college owned and operated by African Americans. Located today on the original campus is the National Afro-American Museum and Cultural Center, at 1350 Brush Row Road, 1/2 mile west of US Route 42. Two Underground Railroad safehouses are nearby.

References: Black Abolitionists, by Benjamin Quarles; Hippocrene Guide to the Underground Railroad, by Charles Blockson

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