by Herb Boyd
Elizabeth Gloucester’s prominence, as putatively the richest Black woman in America during her lifetime, gave additional exposure to her husband and his lineage, particularly patriarch John Gloucester, or Jack as he was originally known, according to an article by Daniel Rolph for the Historical Society of Pennsylvania.
No exact date is given for his birth in Kentucky, where Gloucester was enslaved before the Revolutionary War, although one source lists it at 1776. Rolph noted that Gloucester was purchased by Gideon Blackburn, a Presbyterian minister of Tennessee, who later authorized him to preach. Gloucester’s petition for freedom was denied by the Tennessee legislature in 1806, but he was later given a certificate of manumission. He was 30 years old when he changed his name to John Gloucester. By this time, he had already begun studying at Greeneville, now Tusculum College—the first African American to attend the institution.
By 1807, Gloucester was preaching on the streets of Philadelphia, although without a license. Three years later, he returned to Tennessee to become an ordained minister. In 1811, he became a member of the Presbytery of Philadelphia. Delivering sermons might have been a prime concern of the reverend, but he also devoted time to emancipating his wife, Rhoda, and four children—including James, who later would marry Elizabeth.
With the help of associates and friends, he raised $1,500 and was able to liberate his family. Meanwhile, Gloucester continued to build his congregation and a new church. He was briefly sent to Charleston, S.C., to preach, but by 1809 he was back in Philadelphia. A year later, he was ordained and legally allowed to spread the Presbyterian gospel. All of his children became ministers in the faith and three of them forged ahead with their own congregations.
Gloucester, as we learn from Staples’s article, founded Siloam Presbyterian Church in Brooklyn. He served as pastor of the church until his death from tuberculosis in 1822. Among the tributes bestowed on him, Gloucester is deemed the founder of the first African American Presbyterian Church in the United States.
The Presbytery of Boston, Mass., sponsors John Gloucester Memorial Scholarships for Presbyterian college students nationwide.
Thanks to BlackPast.organd Euell Nielsen of Philadelphia, we present portions of an address delivered by Rev. Gloucester in 1811 before the dedication of his Presbyterian church.
“Glad tidings of great joy to the African race, and particularly to the infant church, in which the hand of God has been so visible in collecting so many of us from the dark mountains of ignorance, sin and woe, to the bosom of the visible church. The ground of our joy being somewhat similar to that ancient branch of God’s church who had been so long enslaved under the Babylonish yoke, but having accomplished the years of their suffering bondage, they were permitted to return to the land of Canaan and rebuild their temple. After they had begun this building they met with great discouragement which stopped the work of the Lord’s house for eight years, after which time Ezra and the friends of Zion began and finished the temple, but terminated in the grief and confusion of their opposes. In like manner many of us have accomplished the years of our captivity, and returned to the land of blessed light and liberty…
“Having finished our building, we have set apart next Friday the 31st as a day of Thanksgiving to God for the innumerable blessings conferred upon us. The mode of spending this day will be in our private families in the morning, and at 3 o’clock in the afternoon we shall repair to the new finished building to present our public thanks offering to God, at which time there will be a sermon preached by Rev. D.D. of Princeton, whose name I am not at liberty to mention, after which there will be a collection taken up to assist in defraying the expenses of this building, and we hope that those who gave us birth as a visible church will help this poor branch of God’s vineyard in putting up the capstone of this building, which is too high for our circumstances. Believing there is enough in the King’s treasury, we throw ourselves at the feet of those whom he has entrusted it, in hopes of receiving aid to finish a house which will stand as an eternal monument to the glory of God, the honor of the Christian religion in this place, and finally, we trust, will prove a blessings to many souls.”