Elizabeth A. Gloucester

Elizabeth A. Gloucester (1817-August 9, 1883) was one of the wealthiest black woman in America at the time of her death and was a supporter of the Underground Railroad and a business owner.[1]

She was born in 1817 in Richmond, Virginia as Elizabeth Amelia Parkhill to a freedwoman. Little is known about her father, but census records listed that she was "mulatto" which implies she might have had a white father. When her mother died when she was still young, she went to live with Rev. John Gloucester Sr.[2] and she married his youngest son, James Gloucester in 1838.[1]

Gloucester ran 15 boarding homes in New York and they lived in Brooklyn from 1855. Her husband founded the Siloam Presbyterian Church[3] and she helped to pay for the building of the church.[3] They hosted abolitionist John Brown and she contributed to his causes.[1] She purchased the Hamilton Club and turned it into an upscale boarding house called the Remsen House.[2] She hosted Fredrick Douglass, John Brown and many others at the house and held meetings for the Freedman's Friend Society, Ladies National Union Fair and Union Soldier Association.[4]

Through the church, the Gloucesters showed their abolitionist support, hosting John Brown and serving as a stop on the Underground Railroad.[2][3] They also had an Underground Railroad fun.[5]

She led the efforts to raise money for the Colored Orphan's Asylum in Weeksville, Brooklyn which was founded in 1866.[6][7]

Gloucester died on August 9, 1883 of pneumonia.[5] In her obituary, The Eagle wrote "She came to be known to every one in Brooklyn, New York, the State and in fact throughout a great part of the country." She had six children: Emma, Stephen, Elizabeth, Eloise, Charles and Adelaide.[2] She is buried in Brooklyn, New York at the Green-Wood Cemetery.[6] At the time of her death, Gloucester's properties were worth about $300,000, today's 7 million dollars. Newspapers all reported that she was "the remarkable colored woman."[4]