Stephen Smith was born into slavery in 1797. He purchased his own freedom in 1816, and after gaining it he opened his own lumber business in Columbia, Pennsylvania, a river town that became the foundation of a considerable fortune.
Smith was very successful in the lumber trade and looked for partners to help grow the business. He co-founded Smith, Whipper & Co. with the Black businessman and writer William Whipper, and the partnership prospered in lumber, coal, real estate, railroad cars and the stock market.
By the middle of the nineteenth century Smith was one of the wealthiest Black Philadelphians of his era, and he used his fortune and standing in the service of others. He was an organising leader of the Underground Railroad in Philadelphia, helping people escaping slavery along routes through Maryland and onward to Canada.
He was also a preacher and a philanthropist, and later helped found the Stephen Smith Home for the Aged, an institution for elderly Black Philadelphians. His life combined enterprise, religion and organised resistance to slavery.
Stephen Smith died in 1873. His story is a reminder of the role Black entrepreneurs played in financing the abolitionist movement, and of how much wealth and power Black communities built in the decades before the Civil War, even under the shadow of slavery.
- Bought his freedom in 1816 and built a lumber business
- Co-founded Smith, Whipper & Co. in lumber, coal and real estate
- One of the wealthiest 19th-century Black Philadelphians
- Organising leader of the Underground Railroad in Philadelphia
- Helped found the Stephen Smith Home for the Aged
- Freedom can be a foundation for enterprise. Smith turned his hard-won freedom into a business empire and then into resources for others.
- Partnerships extend what one person can do. His alliance with William Whipper widened the reach of both men's businesses.