Lewis Hayden

American abolitionist, lecturer, businessman and politician (1811 1889)

Lewis Hayden (December 2, 1811 – April 7, 1889) escaped slavery in Kentucky with his family and reached Canada. He established a school for African Americans before moving to Boston, Massachusetts. There he became an abolitionist, lecturer, businessman, and politician. Before the American Civil War, he and his wife Harriet Hayden aided numerous fugitive slaves on the Underground Railroad, often sheltering them at their house. Hayden was elected in 1873 as a Republican representative from Boston to the Massachusetts state legislature. He helped found numerous black lodges of Freemasons. Located on the north side of Beacon Hill, the Lewis and Harriet Hayden House has been designated a National Historic Site on the Black Heritage Trail in Boston.

Lewis Hayden was born into slavery in Lexington, Kentucky, in 1811, as one of a family of 25.|group="nb" His mother was of mixed race, including African, European, and Native American ancestry; slavery of Native Americans had been prohibited since the 18th century. If his mother had been able to show direct maternal Native American ancestry, she would have had grounds for a freedom suit for herself and her children. According to the principle of partus sequitur ventrem adopted by the slave states in the 17th century, the children's status in the colonies followed that of the mother. Children of white women and Native American women were thus born free. Lewis's father was a slave "sold off early".#tag:ref|Hayden's mother had rejected an offer "of a base nature" from a man from a Masonic Lodge. He had her arrested and she began to have "crazy turns" after she had been tortured and flogged. After she made several suicide attempts, 7 or 8 year old Hayden and his siblings were able to see their mother. He became afraid when she said, "I'll fix you so that they'll never get you." She was tied up and taken away. When he was 14, the American Revolutionary War soldier Marquis de Lafayette tipped his hat to Hayden while visiting Kentucky. This helped inspire Hayden to believe he was worthy of respect and to hate slavery. In the mid 1830s,#tag:ref|Henry Clay claimed he had not bought, nor sold, Lewis Hayden's wife and child. He had confused Lewis Hayden with another man Lewis at first, then stated he never knew Lewis Hayden. But Hayden provided detailed information about houses where his wife was assigned after Clay bought her and details of her sale. He started to save his share of earnings for future freedom.

Hayden was a recruiter for the 54th Massachusetts Regiment of the United States Colored Troops. Every seat of the 1200 in the Charles Street AME Church was taken for his funeral, and Lucy Stone was among those who gave a eulogy. Harriet died in 1894 and left $5,000, (~$ in ) the entirety of their estate, to the Harvard University for scholarships for African American medical students. It was believed to have been the first, and perhaps only, endowment to a university by a former slave.

In 1849 or 1850, the Haydens moved into the house at 66 Phillips (then Southac) Street, in Boston's Beacon Hill neighborhood. In 1853, the house was purchased by their colleague Francis Jackson of the anti slavery Vigilance Committee. The African American Museum hypothesized that may have been done "to assure that Hayden would not be harassed in his Underground Railroad activities." The Haydens routinely cared for fugitive slaves at their home, which served as a boarding house. Records from the Boston Vigilance Committee, of which Lewis was a member, indicate that scores of people received aid and safe shelter at the Hayden home between 1850 and 1860. In 1865, Harriet Hayden bought the house from Francis Jackson's estate. The Lewis and Harriet Hayden House has been designated a National Historic Site; it is one of the sites on the Black Heritage Trail maintained by the National Park Service. Still used as a private residence, the house is not open to visitors.