Samuel Scott House

Samuel Scott was born into slavery in Centerville, Maryland, in about 1820 and was one of the six men who arrived together in Solebury Township. Scott and his cousin Parry Helmsley eventually made their way to Jonathan P. Magill’s farm on Aquetong Road just north of Windy Bush. Magill’s son Watson took the escaped slave to the farm of John Blackfan where John gave him a new identity as Samuel Scott. Scott worked on the Blackfan farm for years afterward. Helmsley went to stay with Mahlon Gibbs and he appears in the Gibbs’ household in on the 1850 Census, where Helmsley claimed he was born in Pennsylvania.

Many of the fugitives built self-supporting communities, building households with strangers. Samuel built a home in Solebury Village, and throughout his life provided a home for other black families, including the Moores, who also escaped slavery, and the Lamberts. Tamson Lambert later married Philip Peterson. In Samuel’s old age Tamson returned the favor, as Scott is shown on the 1900 and 1910 Census living with Tamson. Scott lived until April 5th, 1911, and was buried in Stranger’s Row in the Solebury Friends Cemetery.