Amsterdam barber was African American political leader
By Bob Cudmore, Focus on History, Daily Gazette, 02-21-15
An Amsterdam barber, Robert A. Jackson, may have been active in the Underground Railroad and was an African American political leader in the late 1800s.
Montgomery County historian Kelly Yacobucci Farquhar said, “It is very possible that (Jackson) had Underground Railroad connections because he was not too far away from Chandler Bartlett’s shoe store that also reputedly sheltered freedom seekers. Jackson’s barber shop was in an upper floor over 69 East Main Street which would be approximately where the Riverfront Center now sits. He lived on Charles Street.”
In the late 1800s there were newspaper accounts describing Jackson’s role in what were then called Colored Conventions at the Montgomery County and state level
According to research compiled by historian Christopher Philippo, Jackson was one of five men appointed at a statewide convention of black Republicans to prepare an address to voters in 1872.
In 1879 Jackson was chosen for the committee on principles and rules at the Colored Men’s Montgomery County Convention in Fonda. He was named an at-large delegate to the group’s state convention in Elmira.
In August 1884 Jackson delivered a rousing speech in support of Republican Presidential candidate James Blaine and his running mate John Logan at a celebration of emancipation held in Canajoharie. Other events that day included a parade, music and a reading of the emancipation proclamation.
The Amsterdam Daily Democrat reported that Jackson’s speech was fluent and enthusiastic and was applauded throughout, “Mr. Jackson clearly and forcibly reviewed the history of his people since the war, showing the marked difference between the attitudes of the two great parties toward them.
“The Republicans, he said, had given them the treatment they deserved and had done all in their power to dignify their condition, whereas the policy of the Democrats toward them has resulted only in their detriment.”
Blaine and Logan narrowly lost the Presidential election that year to New York Governor Grover Cleveland and his running mate Thomas Hendricks. Cleveland was the first Democrat to be elected President since 1856. He carried New York by a margin of just over a thousand votes to clinch the election.
In October 1884 the Amsterdam Daily Democrat printed an interview with Jackson who had recently returned from a trip to Philadelphia for the national convention of what were then called the Colored Masons. Another newspaper reported that Jackson came originally from Troy and had joined the Masons there.
The Amsterdam paper’s interview took place at Jackson’s barber shop and he reportedly “talked rapidly away as he stropped his razor.”
Jackson said the convention was the largest ever because it celebrated the 100th anniversary of the creation in Boston of the first lodge of black Free Masons in America.
Jackson said, “(The convention) was marked by a grand parade in which 25 lodges were represented in a membership of 2,000 , comprising delegates from Delaware, New York, New Jersey, Maryland, Mississippi, Virginia, Kentucky, Massachusetts and Ohio.”
In 1886 the Amsterdam paper reported “tonsorial artist Robert Jackson” was spending Sunday with friends in Minaville. Jackson died in February 1893 and was about sixty.
Farquhar said, “According to my records he was married to Hannah Herod and they had at least five children. One of their daughters, Agnes, died at the age of seven in 1882 due to meningitis. Agnes, Hannah and Robert are all buried in Green Hill Cemetery, possibly along with a couple of other daughters.”
Farquhar and Judith Wellman have written “Uncovering the Underground Railroad: Abolitionism and African American Life in Montgomery County, N.Y. 1820-1890.” It is available at Farquhar’s office at the Old Courthouse in Fonda.
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