Builder, and Father of Abolitionist James George Barbados
“Introducing a New Map of Paul Revere’s Neighbors: the North End’s Black History from 1780 to 1810” — Dr. Ryan Bachman, Research Fellow, The Paul Revere Memorial Association
“Abel Barbadoes and Chloe Holloway were married in Boston on September 27, 1782. Neither of them was originally from the community. The twenty-three-year-old Holloway had moved to Boston from Hallowell, Maine. Unfortunately, little else is known of her early life apart from her approximate birth year and hometown.
Barbadoes, meanwhile, was from Lexington, Massachusetts. He was born around 1751 to Quawk and Kate Barbadoes. It is unknown whether Abel was born into slavery, but the Barbadoes family was free by 1756.
Abel and Chloe moved into a boarding house on Brattle Square shortly after their marriage. At the time, Abel worked as a domestic servant for the building’s owner. The couple relocated to the tenement building off North Street by 1788. There, Abel began working as a laborer. He also may have begun training as a mason, as he was known as such by 1801. The North End was in the midst of a housing boom, and Abel likely found plenty of work building new boarding houses and tenements. Indeed, within a decade he had earned enough money to buy his own piece of land. The plot was in a more middle-class Black neighborhood in West Boston and its purchase signaled the Barbadoes’ family’s social mobility.
Abel, Chloe and their three children moved to their new property in early 1799. Approximately six years later, Abel began working on the highest profile contract of his career - one that is still visible in the Boston cityscape. Financial records show that he performed the bulk of the masonry work on the African Meeting House. This three-story brick structure was at the heart of the West End’s Black community and exists today as the Museum of African American History." MORE
Abel barbadoes worked on the construction of this building in 1806, now known as The Museum of African American History
The Barbadoes Family and the Pursuit of African-American Equality in 19th Century America. University of Massachusetts, Boston by Robert J. Shaw, University of Massachusetts Boston
"Abel Barbadoes, born the son of slaves or perhaps himself born into slavery, moved to Boston’s Beacon Hill in the 1780s and helped build the African Meeting House and a school for the neighborhood’s African-American children.
His son, James, was a close associate of William Lloyd Garrison and was active in the antislavery movement in Boston in the 1820s and 1830s." MORE
