Samuel Shoemaker (1725-1800)

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This white person has 2 related events in the database, listed at the bottom of this page.
Identifier
NJS-PER-04074
Given Name
Samuel
Family Name
Shoemaker
Birth Date
1725
Death Date
1800
Sex
Male
Biographical Description
Samuel Shoemaker (1725-1800) was a prominent Quaker politician in Philadelphia in the 18th century. He served in many city and provincial government positions during the colonial era, most prominently as the Mayor of Philadelphia. He was a British Loyalist and left for England during the Revolutionary War. He returned to America after the Revolution in 1786 and settled for a couple of years in Burlington City, New Jersey, before moving back home to Philadelphia.

A document filed with the Burlington County Clerk in 1787 indicates that, when Samuel Shoemaker lived in Burlington City, he facilitated the freeing of a black man named Thomas. He bought Thomas from George Mitchell, a Burlington merchant, for 25 pounds in April 1787. He proceeded to free Thomas a couple of weeks later, writing in the manumission deed that he was "desirous to restore the said Thomas to his natural right of freedom."

Samuel Shoemaker's stepson William Rawle (1759-1836) was a prominent lawyer and ardent abolitionist active in the Pennsylvania Abolition Society.
Keywords
white person
enslaver
government official
Places
Burlington
Philadelphia, Pennsylvania
Enslaver of
Thomas
References

William Brooke Rawle, “Laurel Hill and Some Colonial Dames Who Once Lived There,” The Pennsylvania Magazine of History and Biography 35, no. 4 (1811): 385–414.

John Woolf Jordan, ed., Colonial And Revolutionary Families of Pennsylvania: Genealogical and Personal Memoirs, vol. 1 (1911; repr., Genealogical Publishing Co., 1978), 446–447.

This person is represented on the following page(s):
Wikipedia: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Samuel_Shoemaker_(mayor)
WikiTree: https://www.wikitree.com/wiki/Shoemaker-1604
Find a Grave: https://www.findagrave.com/memorial/97419266/samuel-shoemaker
Record Contributor
Jesse Bayker
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