Phebe Ann Jacobs

{{Short description|American Congregationalist, laundress, and free woman (1785–1850)}}

{{Infobox person

| name = Phebe Ann Jacobs

| image = Narrative of Phebe Ann Jacobs - first page.jpg

| alt = A yellowed first page of a pamphlet reads "NARRATIVE OF PHEBE ANN JACOBS. BY MRS. T. C. UPHAM." Below it, a detailed illustration of a cozy house is shown beside a tree and behind a white fence, and two figures appear to be gesticulating while standing by its wall. Below, the typed biography follows in an old-fashioned font.

| caption = The first page of Narrative of Phebe Ann Jacobs

| birth_date = July 1785

| birth_place = Hanover Township, New Jersey, U.S. (later Lake Hiawatha, New Jersey)

| death_date = February 28, 1850 (aged 64)

| death_place = Brunswick, Maine, U.S.

| nationality =

}}

Phebe Ann Jacobs (July 1785 – February 28, 1850) was an American Congregationalist, laundress, and free woman. Best known for her posthumous biography Narrative of Phebe Ann Jacobs, Jacobs was born into slavery on the Beverwyck plantation in Lake Hiawatha, New Jersey.

During her life, she was enslaved by the family of the President of Dartmouth, then the President of Bowdoin College in Brunswick, Maine. In the final years of her life, she achieved emancipation and worked in Brunswick laundering clothes for students of Bowdoin.

In 1919, the New Jersey Historical Society claimed Jacobs was significant for "her rare attainments as a Christian, the strength of her faith, and her spirit of devotion."{{Cite book |last=Society |first=New Jersey Historical |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=3bSfAAAAMAAJ&dq=Maria+Suhm+Malleville&pg=PA138 |title=Proceedings of the New Jersey Historical Society |date=1919 |publisher=New Jersey Historical Society |language=en}}

Life

= Early life and slavery =

Jacobs was born a slave on the Beverwyck plantation in Lake Hiawatha, New Jersey, in 1785.{{Cite web |title=Mrs. T. C. Upham Narrative of Phebe Ann Jacobs. |url=https://docsouth.unc.edu/neh/upham/menu.html |access-date=2022-02-10 |website=docsouth.unc.edu}}{{Cite book |last=II |first=James J. Gigantino |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=s5SEBAAAQBAJ&dq=%22Phebe+Ann+Jacobs%22&pg=PA153 |title=The Ragged Road to Abolition: Slavery and Freedom in New Jersey, 1775-1865 |date=2014-09-15 |publisher=University of Pennsylvania Press |isbn=978-0-8122-9022-6 |language=en}} Jacobs did not receive an education;{{Cite book |last=JACOBS |first=Phebe Ann |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=B4heAAAAcAAJ&dq=%22phebe+ann+jacobs%22&pg=PA2 |title=P. A. Jacobs, or, Exalted Piety in Humble Life |date=1854 |language=en}} she was instead trained to become a domestic slave.{{Cite book |last=Smyth |first=Egbert Coffin |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=ELoAhmgkDv4C&dq=%22Phebe+Ann+Jacobs%22&pg=PA66 |title=Three Discourses Upon the Religious History of Bowdoin College, During the Administrations of Presidents M'Keen, Appleton, & Allen |date=1858 |publisher=J. Griffin |pages=66 |language=en}} She had a sister named Peggy, who different persons presumably owned. Her parents' names are not stated in sources.

When Jacobs was a child, she was owned by Maria Malleville, daughter of President Wheelock of Dartmouth college. Maria Malleville was born on February 3, 1788; Malleville was three years younger than Jacobs.

On January 28, 1813, Maria Malleville married William Allen, president of Bowdoin College in Brunswick, Maine.{{Cite web |last=HILL |first=WILLIAM CARROLL |title=The Five Maries {{!}} Dartmouth Alumni Magazine {{!}} December 1942 |url=https://archive.dartmouthalumnimagazine.com/article/1942/12/1/the-five-maries |access-date=2022-07-21 |website=Dartmouth Alumni Magazine {{!}} The Complete Archive |language=en-US}}{{Cite book |last1=Art |first1=Bowdoin College Museum of |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=xBTqAAAAMAAJ&q=%22in+a+dress+of+cambric+so+fine+it+could+be+concealed+in+clasped+hands%22 |title=Colonial and Federal Portraits at Bowdoin College |last2=Sadik |first2=Marvin S. |date=1966 |publisher=Bowdoin College Museum of Art |language=en}} Jacobs was 28 years old and continued to be owned by the Allens after they moved to their new home in Pittsfield, Maine.

Although some sources indicate Jacobs became free in Maine, her emancipation status was complicated. According to Professor of History James J. Gigantino II of the University of Arkansas, "Like many free blacks, [Jacobs] continued to serve her former owners as a domestic servant since, while free, she faced racism and a lack of economic opportunities."{{Cite book |last=II |first=James J. Gigantino |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=s5SEBAAAQBAJ&dq=%22Phebe+Ann+Jacobs%22&pg=PA153 |title=The Ragged Road to Abolition: Slavery and Freedom in New Jersey, 1775-1865 |date=2014-09-15 |publisher=University of Pennsylvania Press |isbn=978-0-8122-9022-6 |language=en}}

= Later years =

Likely due to indentured servitude, Jacobs remained with the family until the death of her owner, Maria Allen.

For the last years of her life, Jacobs lived independently, washing and ironing clothes for students of Bowdoin. She lived in Pine Grove in a small cabin on a blueberry plain, now an airport site.{{Cite web |last=Old |first=David TreadwellJust a Little |date=2021-06-18 |title=David Treadwell: Pine Grove Cemetery celebrates 200th anniversary |url=https://www.pressherald.com/2021/06/18/david-treadwell-pine-grove-cemetery-celebrates-200th-anniversary/ |access-date=2022-07-21 |website=Press Herald}}

Shortly before 1850, Jacobs met Phebe Lord Upham, possibly because they both attended First Parish Church.{{Cite web |date=2021-01-28 |title=Narrative of Phebe Ann Jacobs, or, "Happy Phebe" / by Mrs. T.C. Upham, c. 1850 |url=https://courses.bowdoin.edu/there-is-a-woman-in-every-color-2021/labor-force/narrative-of-phebe-ann-jacobs-or-happy-phebe/ |access-date=2022-07-21 |website=Bowdoin College Museum of Art - There Is a Woman in Every Color: Black Women in Art |language=en-US}} Upham was a theologian, poet, and social activist best known for The Crystal Fountain (1887).{{Cite web |title=Phebe Lord Upham |url=https://www.goodreads.com/author/show/3327252.Phebe_Lord_Upham |access-date=2022-07-21 |website=www.goodreads.com}} A native of Kennebunkport, Upham married Bowdoin professor T. C. Upham. Around this time, Upham may have begun writing Jacobs's biography. Some sources describe the narrative as dictated, so it can be assumed that Jacobs was telling Upham her life stories to be recorded.{{Cite book |last1=Perry |first1=Carolyn |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=uQSYeomI_CAC&dq=%22Phebe+Ann+Jacobs%22&pg=PA91 |title=The History of Southern Women's Literature |last2=Weaks-Baxter |first2=Mary |date=2002-03-01 |publisher=LSU Press |isbn=978-0-8071-2753-7 |language=en}}

Jacobs died in Brunswick, on February 28, 1850, of an unspecified heart condition.

Legacy

Jacobs's 1850 funeral was reported to have a significant amount of attendees. The Times Record reports, "At [Jacobs's] funeral, the [First Parish Church] was packed with people wanting to honor their beloved fellow citizen. Maine Gov. Robert Pinckney Dunlap served as one of the pallbearers. In fact, one person{{Who|date=July 2022}} noted that {{Sic|Phoebe}} Ann Jacobs had as many people at her funeral as Joshua Chamberlain had."

Among the funeral's attendees were Allen and his family - relatives of Jacobs's enslaver Maria Allen - who were informed via telegraph.{{Cite book |last=Beedy |first=Helen Coffin |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=FZnQUZHkZxQC&dq=%22Phebe+Ann+Jacobs%22&pg=PA261 |title=Mothers of Maine |date=1895 |publisher=Thurston Print |language=en}} The Allens traveled over 200 miles to attend Jacobs's funeral.{{Cite book |last=Upham |first=T. C. |url=https://docsouth.unc.edu/neh/upham/summary.html |title=Narrative of Phebe Ann Jacobs |publisher=J. S. Stewart |year=1850}}

In 1850, after Jacobs's death, Upham completed a pamphlet describing Jacobs's life, titled Narrative of Phebe Ann Jacobs, also called Happy Phebe. It was published in 1850 by W. & F. G. Cash in London.{{Cite book |last=Sumner |first=Margaret |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=k_Z1AgAAQBAJ&dq=%22Phebe+Ann+Jacobs%22&pg=PA241 |title=Collegiate Republic: Cultivating an Ideal Society in Early America |date=2014-06-10 |publisher=University of Virginia Press |isbn=978-0-8139-3568-3 |language=en}}{{Cite book |last=Andrews |first=William L. |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=cGBGHobbbY4C&dq=%22Phebe+Ann+Jacobs%22&pg=PA325 |title=To Tell a Free Story: The First Century of Afro-American Autobiography, 1760-1865 |date=1988 |publisher=University of Illinois Press |isbn=978-0-252-06033-5 |language=en}} On September 25, 1850, the story was published in Volume VII of The Oberlin Evangelist, edited by Henry Cowles.{{Cite book |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=JiNFAAAAYAAJ&dq=%22Phebe+Ann+Jacobs%22&pg=RA1-PA154 |title=The Oberlin Evangelist |date=1849 |publisher=R.E. Gillett |language=en}} In 1850, it was also published by the American Tract Society of New York and republished in 1854.{{Cite book |last=Society |first=American Tract |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=3-Ui0HDilagC&dq=%22Phebe+Ann+Jacobs%22&pg=RA1-PA172 |title=Annual Report of the American Tract Society |date=1850 |publisher=printed at the Society's House |language=en}} According to Bowdoin College, the biography "documents Jacobs’ life after emancipation and emphasizes her piety and reliance on her Christian faith...[but] does not, however, document the laborious nature of being enslaved to the Wheelock family."

In 1854, Edinburgh catechism book The Shorter Catechism...with Proofs from the Scriptures advertised Jacobs's narrative in a collection of pamphlets for school use. This advertisement was for Johnstone & Hunter's Miniature Series of Interesting Narratives. Jacobs's narrative was sold in a pack of three pamphlets along with "John Rock, the Miner" and "Sabbath-School Fruit and a Death Song."{{Cite book |last=Divines (England) |first=Assembly of |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=NzBWAAAAcAAJ&dq=%22Phebe+Ann+Jacobs%22&pg=PT7 |title=The Shorter Catechism ... with Proofs from the Scriptures. With Additional Scripture References |date=1854 |publisher=Johnstone & Hunter |language=en}}

Circa 1850, Jacobs's biography inspired author Harriet Beecher Stowe as she wrote 1852 anti-slavery novel Uncle Tom's Cabin.{{Cite web |title=Summary of Narrative of Phebe Ann Jacobs |url=https://docsouth.unc.edu/neh/upham/summary.html |access-date=2021-11-25 |website=docsouth.unc.edu}}{{Cite book |last=II |first=James J. Gigantino |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=s5SEBAAAQBAJ&dq=%22Phebe+Ann+Jacobs%22&pg=PA153 |title=The Ragged Road to Abolition: Slavery and Freedom in New Jersey, 1775-1865 |date=2014-09-15 |publisher=University of Pennsylvania Press |isbn=978-0-8122-9022-6 |language=en}}

In 2010, Jacobs was added to the Brunswick Women's History Walking Trail alongside American Arctic explorer Miriam MacMillan, milliner Dolly Giddings, botanist and artist Catherine Furbish, St. John's teacher Sister Pauline Langelier, restaurateur Pauline Siatras, and abolitionist author Harriet Beecher Stowe.[https://pejepscothistorical.org/wp-content/uploads/2011/09/Fall-2010.pdf The Cupola - News from the Pejepscot Historical Society - Fall 2010]

In 2021, Jacobs's narrative was included in Bowdoin's There Is a Woman in Every Color: Black Women in Art exhibition as part of Black history month.{{Citation |title=There Is a Woman in Every Color: Black Women in Art |url=https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nyXkgYnToFs |language=en |access-date=2022-07-21}}{{Cite web |title=There Is a Woman in Every Color: Black Women in Art |url=https://www.bowdoin.edu/art-museum/exhibitions/2020/woman-in-every-color.html |access-date=2022-07-21 |website=Art Museum |language=en}}{{Portal|Christianity|United States|Biography

}}