Perth Amboy evening news., 1923-12-26
PERTH AMBOY IN HISTORY
FIRST G T
By IL. e. ~PICKERsGILL

called and held. Although the COM
mittee caused to be issued an eight
page pamphlet recording the pro-
ceedings at the meeting, with much
that was said and all that was done
there, copies of the publication are
very rarely found and only two have
rewarded more than twenty years
of careful search and inquiry.
From this source we learn that
Tom was born in Metuchen in 1924
and four years later came to Perth
Amboy with his parents. His father
soon died, but his mother was still
living in 1884. He married a girl
who had served IN apprenticeship
under the gradual emancipation laws
of New Jersey with Andrew Bell.
James NJ. Chapman, a former
mayor of the city, presided and after
explaining briefly the purpose of the
meeting, called upon the Rev. DR..
David Stevenson, pastor of the Pres
byterian church, to offer prayer. The
chairman then presented William
Paterson. who also served as mayor
several times, as the speaker of the
evening. There followed one of those
graceful speeches for which Judge
Paterson was more than locally
famed. He reviewed old Toms
honest career, touched upon many
points of local history and of those
events which led up to the freeing
of the negro, and then presented the
medal with these words:
And so we meet to decorate,
by token on the Freedman's coat,
THE man who was in any State,
1.-THE first to cast a Freedman's vote"
The medal was of gold, about the
size of a twenty dollar gold piece,
suspended from a bar by chains. To
the last of his activity, the aged
negro proudly wore it on the left
breast of a shiny Prince Albert coat,
which surmounted old time leather
boots and waved majestically in the
shade of an aged silk hat. The token
cost more than 500 and in the
course of time the old man parted
with 1t, leaving it as security for
small loans which had been made
to him from time to time. Later the
interesting relic found its way to the
assay Office in New York, with other
bits of precious metal, there to be
exchanged for coin. One of those
who saw 1t weighed was John H.
Gregory and, practical business nan
that he is, Mr.. Gregory felt that such
a thing should not be treated as
ordinary scrap and he bargained for
and secured 1t for the sum that 1t
| was actually worth as gold, some
where between twenty-eight and
twenty-nine dollars, and brought ii
back to Perth Amboy. When he
was leaving this city Mr.. Gregory
advertised the relic for sale in the
Evening News and its present owner
secured it. Owner seems hardly the
word to use in connection with such
an article. Representing, as it does,
an important event in the history
of the city and of the whole negro
race, it has been suggested many
times that its proper place is in the
Smithsonian Institute or the Library
of Congress, although others argue.
seemingly with equal force, that
Perth Amboy is plenty large enough
to own and care for 1t as a local
possession.
OF the names connected with that
historic first vote, all are those OF
citizens now gone to their reward
with the single exception of one who
survives to tell from time to time in
reminiscent vein of the Perth Amboy
that was, as much as three-quarters
of a century ago. He is Patrick
Convery, who was a member of the
board which conducted that specia,
election back in 1871. When Mr.
Convery so very pleasantly entertain
ed the members of the historical
society a few months ago, he told Of
this incident and chuckled as he re-
called the opposition to the "niggel
vote" voiced by an element of the
board. James Lawrence Kearny
who died o so long ago, was an
other of the board and for him
when a young man, old Tom, as he
afterwards became, worked many
years. The Mundy-Peterson home
was, for a long time, in Commerce
Lane, which ran south from Com
merce street, between High and
Rector streets. 1t was vacated when
the Roessler & Hasslacher Company
acquired the surrounding land, in
Guiding Tower Cottage, the home foi
the late Hugh Ramsay. Tom was a
simple hearted, honest man, a per-
feet representative of the typical
northern negro who was willing to
work, knew his place and who did
his best to earn the respect of those
eabout him, regardless of color. He