Thomas Smallwood (1801–1883) was a freedman," a daring activist and searing writer" who worked alongside fellow abolitionist Charles Turner Torrey on the Underground railroad. The two men created what some historians believe was the first branch of the underground railroad that ran through Washington, D.C., which they operated from 1842 to 1844. After their involvement ceased, the network continued to exist in Washington for another two decades. Smallwood also wrote for Torrey's Albany, New York antislavery newspaper, Tocsin of Liberty, as its Washington correspondent.
Phillis Shiner & noted Abolitionist Thomas Smallwood,1836, Ebenezer Methodist church class
1843 Letter by Thomas Smallwood aka Samuel Weller Jr., describing whipping of enslaved Black woman
Daily Herald 1843-12-06 (3) New Haven Connecticut notice re Thomas Smallwood and escaped slave
Charles Turner Torrey was a leading American abolitionist. Although largely lost to historians until recently, Torrey pushed the abolitionist movement to more political and aggressive strategies, including setting up one of the first highly organized lines for the Underground Railroad and personally freeing approximately 400 slaves. Torrey also worked closely with free blacks, thus becoming one of the first to consider them partners. John Brown cited Torrey as one of the three abolitionists he looked to as models for his own efforts.
A sketch of Torrey, c. 1840, from Memoir of Rev. Charles T. Torrey, Joseph P. Lovejoy, ed. (Boston: John P. Jewett & Co.), 1847
Monument for Charles Turner Torrey by sculptor Joseph Carew at Mount Auburn Cemetery
