In 1835, Hamilton Elzie Waters, secured himself and his mother, Lovey Waters, a Certificate of Freedom. Waters had been partially blinded during his years as a slave, possibly due to injuries received during punishment after being caught with a book.
Waters and his mother migrated from Maryland to Ithaca, New York, where he would meet his wife Lucinda who had been in the household of Governor Throop Governor of New York in 1829. After marrying the couple moved to Michigan and started a family. Their first child was Elizabeth Waters in 1838, soon after her birth the family moved to Erie, where they would remain for generations.
In Erie, Hamilton Waters worked as a town crier and lamplighter and owned his own home. Hamilton and Luncinda believed highly in education and instilled the belief in their children and grandchild that no dream of achievement was unattainable.
Hamilton Waters was an agent of the Underground Railroad, gaining information about people of all classes from his work as a clothes cleaner. Water’s Underground Railroad responsibilities involved passing individuals to Frank Hemmings at a settlement on Four Mile Creek in Harborcreek, for the last leg of the journey over Lake Erie by skiff to Longwood, Ontario.
In 1895, Waters co-founded the Wesleyan Methodist Church in the New Jerusalem section of the city. In 1898, Waters established the Benevolent United Equal Rights Society, a brotherhood that backed fugitive slaves.
Waters's believed in his entitlement to full citizenship as well as a knowledge of the distinctive cultural heritage through which those who were enslaved transcended the pain and the limitations of their captivity.
Making his earnings as a lamplighter, Waters would take his grandson, Harry, along with him and they would sing the slave song. These plantation melodies would profoundly shape Harry’s musical sensibilities as he grew to become famous soloist, composer, and America’s first black concert artist, Harry T. Burleigh.
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| Hamilton Elzie Waters seated in the middle with two unidentified children. |