Cyrus Moses Burleigh: Quick-Witted Activist
Cyrus Moses Burleigh
Portrait of Cyrus Moses Burleigh
Cyrus Moses Burleigh, the next-to-youngest of the siblings, is a winsome through his writing. But his writing is hard to find, being mainly in journals, letters, and reports from the struggle. When you find them, though, his writings sparkle with life and humor. This helps to explain why he was so beloved, and mourned so extravagantly at the time of his early death.
He contributed extensively to both temperance and anti-slavery in Connecticut, Rhode Island and Massachusetts. But it was when he followed his brother Charles to Pennsylvania that he really blossomed. He found Quaker culture to be quite congenial, though there is no evidence that he joined the Society of Friends.
Cyrus Moses Burleigh became part of the editorial board of the Pennsylvania Freeman, and was in the middle of such key enterprises as the Underground Railroad, and reported on the Christiana resistance on September 11, 1851. He was mobbed as a speaker during the responses to the Fugitive Slave Law.
One of the most intriguing moments in his life came at the end of it, when he married his good friend Margaret Jones, who was in a committed relationship with Mary Grew. The marriage gave Margaret the prestige of the Burleigh family connection, and helped to bring Cyrus's worldly affairs to an orderly conclusion. But it is unlikely that this was a "marriage" in any romantic or sexual sense.
Cyrus's hand-written journal, which runs intermittently from July of 1837 to January 1843, constitutes a treasure-trove of information about him, his family, daily life in Windham county, and his increasing involvement in reform causes. This website will, eventually, make a full transcription of it available. Among the famed people noted in it, in addition to the Burleigh family, are Prudence Crandall, Almira Crandall, William Lloyd Garrison, Wendell Phillips, and many more. A full index of these names will be included with their internal references in this proejct once the transcription is complete.
The diary is noted as being in the John Hay collection at Brown University, but easier access comes from a microfilm with the following catalogue information: Micropublished in "American Poetry, 1650-1900: Part II." No. 352. New Haven, Connecticut: Research Publications, 1975. This same collection includes a collection of hand-written juvenalia by his brother George Shepard Burleigh.
Cyrus Burleigh, Margaret Jones Burleigh, and Mary Grew
Mary Grew (left); Cyrus Burleigh (top right); Margaret Jones Burleigh (lower right). Our century can understand what a previous century didn't want to articulate.
