Gertrude Kimber Burleigh: Quaker Partner to Charles

Gertrude H. Kimber Burleigh

Feminist, teacher, Quaker, abolitionist, mother, singer, and thinker. She loved her husband, in all his eccentricities.

Kimber Hall, where Gertrude and her sister Abby studied, and where Gertrude was teaching when she and Charles were becoming romantically entwined. The story goes that her father at first forbid her to marry Charles, and she took to the back stairs and wept. As this sequence of pictures shows, the back stairs no longer exist, but were likely from the now "false" door on the first floor of the terraced backyard.

Sidney Southworth describes her thus on first meeting in March of 1843:

"I saw C.C.B. and his wife there. Charles’ wife is a splendid specimen of her sex and race as I ever saw. If humanity were all like her, and no matter how much better, the moral world would not remain a chaos long. A power would effectually be exerted to bring it into shape."
(Southworth letter to GSB 1843-05-01, HA 1274; cf. 1843-06-03 - John Hay Collection, Brown University)

Short Biographical Sketch of Gertrude Kimber Burleigh

Reference

R.C. Smedley, History of the Underground Railroad in Chester and the Neighboring Counties of Pennsylvania. Lancaster, Pennsylvania: Office of the Journal, 1883. p. 204-205.

Gertrude Kimber Burleigh - and her spouse Charles Calistus Burleigh - signed the protest against the Whole World Temperance Conference that refused to seat female delegates, in May of 1853. That protest called for a true World Temperance Conference to be held in New York City in September of 1853.

Frederick Douglass' Paper, August 12, 1853

In 1844, after Gertrude and Charles moved back from Vermont to Pennsylvania, Gertrude ran a small business "marking" linens and muslins. This practice of placing a name or identifying mark on clothing was important to household management. Nearly every issue of the Pennsylvania Freeman in 1844 contains her modest advertisement of this service.

References

Pennsylvania Freeman New Series no. 17 p. 4 September 5 1844

The IK Workshop Society at The IK Foundation. Viveka Hansen. "18th & 19th Century Marking of Linen: Garments and Bedlinen Kept in a Museum Collection." LXVI, January 19, 2017.

Advertisement for Gertrude K. Burleigh's Linen Marking

A Quirky Anecdote

Gertrude's singing voice was noted by many friends. But the most important Abolitionist musicians of the time - the Hutchinson Family Singers - were intrigued by another vocal talent of hers!

"Here in Philadelphia was the adopted home of our beloved friend, Charles C. Burleigh, with his worthy partner, Gertrude Burleigh. They were sojourning in a pleasant tenement, not far from our boarding-place, and we had frequent visits from them.

Mrs. Burleigh was a welcome guest at any hour in the day. She would go to the door and exercise her faculty of imitating one of our American domestic fowls, and it carried us back to the farm-yard, when we used to have turkeys fattening for Thanksgiving. It was certainly interesting to hear her 'gobble.'"

So we can see that Gertrude Kimber Burleigh had her own eccentricities. At the time reported here, the Burleighs were living in downtown Philadelphia, close to the waterfront. The presence of Wild Turkey (Meleagris gallopavo) in that busy neighborhood was unlikely - so for bystanders to suddenly hear a good imitation of the call could have been confusing!

References

John Wallace Hutchinson, Story of the Hutchinsons (Tribe of Jesse). Ed. Charles E. Mann. Boston: Lee and Shepard, 1896. Volume 1, p. 100.

Wild Turkey (Meleagris gallopavo)

Wild Turkey in a wilder place than Arch Street, Philadelphia