1795-1858
American
Minister (religion), Editor, Abolitionist
Samuel Cornish was an early Presbyterian minister and a prominent abolitionist. A conservative in religious and social views, he lost influence in the early 1840s as many black leaders became more militant, although he remained a respected figure. In addition, Cornish was an important newspaper editor, a co-founder of Freedom's Journal, the first black newspaper, and later editor of the Colored American.
Samuel Eli Cornish was born in Sussex County, Delaware, in 1795. Little is known of his family background except that his parents were free. He moved to Philadelphia in 1815, and there came under the influence of John Gloucester, the minister who founded the first black Presbyterian church. Gloucester educated him and trained him for the ministry. Since Gloucester was already gravely ill with the tuberculosis which killed him in 1822, Cornish gained practical experience filling in for his mentor. Cornish was licensed to preach in 1819 and spent a year as a missionary in Maryland.
Cornish established himself in New York City in 1821 and gathered a congregation which officially became the New Demeter Street Presbyterian Church when he was ordained in 1822. In 1824 he married Jane Livingston (d. 1844). The couple had four children: Sarah Matilda (1824--1846), William (b. 1826), Samuel (1828--1838), and Jane Sophia Tappan (1833--1855). He resigned from New Demeter Street Presbyterian Church in 1828 to work as an itinerant preacher and missionary.
Cornish's reputation rests more on his work with abolitionist organizations than on his career as a minister. In 1827 and 1828 he was an agent for the New York African Free Schools, charged with visiting parents in their homes to encourage attendance. In 1831 the First Annual Convention of the People of Color appointed him agent to collect funds for a college for African Americans to be built in New Haven, Connecticut. This project came to nothing due to overwhelming local opposition.
In 1827 Cornish joined John Russworm in editing Freedom's Journal, which first appeared on March 16. Russworm assumed sole editorial control on September 24, 1827, but Cornish took over the paper in 1829 when Russworm was forced to resign because of his support of the colonization movement. After a two-month hiatus, Cornish continued the paper for less than a year under the name The Rights of All. For a few months in 1832 he served as pastor of the First African Presbyterian Church in Philadelphia, founded by John Gloucester. Cornish further devoted his energies to eradicating the stain of slavery; he joined William Lloyd Garrison in the founding of the American Anti-Slavery Society in 1833, and helped found a local branch of the New York Anti-Slavery Society. Cornish also joined the American and Foreign Anti-Slavery Society, and spent at least nine years on its executive committee. He was an active member of the American Missionary Society, which incorporated the black Union Missionary Society Cornish had helped found. He was on the AMA's executive committee for three years and served as its vice-president.
In 1837 Cornish again became a newspaper editor, this time of the Colored American, a paper subsidized by noted white abolitionist Arthur Tappan. His associate on the paper was Philip A. Bell, later a noted California newspaper editor. Cornish held this post until the middle of 1839. Cornish was more conservative in his views than many of his younger contemporaries. For example, in an 1837 editorial he was part of a minority opposing the use of demonstrations and force to resist enforcement of the fugitive slave laws. This controversial opinion led to his estrangement from David Ruggles and the New York Committee of Vigilance, an organization dedicated to helping fugitive slaves.
In 1838 Cornish and his family moved to Belleville, New Jersey. The Colored American was in financial straits, Cornish's salary was unpaid, and Cornish hoped to raise his children in an environment less prejudiced than New York City. Tragedy struck, however, when the younger son drowned and the older son faced degradation in the public school. Around 1840 Cornish moved to Newark, New Jersey, where he headed a church for a brief time. After his wife died in 1844, Cornish moved his family back to New York City where he organized Emmanuel Church which he led until 1847. His older daughter died in 1846, and his younger daughter became ill in 1851 and died insane in 1855. In this year, Cornish, in very poor health himself, moved to Brooklyn, where he died in 1858.
Cornish was an important early figure in the abolition movement although younger colleagues overshadowed him in his later years. His reputation, as well as most of the information about his life, rests on his work as a journalist.
Bell, Howard Holman. Minutes and Proceedings of the National Negro Conventions, 1830--1864. New York: Arno Press and the New York Times, 1969.
Gross, Bella. "Freedom's Journal and The Rights of All." Journal of Negro History 17 (July 1932): 241--86.
Logan, Rayford W., and Michael R. Winston, eds. Dictionary of American Negro Biography. New York: Norton, 1982.
Pease, Jane H., and William H. Pease. Bound with Them in Chains. Westport, CT: Greenwood Press, 1972.
Sterling, Dorothy. Speak Out in Thunder Tones. Garden City, NY: Doubleday, 1973.
[Tappan, Lewis]. The Life of Arthur Tappan. London, England: Sampson Low, Son, and Marston, 1870.
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