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Forten, James, Sr.
2 articles on Forten, James, Sr.
Forten, James
Source: Encyclopedia of African American History, 1619-1895: From the Colonial Period to the Age of Frederick Douglass
Word Count: 1378 Includes: Bibliography(b. 2 September 1766; d. 4 March 1842),
black inventor, businessman, community leader, and abolitionist. James Forten was born into a free black family in Philadelphia. When he was eight he began working alongside his father at a sail loft owned by Robert Bridges. While working with his father, Forten attended the Quaker abolitionist Anthony Benezet's school for free blacks. With the death of his father, Forten, at age ten, ended his formal schooling and worked in a grocery store to support his mother. When the Revolutionary War broke out, Forten convinced his mother to let him fight. He joined the crew of the American privateer vessel Royal Louisas a powder boy. Captured by the British, he languished on a prison ship for several months before being released. Following the war he spent a year in ...
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Source: Africana: The Encyclopedia of the African and African American Experience, Second Edition
Word Count: 1393 Includes: Bibliography1766–1842
African American businessman and social reformer. James Forten was born in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, the son of Thomas Forten, a freeborn sailmaker, and Margaret (maiden name unknown). Forten's parents enrolled him in the African School of abolitionist Anthony Benezet. When Forten was seven, his father died. Margaret Forten struggled to keep her son in school, but he was eventually forced to leave at age nine and work full-time to help support the family. His family remained in Philadelphia throughout the American Revolution, and Forten later recalled being in the crowd outside the Pennsylvania State House when the Declaration of Independence was read to the people for the first time.In 1781, while serving on a privateer, Forten was captured by the British and spent seven months on the ...
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