Part 1

Part 2

The legal-sized pages of Oliver Gilbert’s autobiography were enumerated, and the bottom corner of each page revealed an encircled set of numbers – a word count. These pages were meant for publication.

We know that Oliver had been encouraged to write his story; but Ethel, having no knowledge of Oliver’s background, had her work cut out for her. The autobiography now strewn across her bed in West Philadelphia was certainly revealing, but she longed to know more.

She knew that ‘Mr. Gilbert’, the formerly enslaved man who’d managed to craft a fascinating and impactful life had left her with a treasure, but also a treasure hunt. She also knew that William O. Gilbert, the man who ran the settlement house and was somehow related to the Gilbert in the autobiography, had obviously been quite ill, because her bed was now also full of pill bottles and prescriptions, which she returned to the trash bag for future research. For now, she needed to re-order the pages of the autobiography and learn more about this ‘slave’ who opened his autobiography with the words ‘Going back to Dixie’.

“Who goes back?” she asked herself – and her mind drifted to scenes of Harriet Tubman’s going back.

For almost 20 years, Ethel Hawkins kept the collection stored in her bedroom at 5645 Lebanon Avenue, Philadelphia. She didn’t own a computer, nor smart phone, but used public records at the Free Library of Philadelphia to research William O. Gilbert, Jr and his history with the St John’s Settlement House, and she also researched the man at the center of the handwritten autobiography, Oliver Cromwell Gilbert.

Hawkins found little on Oliver Gilbert until her sister, aware of the collection and then working at Drexel University, stumbled upon an article on SeacoastNH.com, an online publication featuring events in coastal New Hampshire. There, Oliver Cromwell Gilbert, a ‘fugitive slave’ was mentioned as the focus of a lecture given as part of a conference to explore local Underground Railroad history. Historian and Head of Special Collections at the University of New Hampshire Library, Jody Fernald, had been the speaker.

Hawkins outreached to Fernald and explained her position as custodian of Oliver Gilbert’s collection. Fernald, then actively working to provide primary source documentation to the US Federal Government to certify the home of abolitionist and stationmaster Moses Cartland as an Underground Railroad site, asked Hawkins to send a copy of the autobiography. Oliver Gilbert had lived with the Cartlands at their home for two years in the protection of the Underground Railroad network.

If only it had been that simple. Hawkins had no intention of sending the memoir. She felt pressured, and she’d developed a protective relationship with the man she called ‘Mr. Gilbert’. She didn’t appreciate the fact that someone from New Hampshire, aside from Jody Fernald, had called and suggested that if she didn’t hand over the autobiography, it would end up in obscurity. Hawkins saw this as a slight to her ability to execute her plan to open a Black history museum and community space in West Philadelphia. Hawkins already owned a storefront on Lancaster Avenue, which served as the headquarters for her collectibles business, and she had a steady stream of customers who visited to browse the latest artifacts and make the occasional purchase. How dare the University scholars dismiss her plan, she thought. She wanted Black people to tell their own history, in their own neighborhoods, through their own lens.

Hawkins stood her ground. The University folks doubled down. Tensions mounted.

Continue to Part 3