![\"\"](\"http:\/\/mass.historicbuildingsct.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2012\/04\/3-Smith-Court.jpg\" "\\"3")
<\/center><\/p>\nSmith Court<\/a>, on Boston’s Beacon Hill, was the center of the city’s African American community<\/a> in the nineteenth century. The house<\/a> at 3 Smith Court<\/a>, a double house with a common entryway, was built in 1799 by two white bricklayers. Just the year before, a ropewalk had been demolished on the property leading to the construction of residences. By 1830, black families were renting the house at 3 Smith Court<\/a>. The longest resident of the house was was James Scott, an African American clothier, who became a tenant in 1839 and bought the property in 1865. Originally from Virginia, Scott was an abolitionist who was arrested in 1851 for his role in freeing fugitive slave Shadrach Minkins<\/a>. From 1851-1856, part of the house was rented by William C. Nell<\/a>, a journalist and abolitionist, who led the campaign to integrate Boston’s public schools. He became the first published African American historian<\/a> when he wrote Services of Colored Americans in the Wars of 1776 and 1812<\/a><\/em> (1851) and Colored Patriots of the American Revolution<\/a><\/em> (1855). <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Smith Court, on Boston’s Beacon Hill, was the center of the city’s African American community in the nineteenth century. The house at 3 Smith Court, a double house with a common entryway, was built in 1799 by two white bricklayers. Just the year before, a ropewalk had been demolished on the property leading to the construction of residences. By 1830, black families were renting the house at 3 Smith Court. The longest resident of the house was was James Scott, an African American clothier, who became a tenant in 1839 and bought the property in 1865. Originally from Virginia, Scott […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[39,53,8],"tags":[41,72],"class_list":["post-4384","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-boston","category-federal","category-houses","tag-beacon-hill","tag-black-heritage-trail"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/mass.historicbuildingsct.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4384","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/mass.historicbuildingsct.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/mass.historicbuildingsct.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mass.historicbuildingsct.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mass.historicbuildingsct.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=4384"}],"version-history":[{"count":14,"href":"https:\/\/mass.historicbuildingsct.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4384\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":4504,"href":"https:\/\/mass.historicbuildingsct.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4384\/revisions\/4504"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/mass.historicbuildingsct.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=4384"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mass.historicbuildingsct.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=4384"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mass.historicbuildingsct.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=4384"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}