Biography

Passmore Williamson was an abolitionist and businessman Pennsylvania. He is best known for aiding in the emancipation of two slaves, which led to his brief imprisonment. It was this imprisonment however that possibly allowed for more conversation surrounding the bandwidth of freedom Pennsylvania's Anti-slavery laws had, because at the time of his imprisonment slavery was illegal in the state. He is mentioned in a letter between Elizabeth Palmer Peabody and FMS in 1857 concerning the funding of Mattie Griffith Browne's career as an abolitionist writer– a career that left her financially destitute for a long period at the time of the civil war, despite the political conversations her writings created.