In his Reminiscences of Fugitive Slave Law Days in Boston, Austin Bearse listed Boston sculptor Thomas Carew as a member of the 1850 Boston Vigilance Committee.1
Born in England c. 1819, Thomas A. Carew lived and worked at various locations throughout Boston and Cambridge.2 Active as an artist between 1843 and 1860, he worked at Carew & Brother from 1844 to 1851, as well as in 1854.3 Boston Athenaeum, Harvard University, and Mt. Auburn Cemetery exhibited and housed his work.
Though Austin Bearse listed Carew as a member of the Boston Vigilance Committee in his 1880 memoir, Carew does not appear on the original 1850 broadside which lists Vigilance Committee members.4 This may indicate that he joined the organization at a later date.
A search through historic newspapers and other sources has yet to yield any further evidence of Carew’s involvement in the Vigilance Committee, the Underground Railroad, or even the larger abolition movement. His brother, and fellow artist, Joseph, on the other hand, is recorded as having donated money to the Vigilance Committee in 1854.5
Carew’s choice of subjects for his artwork, however, further suggest his support for the abolition movement and the Underground Railroad. For example, in 1860, he patented a medallion portrait of Theodore Parker, who served on the Executive Committee of the Vigilance Committee.6
Carew and his brother also created the Charles Turner Torrey Monument. A Unitarian minister, Torrey helped establish Boston’s first Vigilance Committee to aid freedom seekers in 1841. Arrested in Maryland for Underground Railroad activities, Torrey died in prison in 1846. An association of Boston abolitionists including John T. Hilton, Joshua B. Smith, and William C. Nell, among others, commissioned the Carew brothers to design a monument to memorialize Torrey. The monument still prominently stands in Mt. Auburn Cemetery.7
Little is known about the later years of Carew’s life. Carew died in 1894.8
If you are researcher or descendant of Thomas A. Carew and can provide any further evidence of his involvement in the Vigilance Committee, the Underground Railroad, or the abolition movement, please reach out to us at boaf@nps.gov
Footnotes
[1] Austin Bearse, Reminiscences of Fugitive Slave Law Days in Boston, (Boston: Warren Richardson, 1880), 3
[2] United States Census, 1850, https://harvardartmuseums.org/collections/person/35165 accessed 9 July 2023, Boston City Directory, 1849-1850, p.91, 1853-1854, p.56, 1854, p. 60, 1856, p.60, 1858, p. 64, and Cambridge City Directory 1860, p. 60
[3] Glenn B. Opitz, Dictionary of American Sculptors: 18th Century to the Present, (Poughkeepsie: Apollo, 1984), 61, Dictionary of American sculptors : "18th century to the present," illustrated with over 200 photographs : Opitz, Glenn B : Free Download, Borrow, and Streaming : Internet Archive, Accessed 7/25/2023
[4] "Members of the Committee of Vigilance," broadside printed by John Wilson, 1850, Massachusetts Historical Society
[5] Francis Jackson, Treasurers Accounts Book of the Boston Vigilance Committee, June 15, 1854, 31
[6] Opitz, 61
[7] William C. Nell, “Meeting in Aid of the Torrey Monument," William C. Nell: Selected Writings, 1832-1874, edited by Dorothy Porter Wesley and Constance Porter Uzelac, (Baltimore: Black Classic Press, 2002), 145, and Charles Turner Torrey Monument | Mount Auburn Cemetery, Accessed 7/25/2023
[8] Boston Daily Advertiser, “Died" Feb. 12, 1894
Boston African American National Historic Site
Source: U.S. Department of the Interior, National Park Service