Qualla: Absalom Jones

Absalom Jones: Introduction

Mon, 01 Jun 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit Kreuz und quer, CC0. Absalom Jones bought his wife's freedom before his own. He was born enslaved in Sussex County, Delaware, in November 1746. By 1778 he had earned enough money to purchase Mary King's freedom for the cost of about $200 - a price he funded with a combination of his savings, donations from sympathetic Philadelphia Quakers, and borrowed money. He did it because colonial law said children took the status of their mother. If Mary remained enslaved, every child they had would be born into slavery; if she was free, their children would be free. Jones spent six more years saving the additional money to buy his own freedom. Manumission came on October 1, 1784. The order was deliberate: the wife first, the children freed by her, the husband afterward. He chose the surname Jones to mark his new American identity. He was 38 years old when he finally owned his own body.

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Image: Kreuz und quer | CC0

Absalom Jones: The Walk-Out at St. George's

Mon, 01 Jun 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit Ser Amantio di Nicolao, CC BY-SA 4.0. Jones moved to Philadelphia with his enslaver as a teenager. He attended Anthony Benezet's School - the Quaker abolitionist's school for Black children - where he learned to read and write. After manumission he became a lay minister at St. George's Methodist Episcopal Church, an ...

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Image: Ser Amantio di Nicolao | CC BY-SA 4.0

Absalom Jones: The First Black Priest in the Episcopal Church

Mon, 01 Jun 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit Raphaelle Peale, Public domain. In September 1802, Absalom Jones was ordained a priest in the Episcopal Church of the United States - the first African American to be ordained as a priest in any major American denomination. The ordination came after Jones had spent more than a decade leading St. Thomas as a dea...

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Image: Raphaelle Peale | Public domain

Absalom Jones: The Petition That Failed

Mon, 01 Jun 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit Kreuz und quer, CC0. On January 30, 1797, U.S. Representative John Swanwick of Pennsylvania presented a petition to the House of Representatives signed by Jones and three other Black Philadelphians. The petition asked Congress to address the Fugitive Slave Act of 1793 and the continued kidnapping of ...

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Image: Kreuz und quer | CC0

Absalom Jones: The Free African Society and the Yellow Fever Plague

Mon, 01 Jun 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit Nick-philly, CC BY-SA 4.0. Before founding St. Thomas, Jones and Richard Allen organized the Free African Society in April 1787 - a mutual aid society for newly freed Black Philadelphians, established before any major denomination, before either man's church existed. The Free African Society provided buria...

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Image: Nick-philly | CC BY-SA 4.0

Absalom Jones: Sussex County, Delaware

Mon, 01 Jun 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit Dwkaminski, CC BY-SA 4.0. Absalom Jones was born on a farm near present-day Milford, in central Delaware. Sussex County in 1746 was a slaveholding agricultural region, with most enslaved African Americans working the corn and grain operations that had replaced the original tobacco economy. The Delaware Ri...

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Image: Dwkaminski | CC BY-SA 4.0