Cyrus Bustill Hero of the American Revolution
Compiled By Ludwick S. Hall P.G.M. (47)
The son of a Quaker lawyer Samuel Bustill and Partheniq, one of his slaves of African descent. Cyrus Bustill was born a slave in Burlington, New Jersey, on February 2, 1732. Cyrus’ father Samuel died when he (Cyrus) was 10 years old. As it was a violation of the tenets of the Quaker Religion to own slaves, after his father Samuel Bustill death in 1742, Samuel’s widow, Grace Bustill, sold Cyrus to Thomas Prior (also a Quaker) with the agreement that Prior would allow Cyrus to learn a trade to earn enough money as an apprentice baker to enable him to purchase his freedom. Although it is believed that Cyrus used his apprenticeship wages to purchase his freedom in 1774, it is also believed that to comply with the regulations of the Quaker Religion, Prior liberated Cyrus by manumission in 1769. After being freed, Cyrus married Elizabeth Morey (1746 – 1827), a woman of mixed Native American and European descent. Their children include the suffragettes Grace Douglass, and her daughter Sara Mapps Douglass, David Bowser Bustill, and Mary Bustill.. His descendants include intellectuals, abolitionists, and social activists, including singer/actor/activist Paul Robeson (a great, great grandson), and painter Robert Douglass Jr. a grandson, who was an artist who made flags for the United States Colored Troops during the Civil War. Cyrus descendants also include both, M.W. Gregory R. Smith, Jr. the current Grand Master of the M.W. Prince Hall Grand Lodge of the State of New York, and his father, M.W. P.G.M. Gregory R. Smith Sr., who served the MWPH,Gl of the State of New York as its Grand Master from 2009 to 2012. Further, once freed, Cyrus Bustill became a landowner and a businessman, originally owning a bakery in Burlington, N.J.. This was during the period, when most States, New York Included, refused to provide education for both free and enslaved persons of African descent. So, while running his bakery, he paid a young white boy to teach him to read and write. Between December 1777 and June 1778, during the American Revolutionary War, he supplied rations, including bread to George Washington’s troops while they were stationed at Valley Forge , Pennsylvania. After the Revolutionary War, he closed his Bakery in Burlington, and moved his family to Philadelphia where he opened another Bakery.
Prince Hall Sentinel May 2024 Page | 19
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