John B. Russwurm

John B. Russwurm
Born	John Brown Russwurm 1799 Port Antonio, Jamaica
Died	Cape Palmas, Liberia
Education	Hebron Academy and Bowdoin College
Occupation	Publisher, journalist
Notable credit(s)	Freedom's Journal Liberia Herald
Spouse(s)	Sarah McGill

John Brown Russwurm (1799–?) was an American abolitionist born in Jamaica to an English father and enslaved mother. As a child he traveled to the United States with his father and received a formal education, becoming the first African American to graduate from Bowdoin College. As a young man, Russwurm moved from Portland, Maine, to New York City, where he was a founder with Samuel Cornish of the abolitionist newspaper, Freedom's Journal, the first paper owned and operated by African Americans.

Russwurm became supportive of the American Colonization Society's efforts to develop a colony for African Americans in Africa, and he moved in 1829 to what became Liberia. In 1836 Russwurm was selected as governor of Maryland in Africa, a small colony set up nearby by the Maryland State Colonization Society. He served there until his death. The colony was annexed to Liberia in 1857.

Russwurm was born in Port Antonio, Jamaica in 1799, the mixed-race son of an English merchant father and an unknown black slave mother. The family stayed in Jamaica until 1807, when Russwurm was sent to Quebec.

In 1812, father and son moved to Portland, Maine, where the elder Russwurm married widow Susan Blanchard in 1813. Blanchard (now Russwurm) insisted her husband acknowledge "John Brown", as the boy was then known, and grant him his surname. He did so. "John Brown Russwurm" lived with his father, stepmother, and her children from a previous marriage, accepted as part of the family. The elder Russwurm died in 1815, but his son stayed close to his stepmother, even after she remarried (becoming Susan Hawes). The John B. Russwurm House in Portland was owned by the family. It is listed on the National Register of Historic Places.

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