Who Was Moses Terry?
Posted on: Monday, 20 February 2006, 09:00 CST
By Reading Eagle, Pa.
Feb. 20--From our news staff Moses J. Terry was the eldest son of Jenny Terry, a freed slave who arrived in Reading Oct. 14, 1852. Jenny Terry came here with her nine mulatto children after being freed by the owner of a plantation in Virginia. Moses was 14 when he arrived in Reading. He later became an integral part of the Underground Railroad, the clandestine network of sympathetic people and hiding places used to ferry slaves from the South. Because of Moses' commitment to the railroad, the plantation owner's decision to free the Terrys had the unexpected effect of paving the way for perhaps hundreds of slaves to be freed with Moses' help. But Moses was not alone in his efforts. Several Reading residents helped him and law enforcement largely turned a blind eye to the railroad. Moses also said some police even blatantly committed blunders to allow slaves to escape the clutches of slave hunters. Moses and some of his brothers eventually opened a barber shop at 551 Penn St. where Moses once shaved Horace Greeley, a newspaper editor who was a candidate for president on the Liberal Republican ticket in 1872. The brothers also ran a bar and hotel on Seventh Street and Moses also taught in public schools for several years. In 1881, local postmaster George Grant named Moses as the "city's first nonwhite mailman." He stayed on that job for six years. He died May 16, 1913.
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Source: Reading Eagle
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