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Amos Noah Freeman holds a special place in African-American history. He was the first black man to be recognized as a leader in community by the state of Maine. The black community has always had leaders but he was the first black man hired full-time as a minister at the Abyssinian.

Blacks living in Portland wrote a public letter explaining the discrimination they were facing in the white churches. Freeman was hired and funds were raised to build a church on Munjoy Hill and a black congregation formed. In the ten years he was minister there blacks in the north began to form their own societies, congregations and schools.

Amos Freeman was orphaned and raised within the church from a very early age. He was sent to the African Free School in Manhattan and then to Phoenix High school in New York City. The high school had been established by his mentor Thedore Sedgwick Wright. He attended university at Oneida Institute and taught in the colored public schools. A year before he was ordained a minister for the New York Presbytery he married Christiana Taylor Williams. He and his wife moved to Portland Maine where he worked as the first black pastor in the Presbyterian Church.

As a new minister he faced a lot of hurdles. He began to focus on the church community things like employment, racism, and of course abolishing slavery. He invited abolitionists and fugitive slaves to speak to his congregation and to share their stories.

In the mid 1850's he moved to Brooklyn and became the long-term pastor for another Presbyterian Church. He became more involved in the Underground Railroad and he helped Anna Maria Weems a fugitive slave escape. He disguised her as a boy and drove her to freedom in Ontario, Canada. This trip was fateful because he met the radical abolitionist John Brown. A few years would pass before the men would meet again. This time John Brown stayed Rev. Freeman's home in Brooklyn before his legendary raid in Harpers Ferry Virginia.

Amos Noah Freeman died in 1893 his legacy of reform and leadership has echoed through time. His grand-daughter is the famous portrait-painter and illustrator Laura Wheeler Waring.

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