Star of the West, Tent No. Six
West Chester, Chester County, Pennsylvania
Marker Inscription
An African American women's community service organization, chartered 1865. A part of the United Order of Tents, J. R. Giddings and Jollifee Union, founded in 1847 and named for abolitionist Congressman Giddings and his law partner.
Erected by Pennsylvania Historical and Museum Commission
The Story
Star of the West, Tent No. Six was a local chapter of the United Order of Tents, an African American women's mutual-aid and community service organization. Chartered in 1865 as the Civil War closed, it belonged to the J. R. Giddings and Jollifee Union, a benevolent society founded in 1847 and named for the abolitionist Congressman Joshua Giddings and his law partner. Groups like this provided care for the sick, burials for the dead, and support networks for Black communities in an era when few other institutions would.
Why it matters
The United Order of Tents is one of the oldest surviving African American women's organizations in the country, rooted in the abolitionist movement and the self-help traditions that sustained Black communities through slavery's end and beyond.
Own a business near here? Add it to the map.
Related people
- · Joshua Giddings
Themes & tags
Nearby & related markers
Fanny M. Jackson Coppin
Thornbury Township, PA · est. 1986
Born into slavery, Fanny Jackson Coppin bought her way toward freedom and learning, graduating from Oberlin College in 1865. For more than three decades she led the Institute for Colored Youth in Philadelphia, pioneering industrial arts and formal teacher training for Black students. The school she guided endured and grew, becoming today's Cheyney University.
Eusebius Barnard (1802-1865)
Pocopson Township, PA · est. 2011
Eusebius Barnard was a Chester County Quaker who took the radical path of the Progressive Friends, embracing temperance, women's equality, and the abolition of slavery. His farm became a station on the Underground Railroad, where he and his family sheltered freedom seekers and guided them toward the next safe house — dangerous work in the tense decades before the Civil War. He helped found the Longwood Progressive Meeting, a hub of reform in southeastern Pennsylvania.
Isaac & Dinah Mendenhall (1806-82 / 1807-89)
Kennett Township, PA · est. 2018
Isaac and Dinah Mendenhall were Quaker abolitionists whose Chester County home, Oakdale, sheltered freedom seekers moving north on the Underground Railroad. When their Old Kennett Meeting split over slavery, they helped found the reform-minded Longwood Progressive Meeting in 1853. Dinah joined a delegation that pressed President Lincoln in 1862 to issue the Emancipation Proclamation, and the couple championed women's right to vote as well.
Graceanna Lewis (1821-1912)
East Pikeland Township, PA · est. 2014
Graceanna Lewis was among the best-educated female naturalists of nineteenth-century America, devoting her life to botany and zoology at a time when science was largely closed to women. She displayed her ambitious Chart of the Animal Kingdom at the 1876 Centennial Exposition and won awards for her scientific drawings at later world's fairs. A Quaker abolitionist, she also aided freedom seekers on the Underground Railroad at her family's nearby farm.