Isaac S. Flint (November 3, 1819 – April 6, 1893) was a station master, lecturer, farmer, and teacher. He helped Samuel D. Burris, who was a conductor on the Underground Railroad, avoid being sold into slavery after Burris was caught helping enslaved people escape.
Early life
Isaac Flint was born on November 3, 1819, to Abigail Harriet née Delesdernier (1798–1865) and Isaac Flint (1792–1865) in Schoharie County, New York, near Lake Otsego. He received a good education.
Isaac Flint was the eldest of ten children: Isaac, Mary, Frances, Christopher, John, Luther, Edward, Olivia, Harriet, and Almira. His brother, John Thompson Flint, was an attorney, Confederate veteran, legislator in Texas, and a banker.
Marriage and children
He married Edith Pusey on April 11, 1846, in West Grove, Pennsylvania. She was born on December 21, 1812, in London Grove, Pennsylvania. Her friends were the daughters of Thomas Garrett, Benjamin Webb, and Ziba Ferris. These friends met to discuss and read books together. In 1838, she attended a lecture at Pennsylvania Hall in Philadelphia. The hall was attacked by a mob during this time. She was an abolitionist and a teacher who used new teaching methods from New England.
The couple moved to Chester County, Pennsylvania, where Flint worked as a farmer. In 1850, Flint continued farming in Harford, Maryland, with his wife and their 3-year-old daughter, Mary. They were joined by two carpenters, one of whom was Luther Flint, and a laborer. Their children included Mary E. (wife of Isaac W. Kinderdine), Horace, Pennock Pusey, and Rachel (who married a Mr. Ortt). Their son Horace was not listed with the family in the 1860 census. At some point, Flint was a member of the Friends Meetinghouse in Wilmington, Delaware. In 1866, Edith and Isaac, along with their daughters Rachel and Mary, were founding members of the First Unitarian Society of Wilmington.
Career
He moved to Philadelphia around 1840 to find work as a teacher, about the time he reached the age of 21. When he could not find a teaching job in Philadelphia, he walked along a country road and spoke with a farmer about the need for a teacher in the area. After discussing the matter, the farmer offered him a job that he held for several years. He taught subjects such as arithmetic, grammar, geography, algebra, geology, physiology, natural philosophy, and astronomy. Flint taught Frisby T. Cooper, who later became the school’s administrator and eventually a minister. The school was established by the African School Society in Delaware.
He and his brother-in-law, Pennock Pusey, purchased a large piece of land in Cecil County, Maryland. The soil was poor, so they used guano to improve it. In 1854, Flint moved to Wilmington, where he taught Black children in a small Quaker schoolhouse located between Seventh and Eighth Streets on Orange Street. In 1860, he worked as a commission merchant in Wilmington. Five years later, he operated a grocery store at 728 Market Street.
During the American Civil War, he served in an emergency regiment that protected the Philadelphia, Wilmington, and Baltimore Railroad. After the war, he taught at a school in Pennsylvania for orphaned children whose parents were soldiers in the United States Colored Troops. The school was located near Trenton, New Jersey, along the Delaware River.
Anti-Slavery activities
Flint was an abolitionist and a helper on the Underground Railroad who worked with Thomas Garrett. He gave strong speeches against slavery. On the streets, he was hit with stones or attacked because of his opposition to slavery in Wilmington and in Ohio, where he was sent by an anti-slavery group. In 1845, he organized several Anti-Slavery Meetings in New York.
His home in Woodlawn was a stop on the Underground Railroad. He carved out a space under his kitchen floor to hide runaway enslaved people. This hiding place was used more than once when law officers followed runaways to his house.
Flint bought the freedom of Samuel D. Burris, a conductor on the Underground Railroad and a free African American, when Burris was sentenced to be sold into slavery for helping freedom seekers in Kent County. At the time, Flint lived in Wilmington. He traveled to Dover, where Burris was to be sold at an auction. Flint was not known to Burris or the slave traders. He placed the highest bid at the auction and received a bill of sale for Burris. Flint did not know he was not a slave buyer. He whispered to Burris that he had been bought with money from abolitionists. Burris was then reunited with his family in Philadelphia.
— William Still, The Underground Rail Road
Later years
He moved to Germantown, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania around 1892 to be near his children. He died on April 6, 1893, in Germantown. His memorial service was led by Rev. William H. Johnson of the First Unitarian Church of Wilmington. He was buried at the Wilmington and Brandywine Cemetery in Wilmington, Delaware. His wife, Edith, died on September 7, 1896, at her daughter's home in Germantown. She was also buried at the Wilmington and Brandywine Cemetery.