Lost History of Cumberland's Benjamin F. Stewart

Learn about the lost history of Queen City's own Benjamin F. Stewart in this groundbreaking new presentation on the barber and labor organizer who would develop close connections to Frederick Douglass and Andrew Carnegie during a high profile public career that spanned more than a half-century from Western Maryland to Washington City to Western and Central Pennsylvania to Ohio.

Born into a Free land-owning Black family of Cumberland before the outbreak of the Civil War, Stewart would follow in his father's footsteps and become a barber in the Queen City. After attending Howard University in the nation's capital and a Lutheran Seminary Stewart became deeply involved in local politics and labor organizing in Allegany County before moving to Pittsburgh where he developed a personal relationship with business tycoon and philanthropist Andrew Carnegie. Stewart returned to Allegany County in the 1890s as a political operative for the political machine backing Lloyd Lowndes' successful bid for Maryland's Governorship. (Lowndes, an associate of Frederick Douglass, remains the only governor in the state's history from Allegany County.)

Settling in Ohio in the early 1900s, Stewart along with his wife, sister-in-law to Booker T. Washington, became a prominent local businessman, securing a donation from Andrew Carnegie to construct a library in Norwalk, Ohio. The library honors the memory and legacy of Cumberland's own Benjamin F. Stewart today with a hanging framed photo in the lobby and an exhibit case. In Stewart's own hometown his history and legacy has been lost until now!

Learn about Stewart and his life in Cumberland and Allegany County from librarian, author and historian John H. Muller, author of Frederick Douglass in Washington, D.C.: The Lion of Anacostia (2012), Mark Twain in Washington, D.C.: The Adventures of a Capital Correspondent (2013) and the forthcoming Frederick Douglass in Western Maryland (2026). The presentation on Benjamin F. Stewart is adapted from a forthcoming chapter in Frederick Douglass in Western Maryland (2026) that details the connections and relationship between Stewart and Frederick Douglass.

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