Charles Avery

1784 - 1858

BiographyCharles Avery (1784-1858) was a great humanitarian and abolitionist who was well known for his selflessness and his charitable nature. He was born on 10 December 1784 in Westchester County, New York. Growing up, he moved to New York to the industrial part of New York in search of work and went to night school while working as a pharmaceutical apprentice. He later moved to Pittsburgh in 1812 and continued to engage in the drug business with a couple of partners. Avery later went into manufacturing and became partners with John and Thomas Arbuckle in the Eagle Cotton Mill. His fortune steadily rose and so did his religious faith. He got involved with the Methodist Episcopal Church but later left and helped to establish the Methodist Protestant Church. He founded Avery College on his estate in 1849 and it became the first college to help black people gain a college education equal to the ones being given to white people at the time. The Avery College gave birth to several influential and notable people such as Thomas Morris Chester (only Black newspaper civil war correspondent), Bishop Benjamin Tucker Tanner, and Richard Wright, an African Methodist Episcopal Bishop. During the Underground Railroad, he used a secret room beneath his mansion as one of the stops that helped the enslaved make their escape to Canada. Avery also left a large sum of money to be used in setting up institutions for black people including religious instruction and educational institutions such as the Avery Institute in Charleston, S.C. and numerous Avery African Methodist Episcopal churches. The portrait was originally presented to the Western Pennsylvania Hospital possibly in 1871 and was painted by a Mr. Dalbey.

Voas, Sharon. “In 1800s, He Believed Race Was Only a Color.” Pittsburgh Post-Gazette, Newspapers.com. p.13. 14 February 1995.

Belfour, Stanton. “Charles Avery: Early Pittsburgh Philanthropist.” Western Pennsylvania Historical Magazine. vol. 43, 1960.