Posted: February 16, 2026 10:14 am
This Heritage Johnstown at Home post is based on research done by members of our organization in the early 2000s as part of an extensive local African-American history project. It was researched primarily by Andrew Baraniak, an AmeriCorps volunteer, with additions from research by Donna Stromsdorfer (also of AmeriCorps). The late Dan Ingram, curator of the Johnstown Area Heritage Association (as Heritage Johnstown was known at that time) directed the project under Richard Burkert, who was then president and CEO. Other AmeriCorps participants included Michael Burke. Shelley Johansson has edited the original material from Andrew and Donna, and added context. We are proud to publish this fascinating narrative in honor of Black History Month 2026.
The context: the colonization of Liberia
Liberia was established as a colony in 1822 by a coalition of organizations that included the American Colonization Society (ACS), a private United States organization formed in 1816 to relocate free African-Americans and formerly enslaved people to West Africa. ACS members were largely slaveholders who wished to remove free Blacks from the United States, fearing that free Blacks would help their enslaved workers escape. Paradoxically, the ACS was also supported by some abolitionists, Quakers, and others against slavery who believed Blacks would have a better chance to be truly free in Africa, as well as white people who thought successful integration was not possible. This uneasy coalition united under the goal of what they called “repatriation.” With notable exceptions, most free Blacks did not want to leave the United States – most had been in the country for generations, and simply wanted their lives to improve at home.
There was much debate about the dubious moral implications of colonization. In addition, practical problems included that the indigenous population did not want to be ruled by colonizers, high mortality (of the 4,571 emigrants who arrived from 1820-1842, only 1,819 survived until 1843), and the enormous cost of transporting the settlers and supporting them in the new land. Nevertheless, with the help of the ACS, Liberia became an independent republic in 1847, and the capital city was named Monrovia because US President James Monroe had arranged public funding for the ACS.
The Johnstown connection
Heritage Johnstown researchers first became aware of a local connection to the Liberian colonization movement in a collection of letters written by Cyrus L. Pershing held in our archives. Pershing was a prominent figure in Johnstown during the late 19th century, serving several terms in the Pennsylvania House of Representatives, and ending his career as a judge in Pottsville. The correspondence is largely between Pershing and James M. Swank, who at the time was working on his book Cambria County Pioneers – thus, the letters are full of detailed historical information. One letter, dated April 23, 1900, was of particular interest to the African-American history researchers in that Pershing mentions that Johnstown had been a station on the Underground Railroad. He adds that Samuel Williams, “a superior man of his race,” had spirited two runaway enslaved people through Johnstown to Indiana County.
But what followed was even more intriguing. Pershing mentioned that Williams ” … removed with his family to Liberia.” And in fact, further research revealed that Williams is the author of Four Years in Liberia, an 1857 book that gives an account of his life in Liberia, and his views on the country in general.
As interesting as this find was, there was still more — another account written by a man named William Nesbit entitled (somewhat confusingly) Four Months in Liberia. Nesbit, it turns out, was from Hollidaysburg and was a passenger on the very same ship that took Williams to Africa.
Two men, different conclusions
The men were from the same area and part of the same voyage to Liberia, but they drew opposite conclusions on colonization and their experiences in the new country – differences that soon blossomed into a public debate.
Nesbit’s account was published in 1855, two years before Williams’ book, and paints a scathing picture of the country. He sees no prospect of success in colonizing Africa in order to provide formerly enslaved Blacks a free home. He begins, “On stepping ashore, I found that we had been completely gulled and done for.” This contempt for the African nation continues throughout the book, which is broken down into chapters discussing the problems that Nesbit saw with the colony – the terrain, the lack of natural resources and food, disease, and the country’s government.
But Nesbit’s main complaint was with the Colonization Society and its supporters. Nesbit’s goal with Four Months in Liberia was to expose what he saw as the Colonization Society’s misrepresentation of the colony to Blacks in the United States – essentially, he thought the Society was depicting the colony in a far more positive light than the facts warranted, in an dishonest effort to get new colonizers to emigrate. Nesbit calls the agents of the Colonization Society “some of the most unscrupulous men.”
Samuel Williams responded to the negative accusations that Nesbit and others made on the conditions in Liberia with his own publication in 1857, Four Years in Liberia. In fact, his account is so explicit in its rebuke of Nesbit’s conclusions that its title page (seen here) reads, “With remarks on the missions, manners, and customs of the natives of Western Africa, together with an answer to Nesbit’s book.”
Throughout the narrative, Williams defends the idea of colonization in Liberia – maintaining that despite its shortcomings, success could still be achieved. He responds with optimistic solutions to the problems cited by anti-colonizationists as reasons the nation would fail. For example, Nesbit maintained that Liberia was a death trap, while Williams counters that one could die in Liberia, just as you could die in any country.
How did two men with such similar backgrounds — both were barbers by trade, from the same area in Pennsylvania, emigrated on the same ship, and even were in business together in the new country — arrive at such diametrically opposed conclusions? What can we learn from their stories? Researchers read both books and researched the authors’ backgrounds to try and answer these questions.
William Nesbit
William Nesbit was born on Oct. 11, 1822 in Carlile, and moved to Hollidaysburg in 1841 where he worked as a barber. He appears in the 1850 census for Hollidaysburg, Blair County, living with his wife, Sarah, and five children. Another source places him at Chimney Rock, where supposedly an African-American community developed near the same town. A man named William Nesbit is also cited as a conductor on the Underground Railroad at the same location, and is listed in Wilbur Siebert’s book The Underground Railroad – but the William Nesbit listed by Siebert is noted as being white, which adds to the mystery. This could be attributed to simple misinformation, but in fact the 1800 census for Huntingdon County lists a white William Nesbit living in the area of what would eventually become Blair County.
Regardless, it is almost certain that William Nesbit was involved with the Underground Railroad, as later in life he was a member of the Pennsylvania State Equal Rights League – many members had been conductors. According to his obituary, “he was an active worker in the schemes of the Underground Railway”.
William Nesbit clearly had strong negative feelings toward Liberia and the Colonization Society but chose to emigrate anyway. Why? Well, in the beginning of his book, he writes that he has felt prejudice as an African-American, and even though the United States is his home, his presence in the nation is unwanted. But then he goes on to describe the Colonization Society and its determination to send free Blacks back to Africa as “consummate villainy.”
Perhaps a clue to his motivation to emigrate lies in a passage where Nesbit explains he “wanted to test [the colony’s] realities.” The next sentence notes that “after a brief residence there, having ocular demonstration of the iniquitous swindle, I left that, in disgust, thinking myself amongst the happiest of men to escape that infernal snare, and believing it to be my duty to spread these facts before the people, that they may read, reflect and understand.”
Samuel Williams
More details are known about Samuel Williams’ early life, in part because he provides a very detailed biography in his book. From Four Years in Liberia, we learn that Williams was born in York County in 1813. He moved to Johnstown around 1835 with his family after spending his early years roaming from town to town in Pennsylvania. Like Nesbit, Williams was a barber, and set up a shop here. His business was successful, and Williams indicates he generally felt accepted in Johnstown.
While Williams may not be as famous as some other African-Americans who were part of the debate over the legitimacy of colonization, such as Martin Delany and Frederick Douglass, he played a key role in debate between those who viewed colonization as the only route to freedom, and those who saw it as further discrimination.
In contrast to Nesbit, Samuel Williams very clearly explains in his book why he left the United States for the new nation. Williams does not mention experiencing racial prejudice until 1838, when an amendment to the Pennsylvania constitution took away the Black right to vote. This caused Williams to question his “condition as a man,” noting that “ever since I had arrived at the age of twenty-one years I voted at the elections.”
Williams also names incidents of oppression when he traveled outside of the Johnstown community, such as being forced to ride in a Jim Crow car, and having to eat dinner in the kitchen rather than the dining room. Williams never mentions anything about residents of Johnstown as treating him as a lower-class citizen. In fact he makes it a point in his book to defend his fellow townsmen, by stating that he was always shown respect and being allowed to worship in any church without having to sit in a “negro pew.”
But it was a national rather than local turn of events that led Williams to emigrate. The US Congress passed the Fugitive Slave Bill in the Compromise of 1850, which mandated the return of escaped enslaved people to their owners – even from free states. For Williams, that was the last straw. He considered emigration to Canada or Liberia, and ultimately settled on the latter. He wrote to a Rev. W. McLain on June 9, 1852, to request passage to Liberia in November 1852 for himself and his 15-year-old son, explaining that as a newly-appointed agent of the American Colonization Society, he wished to travel to evaluate the land’s suitability for colonization. Another letter to McLain, dated Sept. 21, 1852, verifies Williams’s intention to tour the country and secures passage on a ship in November.
This first trip lasted about two and a half months, and Williams left Liberia on March 1, 1853 “very well satisfied with what I had seen in Africa.” Upon his return to the United States, Williams began to organize a party to emigrate to Liberia permanently. Along with the help of Charles Deputie, a resident of Hollidaysburg who had accompanied him on that first trip to Liberia, Williams formed a party of residents of Pennsylvania to make the journey to Liberia to settle.
The Colonization Herald of 1853 reads, “S. Williams and Charles Deputie are both practical men – men of intelligence and devoted piety…so far as these things go, they and their families could live in this country as eligibly as any colored people – but they have long desired a home for themselves and children, where they could enjoy the highest developments of social freedom and civil liberty….they are fully resolved to return with their families to the African Republic as soon as possible, taking all their colored brethren with them.”
Passage was booked on the barque Isla de Cuba, and on November 10, 1853, the ship departed from New York en route to Monrovia. Colonization records list the names of the 53 emigrants, including residents of Pennsylvania, New Jersey, Connecticut, and New York. The majority of the passengers – about 30 — were from Pennsylvania, with towns listed as Johnstown, Hollidaysburg, Saltsburg, Blairsville, Greensburg, Uniontown, and Huntingdon (the passenger manifest is pictured here). This voyage included Williams and his family, Deputie and his family — and William Nesbit of Hollidaysburg. “After a passage of 38 days, having experienced probably every variety of weather incident to a voyage at sea,” they arrived on December 18.
A joint stock company – and the beginning of conflict
Prior to the voyage, a joint stock company was formed by some of the men who emigrated on the Isla de Cuba, including Williams and Nesbit. Once in Liberia, the company proceeded to set up a sawmill. Articles on the Liberian Enterprise Company’s early days appear in records of the African Repository, the newsletter of the Colonization Society. One article describes the success of the mill, and that it was proof of the possibility of economic success in Liberia. But the sawmill eventually failed, which seems to be a turning point in the relations of the men involved in the company.
The debate begins
With the new nation not meeting his expectations, Nesbit became embittered toward the colony and decided to return to Pennsylvania. He spent four months trying to obtain a passport and proper documentation for a return voyage to the United States under the guise of retrieving his family – he had no intention of returning to Liberia but felt that he must use deceit in order to escape Monrovia.
Once back in the States, Nesbit published his book attacking the colony and the Colonization Society. To back up his accounts of the deplorable conditions in Liberia, Nesbit used several letters written by members of the same party that made the journey to Liberia on the Isla de Cuba. In a letter written to a friend in Hollidaysburg, Mrs. Mary Ann Deputie, wife of Charles, gives a negative account of the nation, and she indicates her desire to return home. These examples show that there was a schism developing not only with associates of the company, but within the families that made the journey as well.
Nesbit became almost a spokesperson for the anti-colonizationist cause. In addition to publishing Four Months in Liberia, Nesbit participated in public debates on the topic of colonization, defending his views on Liberia. This negative view of the Colonization Society helped put Nesbit in the company of Martin Delany, who wrote the introduction to Nesbit’s book, and other anti-colonizationists. Papers such as the Christian Recorder, Frederick Douglass’ Paper, and the Provincial Freemen ran articles about Nesbit’s account of life in Liberia, and the deception of the Colonization Society.
One of Nesbit’s public debates was in November 1855, with a Mr. Johnson from Monrovia in which the truthfulness of Four Months in Liberia was discussed. As described in an article originally published in the Hollidaysburg Standard, Nesbit defends his stance on Liberia, and succeeds in convincing the majority of the audience in his favor.
Meanwhile, Williams became increasingly vocal in favor of colonization. The African Repository printed letters by Williams extolling the success of the Liberian Enterprise Company, and the overall happiness of the settlers. These letters also show the beginning of the conflict between Nesbit and Williams over their differing views, a conflict that clearly became heated and personal. In a letter written by Williams in December 1854, he personally names Nesbit and attacks him for his views on Liberia. Williams wrote, “I am very sorry that our people of Pennsylvania suffered themselves to be humbugged by W. N ‘s yam about this country,” and “I design proving that N has wronged my country by misrepresenting it, and show that he has not only told untruths about Liberia, but lied to the Company before leaving it.”
Nesbit countered with an article for Frederick Douglass’ Paper in which he mentions that he was attacked by Williams, and “charged with having lied to the company with which I was engaged while there.” This seems to indicate that the conflict was older than the oldest written records we’ve been able to find, as Nesbit’s Four Months in Liberia was published in 1855, and Williams wrote his article attacking Nesbit in 1854.
Published in 1857, Samuel Williams’ Four Years in Liberia seems to be the final word in the debate between the former business partners, and it’s the last information we have about Williams’ life — after the publication of his book, he disappears from the historical record. The African Repository published an article on Williams in December 1857, in which some of his book is reprinted, and it’s known that Williams devoted his life to missionary work after his wife’s death around 1856. He apparently served out the rest of his life shouldering “the Cross of Christ” in Liberia.
Nesbit and the early civil rights movement
While Williams disappears from the written record after 1857, Nesbit became a public figure in the early civil rights movement. He moved to Altoona and became president of the Pennsylvania State Equal Rights League sometime after the end of the Civil War. He is one of several men who signed a letter written to Congress in 1866 on behalf of the State Equal Rights League, asking that “There be incorporated in the Constitution an article which will prevent any legislation in the United States and Territories against any portion of the civilized inhabitants on account of race or color.”
At the “First Grand Picnic of the Equal Rights League” on August 1, 1866, Nesbit spoke about his experiences in Liberia and the need to “know no home but the United States, and earnest desire for self elevation and capacities for usefulness.” The Equal Rights League held a meeting in Pittsburgh from August 8 – 10, 1866 with William Nesbit presiding as President. Immediately following the meeting in Pittsburgh, Nesbit attended the Annual Meeting of the Pennsylvania State Equal Rights League in Williamsport.
William Nesbit was appointed a notary public by Pennsylvania Governor John Geary in April 1872 and served for three years. In 1880 he was a delegate to the Republican State convention held in Harrisburg, and his advocacy was instrumental in obtaining the right for Black people to enter public transportation, such as railway cars.
One interesting note is that Nesbit’s oldest son, William W. Nesbit, served in the 54th Massachusetts Regiment, which was one of the first African-American units formed in the North during the Civil War, and was probably recruited by Martin Delany. The Regiment served with great distinction and inspired the formation of many more African-American units. William W. Nesbit saw action at the 54th at the Battle of Olustee, Florida, on February 20, 1864, where he was wounded in the face. He was probably taken to Hilton Head, Beaufort, SC or Jacksonville, FL for medical treatment. Little is known about the specifics of his recuperation or further service, but he did survive – he reappears in the historical record in the 1880 census living with his sister, Elizabeth, and her family in Kittanning.
Conclusions and suggestions for further research
There is still much more to learn about the Johnstown connection to the Liberian colonization movement. For example, we know that Williams corresponded with the citizens of Johnstown, as the Johnstown Tribune published some of the letters he wrote from Liberia that talked about his time there. Further research should be done to see if any further letters, correspondence, or written records referencing either man may still exist in the city or other archives (although such records may no longer exist, due in part to floods in the city). Finding more records in Liberia might be difficult due to the civil wars that have ravaged that country.
It is also clear a comparative study should be conducted to see how the stories of Samuel Williams and William Nesbit fit into the larger history of Liberia’s founding and early days.
