Thomas M'Clintock

Who was Thomas M'Clintock?

Anti-slavery activist and devoted Hicksite Quaker Thomas M’Clintock was born in Brandywine Hundred, Delaware in 1792. The names of Thomas’s parents were Thomas and Mary Allen M’Clintock. Thomas's father was a Presbyterian and his mother a Quaker although their marriage resulted in her being removed from the Quaker rolls for marrying out of meeting.

Thomas became a druggist or pharmacist which, at the time would have been achieved through an apprenticeship. Thomas became a Quaker by commitment in 1811. At the age of twenty-two Thomas began working as a druggist, opening his own store in Philadelphia, and six years later, in 1820, he married his wife Mary Ann Wilson M’Clintock in Burlington, New Jersey. They began their life together in Philadelphia, where they lived for the first seventeen years of their marriage, and where Thomas M’Clintock began his involvement in abolitionism. During their years in Philadelphia Thomas and Mary Ann had six children, five of whom lived to adulthood.

In 1827, Thomas M’Clintock co-founded the Free Produce Society of Pennsylvania along with James Mott, Richard Allen and others and became its first secretary. This predominantly Quaker movement, which also included free African Americans, was an effort to promote the exchange of goods not involving any slave labor. In doing such, the members hoped to create a demand for “free” produce. The Free Produce Society of Pennsylvania felt their agenda was a peaceful and reasonable way to combat slavery. Thomas applied those principles throughout his life.