The Montiers

""Don Scott, Sr. continues his mission of documenting the lives of people whose role in American history has been forgotten, disregarded or marginalized. As a result, he has illuminated vital parts of the American story. By focusing his latest work on the lives of Hiram Charles and Elizabeth Brown Montier, their ancestors and descendants, Scott has taken two people painted in historic portraits and placed them in the context of the times, shining a light not only on their lives, but also on American history.""--Kristin Holmes, deputy editor of the Chestnut Hill Local and retired staff reporter with The Philadelphia Inquirer ""The Montiers reads like a historical novel, connecting contemporary African American iconic figures with its mixed-race ancestors, whose 'Guineatown' Georgian style colonial home of 1771 ... [still stands] in today's Cheltenham, PA. Drawing from major historians, Benjamin Quarles and the late Charles Blockson, noted historian and author, Donald Scott, Sr., presents a cautionary narrative of the lives and loves of black self-sufficiency in America's primal evolution. Beyond its opening with a genealogical genesis of 'begets' the story is revealed in its investigation of 'Protecting the Interest of the Property Class, ' among Quakers, the Lenni Lenape [natives] of the Delaware Valley, the titled immigrant class, the invading British Army, and free and enslaved Africans. The more you delve into the Montiers family line[s], the more enriched and aware you understand about the backstory of General George Washington and his starving troops on the Delaware, and the faces of [the family's] humanity who saved him from a frozen grave. Fast forward to the era of the humanitarian-patriot, Paul Robeson, a [family] descendant ..., makes it clear that the struggle to be free is made of flesh and bone, is passed from one generation to the next, and is found in recordings of the basso profundo of Robeson singing 'Ballad for Americans'!""--Ty Collins, public history interpreter ""Don Scott, Sr. gained recognition for his epic history on Camp William Penn and the United States Colored Troops during the Civil War. The Montiers puts this historian's deep knowledge of the black experience in Pennsylvania fighting for power and civil rights on a sweeping stage spanning the 18th century until today. It all starts with the incredible courage and valiant tenacity of enslaved house servant Cremona Morrey, who navigated 'landmines' to make a legacy for her interracial children, then tells the history of the settlement of Guineatown on her land, and continues with her descendants' activism through the lives of William Pickens, Sr., a co-founder of the NAACP, and the great singer and activist Paul Robeson, who devoted his life to the international cause of humanity for freedom and unity. Thank you, Don Scott, Sr., for your commitment to researching and honoring the lives of Cremona Morrey and so many other black Pennsylvanians who fought for their freedom and liberation and continue to inspire and change history through their example.""--Laurie Zierer, Executive Director of PA Humanities ""Don Scott, Sr. has written an epic generational American story that is sure to become a classic as a work of history and art. I was spellbound as I read the story of the Montier family from the 17th century to the 21st. Scott's writing is sharp, authoritative, and fluid .... The Montiers demonstrates the incredible human story of an African American family, intertwined with the various tributaries that enter from other cultures. The Montiers is a magisterial work with social and cultural implications ... [commencing] when Richard Morrey, the son of Philadelphia's first mayor, the Quaker Humphrey Morrey, had five children by Cremona, a former enslaved woman who had worked for the Morrey family. The family would give us the Bustills, the Pickenses, the Robesons, the Bowsers, and even more, a picture of our evolving American nation. Scott's handling of this multifaceted narrative shows his fascinating talent at weaving a very believable account of our story... It is the long-awaited epic story of one of the earliest Philadelphia families told by a master storyteller.""--Molefi Kete Asante, PhD, preeminent Afrocentricity scholar and Africology professor, author of The African American People ""In his new work, Don Scott Sr. reveals how family histories constitute national narratives. In The Montiers, Scott Sr. charts the legacy of an unlikely [common-law] marriage between the son of Philadelphia's first mayor, Richard Morrey, and an enslaved woman, Cremona, to whom he gave 200 acres of land, thus becoming an independent woman of some means, rare for the 18th century. Their union and their legacy speak to the successes, contradictions, and unresolved challenges in creating a democratic United States. The author's relentless and expansive research into Morrey and Cremona's descendants identified patriots in our country's wars, the polymath artist Paul Robeson, and a co-founder of the NAACP. Scott deftly circumscribes a family history with rich social, political, and economic contexts and abundantly demonstrates an American truth: that the boundaries we are told separate us are indeed permeable. People have a knack for inventing their own pathways.""--Robert D. Hicks, PhD, author and former director, Mütter Museum and Historical Medical Library, College of Physicians of Philadelphia ""Magnificent research and a stirring story. Don Scott Sr.'s Montiers is a gold mine for local residents and history buffs who crave further information about how this history-laden locale developed from colonial times to the present. More importantly, for anyone who continues to be perplexed that we still have problems with racial relations in this country 150 years after emancipation, this work will be an important contribution to our understanding of the enduring complexities that slavery and its abolition wreaked on our nation. Either way, this is a compelling story in the hands of a great storyteller.""--Thomas Wieckowski, PhD, author and a leading officer-historian of the Cheltenham Township Historical Commission and the Old York Road Historical Society