The 1810 census lists "Margt" (Margaret) living in the rear apartment of #22 (now 130 Elfreth's Alley) and working as a washer. She lived with two other free Black people, and apart from one other, they were the only Black residents of the Alley at that time.
Later censuses would list age ranges for non-white residents, but we don't even know roughly how old Margaret and her household were--that information would let us make some guesses about the relationships between members of the household. For instance, it is possible that Margaret was living with her children or that the other members of her household were employees.
To learn more about Margaret we can, however, look at the system of domestic work in which she worked, and we did just that in Episode 4 of 'The Alley Cast'.
Measured drawing of #130 and #132 circa 1931 by C. S. Grossman for the Old Philadelphia Survey, now part of the Historic American Buildings Survey. Note that though the drawing shows a passageway between the homes, it notes that “Opening now bricked up.”
Perhaps we can learn a little more about Margaret’s life by learning about the house she lived in. The house was built as a pair with the house to the west (now #132) between 1741 and 1749 by Adam Clampfer, a shop keeper, who owned the property until 1795. The 1790 United States Census shows Clampfer living in the home, but also lists laborer Jacob Snyder at the same address. After Clampfer died, his widow sold the home, and the deed of sale includes “front and back messuages.” From this I am guessing that sometime during the Clampfers’ ownership of the lot they had constructed a back building to rent out, probably at least by 1790, when the tenant was Snyder. Though I haven’t found fire insurance records from this period, later insurance maps do show what I believe to be the front messuage, a house one room deep and two and a half stories tall, possibly with a kitchen attached to the back. The whole lot was 14 feet wide and 51 feet deep, so a back building could have been of similar size but was probably much smaller. The back building is not clearly decipherable on later insurance maps, though the space where it might have been is occupied by a wood frame building in the late 19th century.
During Margaret’s time in #130, the front building was occupied by Barney Schumo, a turner, and his family. Looking at the age ranges of his household (below) it seems likely that the household consisted of Barney and his wife Phoebe, both between 26-44, four children under 10, and either a daughter over the age of 10 or perhaps a young woman acting as household help.
Portion of the 1810 United States Census, showing the residents of #22 (now #130) Elfreth’s Alley, with column headings showing the age and race brackets.
Certainly the 7 people would fill up the front messuage, and often likely occupy much of the small outdoor space on the lot. Margaret and her household may have done their washing at the home as well, creating quite a full—and intimate—combination of households. Shortly after purchasing the property in 1808, Schumo had also purchased the rear 4 feet of the neighboring lot (#132) to give his lot egress via narrow passageways to Elfreth’s Alley. It’s probable that this was Margaret’s main route into and out of her home as the original passageway between #130 and #132 was closed up at some point, possibly during Schumo’s ownership of the property. If you look closely at the map below, you can see how these passageways were depicted (between #129 and #131, for instance) and that one was not included between #130 and #132.
1858-1860 Hexamer and Locher Atlas via PhilaGeoHistory.org
Because we do not have Margaret’s last name, it is essentially impossible to find traces of her beyond the 1810 census. The subsequent census (1820) lists only Barney’s widow Phoebe (and her four teenagers, plus three more girls under the age of 10) at the property. It seems unlikely that the back building would have been left vacant unless it was uninhabitable—Phoebe likely could have used the income. Perhaps she was still renting it out and the tenant simply wasn’t listed on the census. It’s even possible that Margaret was still renting the space—we will probably never know.
Edit: Clarified the rough date of construction of house #130 and that it was built as a pair. Thanks to Shawn Evans for pointing me in the right direction.
-TM