In researching David Mapps (c.1763-1838), the name Sarah Mapps Douglass (1806-1882), in Philadelphia, was noted. Both were African-American abolitionist Quakers in the nineteenth century, in the Philadelphia Yearly Meeting area, and prominent and well-known within the Society of Friends. This along with her middle name of Mapps, suggested a connection. It seems likely that Sarah got her middle name from the Mapps family, so family connections were sought via genealogy.

David Mapps would have been about 43 years old when Sarah Mapps Douglass was born in 1806. He was an active member in Burlington County, New Jersey, but he and his wife were the only black members of the Philadelphia Yearly Meeting (PYM). The dinner party anecdote about seating them for dinner at a social PYM occasion in Philadelphia gives evidence that the Douglass and Mapps families must have been acquainted. That acquaintance seems likely to have been the source of giving Sarah the middle name Mapps. [Reference: RHB151 and Cadbury, Part 2 ¹]

Sarah Mapps Douglass' parents were a baker, Robert Douglass, and Grace Bustill (c.1782-1842), and Wikipedia here, a milliner and teacher. Her maternal grandfather was Cyrus Bustill (1732-1806), a Quaker and bakery owner. Cyrus was the son of Samuel Bustill a Burlington, New Jersey lawyer, and his slave mistress, name unknown. He was sold to a Quaker, Thomas Prior, a baker who taught Cyrus the trade and freed him after seven years. ² In Burlington, Cyrus Bustill baked bread for Washington's Continental Troops. See here.

Cyrus married Elizabeth Morey, the daughter of Richard Morey and Satterwaite (or Satterthwaite) a Delaware Indian who had been a maid in the kitchen of Nicholas Waln. They moved to Philadelphia soon after the end of the Revolutionary War and he opened a bakery on Arch Street. ³

The connection that caused Sarah Douglass to get the middle name Mapps has now been found. It turned out that genealogy alone would not have solved it. Luckily, a transcription of a letter of David Bustill, 6 mo. 11, 1863. ⁴ David Bustill (1788-1866) is a son of Cyrus Bustill and Elizabeth Morey. He married Mary W. Hicks, date unknown. The relevant part of the letter's transcript:

"... somewhere about the 11 or 12 [year] of his age David [Bustill] was taken by his Foster Father
David Mapps down to Little Egg Harbor to a place called Mulicas River between the Upper and
Lower Banks where he remained till towards 17 years of Age when his foster Father took him
into Lower Evesham bound him to Job and Sarah Haines to learn the Trades of Cord
Vaneer and Tanner and one of the most Respectable Families in the Neighborhood both
of them being Elders of the Quaker Meeting which stood only about a Mile from their own
dwelling to which D. Bustill went with the rest of the family every twice a week ...

... where he continued to reside until he was 21 year and six months old he came to the City
[Philadelphia] went to same house he left when he was a Child and Remained in this City ever
since going to the same Meeting with his Wife and Children after he became a Married Man ...

... I notice thee has said after Mentioning several of us colored Families on not being Members
of the Society - thee seems not to know none of us ever made application - without which we
could not become Members of any Institution but David Mapps and Wife [Grace] requested to
become Members but thee is right with regard to thy last assertion D. and Wife were [not]
received until the Quakers of that Meeting thought they would have no children - D. and wife
are dead ..."

David Bustill is Grace Bustill's sister. She married Robert Douglass (1780-1849) and is commonly known in the literature as Grace Douglass. David was 11 or 12 in 1799-1800, and 17 in 1805. Sarah Mapps Douglass was born in 1806 to Robert and Grace Douglass. It is clear that her middle name Mapps indeed came from David Mapps and his selfless care given raising her brother at Lower Bank as his Foster Father, seeing that he learned a trade beginning at 17 until he was 21 (about 1809) when he returned to the city of Philadelphia and his childhood home.

The last part of the quote above concerns blacks attending Quaker Meetings, but most often did not join because they were often denied. David and Grace Mapps were exceptions, they were admitted as members of the Little Egg Harbor Meeting in 1799. ⁵ Sarah Mapps Douglass and her mother Grace (Bustill) Mapps were practicing Quakers, but never officially joined. ⁶

A genealogy tree for these Mapps and Douglass families was developed while investigating their connections. A point of some confusion arose because two Bustill sisters both married Douglass husbands [Ruth Bustill (1776-?) m. William Douglass (1780-1864); Grace Bustill (1782-1842) m. Robert Douglass (1780-1849)] but they have no known blood relation. Then throw in that Sarah Mapps Douglass married in 1855 (at about 49) one William Douglass, the son of the William Douglass who married Ruth Bustill, as his second wife [the first was Elizabeth Grice (1814-1853)]. The author is reasonably sure the tree constructed accurately represents some of the sources used, but there are discrepancies in the literature, and mistakes may also have crept in, so a small amount of doubt remains. Also, the complexity with repeating given names and surnames can present challenges. And references to statesman Frederick Douglass (1817-1895) in some of these references about black abolitionists can muddy the waters but he has no known relations to the Mapps/Douglass families under discussion.

Interested readers are enouraged to read the more complete history surrounding these people in the sources provided in this article. A small collection of letters written by Sarah Mapps Douglas may be found in We Are Your Sisters: Black Women in the Nineteenth Century, edited by Dorothy Sterling. ⁷