There were a few such successful Negroes in other communities in the State.  Mr. William Goodrich, of York, acquired considerable interest in the branch of the Baltimore and Ohio Railroad extending to Lancaster.[21] Benjamin Richards, of Pittsburgh, amassed a large fortune running a butchering business, buying by contract droves of cattle to supply the various military posts of the United States.[22] Mr. Henry M. Collins, who started life as a boatman, left this position for speculation in real estate in Pittsburgh where he established himself as an asset of the community and accumulated considerable wealth.[23] Owen A. Barrett, of the same city, made his way by discovering the remedy known as B.A.  Fahnestock’s Celebrated Vermifuge, for which he was retained in the employ of the proprietor, who exploited the remedy.[24] Mr. John Julius made himself indispensable to Pittsburgh by running the Concert Hall Cafe where he served President William Henry Harrison in 1840.[25]

The field of greatest achievement, however, was not in the conservative East where the people had well established their going toward an enlightened and sympathetic aristocracy of talent and wealth.  It was in the West where men were in position to establish themselves anew and make of life what they would.  These crude communities, to be sure, often objected to the presence of the Negroes and sometimes drove them out.  But, on the other hand, not a few of those centers in the making were in the hands of the Quakers and other philanthropic persons who gave the Negroes a chance to grow up with the community, when they exhibited a capacity which justified philanthropic efforts in their behalf.

These favorable conditions obtained especially in the towns along the Ohio river, where so many fugitives and free persons of color stopped on their way from slavery to freedom.  In Steubenville a number of Negroes had by their industry and good deportment made themselves helpful to the community.  Stephen Mulber who had been in that town for thirty years was in 1835 the leader of a group of thrifty free persons of color.  He had a brick dwelling, in which he lived, and other property in the city.  He made his living as a master mechanic employing a force of workmen to meet the increasing demand for his labor.[26] In Gallipolis, there was another group of this class of Negroes, who had permanently attached themselves to the town by the acquisition of property.  They were then able not only to provide for their families but were maintaining also a school and a church.[27] In Portsmouth, Ohio, despite the “Black Friday” upheaval of 1831, the Negroes settled down to the solution of the problems of their new environment and later showed in the accumulation of property evidences of actual progress.  Among the successful Negroes in Columbus was David Jenkins who acquired considerable property as a painter, glazier and paper hanger.[28] One Mr. Hill, of Chillicothe, was for several years its leading tanner and currier.[29]