Reuben Ruby
Photo: Osher Map Library
Reuben Ruby, a Black man, was born in Gray in 1798. By 1820 he was living in Portland, working as a waiter. He was the first "hack" driver in Maine, and the first to own a hack (taxi) stand. One of his most notable riders was abolitionist William Lloyd Garrison, who in 1832 received a tour of Portland from Ruby before joining Portland's Black leaders for dinner at Ruby's home. At the location of Mr. Ruby's hack stand, at the corner of Temple Street and Federal Street, there is now a stone monument that is part of the Portland Freedom Trail, honoring his business.
At just 29 years old, Mr. Ruby became a sales agent for Freedom's Journal, the first Black-owned newspaper in the country. In October 1834, he was the only Black representative for the City of Portland at the formation of the Maine Anti-Slavery Society in Augusta. Ruby was one of two Black people sent to represent Maine at the Fifth Annual Convention for the Improvement of the Free People of Color, held in Philadelphia in 1835. The convention elected him as its president.
Additionally, Mr. Ruby served as a vice president of the American Moral Reform Society, a national organization led by James Forten, a Black abolitionist from Philadelphia. In 1840, he was elected president of the Manhattan Anti-Slavery Society in New York City.
In 1848 Ruby joined the gold rush, heading to California for four months, collecting $3,000 worth of gold. Reuben Ruby's legacy continued through his son, George Thompson Ruby, who became the first Black graduate of Portland High School, and Horatio Ruby, part of the Naval expedition that led to the construction of the Panama Canal. Another son, William Wilberforce Ruby, was a captain in the Portland Fire Company and is credited with being the first to discover the Great Fire of 1866.
