Daniel Blue
*Daniel Blue was born on this date in 1796. He was a Black pioneer, former slave, and church administrator.
Mason Doherty owned Blue from Monroe County, Kentucky. Blue traveled by wagon train to California with John Doherty, brother of his former owner. He arrived in Sacramento on September 2, 1849. According to the California Census of 1852, "Uncle Daniel," as he was known, married Lucinda Luny from Alabama and had a son, William, in 1851. Blue's home and business were adjacent to California's first governor, Peter Burnett.
At California's first State Constitutional Convention, Burnett was a strong proponent of exclusionary laws that excluded Blacks from living in California. Blue, with Black pioneers Barney and George Fletcher, founded St. Andrews A.M.E. church in 1850 in the Blue's home. Blue opened his home as a house of worship for white parishioners and a school. Besides the loss of property from statewide disasters, the disease took his son, William, in 1860 and his daughter, Laura, on December 22, 1864.
In 1873, their daughters, Annie and Hazel, attended Sacramento Grammar School. Daniel Jr. was supposed to go to the white night school, but the children were forced to leave. In 1874, Ward v. Flood supported "Separate but Equal Education," but a codicil made the law impractical. In 1875, Annie Blue graduated from Sacramento Grammar School. Daniel Blues died on October 15, 1884. An article stated that "For a Sacramentan to have said that he did not know Uncle Daniel Blue was to argue his ignorance of the City and his people... and (he) went to his best known of all his fellow citizens with fewer to speak ill of him than falls to the lot of most men."
