John Day

John Day, a free African American cabinetmaker and brother of Thomas Day, cabinetmaker and builder, was born in Hicksford (present-day Emporia) on 18 Feb. 1797. Licensed in 1821 as a Baptist minister, he sailed in December 1830 to Liberia, where in 1853 he became pastor of Providence Church in Monrovia, the capital. In 1854 he established Day's Hope High School. He was a delegate to Liberia's constitutional convention, a signer of its constitution and its Declaration of Independence in 1847, and the second chief justice of its supreme court. Day died in Monrovia on 15 Feb. 1859.