Author Talk: Dr. Donald Scott, Sr. | “The Montiers: From Enslavement to Paul Robeson and Beyond”

The important story of an interracial family that can be traced through multiple generations and into the 21st century. 

The African American Montier family traces its roots to the British-born Caucasian son of Philadelphia’s first mayor, Richard Morrey, who had a relationship with Cremona, a young woman who had been enslaved by the Morrey family, resulting in five mixed-race children. Before his death, Richard would pass to Cremona 200 acres of land, giving her an almost unique position in 18th-century Philadelphia. On this land a small Black town known as Guineatown would grow up, with an associated cemetery. 

Cremona’s descendants and luminaries associated with the family include Cyrus Bustill, a black activist and baker who made bread for the Continental Army; David Bustill Bowser, a 19th-century activist who designed and created the colors for eleven African American regiments at Camp William Penn; the great Paul Robeson, renowned scholar, lawyer, diplomat, athlete, singer, and actor; and William Pickens, Sr., a co-founder of the NAACP. The Montiers traces this unique family to the present day.

Dr. Donald Scott, Sr. 

Don “Ogbewii” Scott Sr. is a historian, author, and journalist known for his in-depth research and writing on Black history, particularly focusing on Pennsylvania's African Americans. 

He has also served as a tenured professor at the Community College of Philadelphia and adjunct professor at Temple University, Cheyney University, Peirce College and the University of the Sciences, as well as contributed to major Black history book projects published by Houghton Mifflin, the Heinz Museum and the Oxford University Press’ African American National Biography, edited by Harvard professors Henry Louis Gates Jr. and Evelyn Higginbotham. 

Scott graduated from Cheyney University in 1977 and the Columbia University Graduate School of Journalism in 1990. 

He has written two books about Cheltenham’s legendary African American Civil War Facility Camp William Penn and numerous articles for various publications or publishers, including the MediaNews Group, The Philadelphia Inquirer, England’s National Archives magazine (Ancestors), the Quarterly Journal of Military History and America's Civil War magazine. 

Scott has delivered lectures statewide and appeared on television, including on PBS-WHYY, WPVI-ABC, PCN (the Pennsylvania Cable Network), and live Black-history segments on the Black-owned radio station and online platform, WURD of Philadelphia. 

Scott’s work also explores his South Carolina Gullah-Geechee and Virginia ancestors and their migrations to Pennsylvania, as well as other notable Black families in the Commonwealth. Those families include the Montiers and Bustills, their ancestors and descendants, by way of his 2025 Brookline-Casemate publishing book, The Montiers: From Enslavement to Paul Robeson and Beyond.