BROOKLYN HEIGHTS, Feb., '54.

MY DEAR DOUGLASS:— There is nothing
new just now about the Heights. We Brook
lynites are as quiet as flies upon a ceiling in
winter time; Gothamites ditto; but as a
compensation for our supineness, your valu
able journal and the other Aliened, come reg
ularly to hand with a few exceptions. By
the way, let me tell you just here what seems
to me a good joke; capital, if correct in all
its parts.

We Gothamites are weekly served up with
new music set to old songs, which, if not
sublime and inspiring, certainly novel both
in style and in the process of performance.
Ethiop, Observer, CommunipawSmith, James McCune

James McCune Smith (1813–65), a prominent black physician, abolitionist, and writer, was born in New York City to an enslaved father and a self-emancipated mother. He attended the New York African Free School, but was denied admission to Columbia University, Geneva Medical College, and the New York Academy of Medicine. He turned to the University of Glasgow in Scotland, where he received a B.A. (1835), M.A. (1836), and M.D. (1837). Upon returning to New York, he opened a pharmacy and medical practice that catered to both blacks and whites. He became involved in the abolitionist movement, serving as an associate editor of the Colored American in 1839, contributed regularly to the Anglo-African Magazine, and wrote correspondence for the North Star and Frederick Douglass’ Paper under the pseudonym “Communipaw.” Smith also wrote the introduction to Douglass’s second autobiography, My Bondage and My Freedom (1855). In 1861, Smith helped finance the revival of the Weekly Anglo-African to oppose black colonization and emigration, and he was a prominent member of the New York City Young Men’s Association, the American and Foreign Anti-Slavery Society, and the New York African Society for Mutual Relief. He was the sole attending physician of the Society for the Promotion of Education Among Colored Children, a member and vestryman of St. Philip’s Episcopal Church, and a trustee of the New York Society for the Promotion of Education Among Colored Children. In 1863 Wilberforce College appointed Smith professor of anthropology, but illness kept him from assuming his post. Lib., 1 June 1838; FDP, 18 May 1855; Douglass Papers, ser. 2:7–19; Miller, Search for a Black Nationality, 243; Pease and Pease, They Who Would Be Free, 90–92, 103, 110; Quarles, Black Abolitionists, 115, 134; Rhoda G. Freeman, “The Free Negro in New York City in the Era before the Civil War” (Ph.D. diss., Columbia University, 1966), 40–42, 177, 186, 195, 200, 247, 276, 286, 325, 353, 393; DAB, 27:288–89. , and some
others, sang these same songs, with the ex
ception of the one entitled "Who is Specta
tor," some two years ago; and as it was then
thought, in every variety of time and tune,
with not only Gotham, but the country for
their audience; but this young trio, fresh
and joyous, like children sporting in all the
simplicity of innocence upon the bosom of
nature, elicits more than our smile—really
our admiration.

To be convinced of the novelty of the
performance, you have only to imagine the
vast distance between performers composing
this little band. The grand sounding board,
the Aliened American. Spectator No. 1,
like a Lilliputian Collossus, stands with one
foot upon the Erie Lake shore, and the other
extending eastward, and resting on what it
was said the tortoise did when he upheld the
world, and with wand in hand in true Julian
style, gracefully motions. Spectator Nos. 2,
3, 4, &c., &c., down in Gotham, forming a
beautiful counterpart, at a moment's warn
ing, tune up, and then oh:

"What fairly-like music steals over the plains."

But "music, heavenly maid, was young;" let
us therefore deal gently and explain our
selves by a more becoming figure.

Spectator Nos. 1, 2, 3, 4, &c., &c., caterers
all. Nos. 2, 3, 4, &c., &c., like good boys,
tuck up their sleeves, put on their little bib
aprons, assort the cabbage, turnips, potatoes,
and squash, (for it is a vegetenarian feast,)
make the fire, put the pot to boiling; and
Spectator No. 1, at the lake shore, (some
where in Ohio, near the town of C——, I
think,) decorates, adorns and dishes up the
repast to which we are thus treated. This
is all very well—nay, 'tis a nice, spicy repast,
so long as they stick to simple and well
known ingredients; but if in their innocence
they let drop in their cauldron, such bits as
"Ethiop pledges to write upon Rochester
Conventions," "Frederick Douglass' brazen
face and impudence," "Mr. Day's unassum
ing position, and non-abolition sentiments,"
"State Convention matters," "Communi
paw's toes," &c., &c.; they may spoil their
broth. I therefore beg these young inno
cents will be careful not to do this, lest we be
denied this weekly innocent little
repast.—Really Mr. Day should look to the matter.—By the way, where is Mr. Day? A lady
speaking of him the other day—and you
must know he is a great favorite among
them—said, that he having called so be
seechingly upon the ladies to correspond,
that now their contributions had completely
enveloped him; he seldom appearing thro'
the columns of the dear Aliened, much, of
course, to the regret of the ladies. Well,
'tis done by delicate lady-fingers; and yet
suspicion says, Fanny Homewood and our
own home Maria are dressed in something
more than full bloomer costume—aye, to the
gloves, hat and boots. If Maria, however,
comes over to the Heights, we shall see.

Let the fools, knaves and scoundrels read
Seward's speech on the Nebraska bill—digest
it, and then make what they can of it. Sen
sible and honest men have already done so.

The best thing out just at this moment,
here, is the collision between John Mitchel,
and BennettBennett, James Gordon

Founder, publisher, and editor of the New York Herald, James Gordon Bennett (1795–1872) helped foster American popular journalism. Born in Scotland and educated for the Roman Catholic priesthood, Bennett emigrated to Nova Scotia in 1819. Positions in Boston and New York led him to a career in journalism. From 1826 to 1829, he served as the associate editor and Washington correspondent of the New York Examiner, and in 1831 he became associate editor of James Watson Webb’s Morning Courier and New York Enquirer. In 1835, after several unsuccessful efforts to become a publisher and editor in his own right, Bennett established the Herald, a daily paper that sold for one cent a copy. Others had tried “penny-press” journalism, but Bennett’s Herald was the first major success in that business. He frequently ridiculed abolitionists, who retaliated in kind. Oliver Carlson, The Man Who Made the News (New York, 1942); Isaac C. Pray, Memoirs of James Gordon Bennett and His Times (New York, 1855), 331–45; Don C. Seitz, The James Gordon Bennetts, Father and Son: Proprietors of the New York “Herald” (Indianapolis, Ind., 1928), 110–18; DAB, 2:195–99. , of the Herald. The devil is
divided against himself. The Scot and the
Hibernian have grappled each other by the
throat. It will be a nice fight; but it has
commenced too soon, rather, for the zest of
enjoyment. Doubtless, Bennett brought poor
John into all his troubles. You know he is
an Irishman, and bulls and blunders are his
lawful inheritance. The wily Scot has taken
advantage of this for his own purposes.

Efforts are being made in Brooklyn by
some gentlemen of color to run a line of
stages. Some fears are entertained that it
will be the means of excluding wholly color
ed persons form the stages now being run by
white men.

Dr. T. Joiner White has delivered two in
teresting and instructive lectures to fashion
able and appreciative Brooklyn
audiences.—Brooklyn and Williamsburgh have been wed
ded, and they now are one, and is destined
soon to take first rank on the continent—the
jealousies and hindrances notwithstanding,
Rev. Dr. Cox, of [Rusherban?] , near Brooklyn,
and of compromise notoriety, is about to
leave Brooklyn. Henry Ward Beecher, as
you know, preaches here; and it is hard for
a man to kick against the pricks, though
robed in the sacred habiliments of the altar.

Yours truly,

ETHIOPWilson, William Joseph ("Ethiop")

William Joseph Wilson (1818–?), a free black man from New Jersey, operated a bootmaking shop in New York City as early as the 1830s. In the 1840s he became a secondary school teacher and later a principal of a black school in Brooklyn. He was an activist on behalf of black education, encouraging access and attendance, and even opened his own library. Wilson also campaigned to secure the franchise for New York African Americans. He served as a member of the Committee of Thirteen, organized by New York black leaders to stop enforcement of the Fugitive Slave Act. In the early 1850s Wilson’s letters appeared frequently in Frederick Douglass’ Paper, and Douglass referred to him as the newspaper’s “Brooklyn correspondent.” Wilson’s letters to the newspaper, published under the pseudonym “Ethiop,” were often part of an ongoing debate about the condition of blacks in New York and the United States. Wilson’s most frequent sparring partner in the war of letters was “Communipaw,” actually James McCune Smith, a prominent black physician in New York City. Carleton Mabee, Black Education in New York State: From Colonial to Modern Times (Syracuse, N.Y., 1979), 54, 63-67, 123, 129, 155, 158; Foner and Walker, Black State Conventions, 1:79-88; Quarles, Black Abolitionists, 87, 212, 229; Ripley, Black Abolitionist Papers, 4:144-45n. .