Jermain Wesley Loguen to Frederick Douglass, December 4, 1854
Madison Co[., N.Y.] 4 Dec[ember] 1854.
MY DEAR FRIEND DOUGLASS:—
I am now snowed in within six miles of our good and ,
GERRIT SMITH’S house,1In Peterboro, New York. and I can feel the influence so sensibly of this MODEL man among white men, that I have thought that I could not improve the time better than to write a few lines to my model man among colored men; and that man is FREDERICK DOUGLASS. I know of nothing that will be more agreeable to me, than to report to you a little of my whereabouts. I am in Clarkville,2Loguen’s letter was published in the 15 December 1854 edition of . The paper identified his location as Clarkville, New York, but a transcription error might have occurred. Loguen more likely wrote Douglass from either Clarksville or Clockville, New York, since both of these communities and Peterboro are located in Madison County. J. Thomas and T. Baldwin, eds., , 2 vols. (Philadelphia, 1856), 1:461, 467. very comfortably situated, (after a hard day’s work on the Sabbath,) in the kind family of N. S. Cady,3A cousin of Elizabeth Cady Stanton, Nathan Stanton Cady (1803-63) was a successful merchant. Stanton also held local office in the towns of Clockville, Lenox, and Rome, New York. 1850 U.S. Census, New York, Madison County, 348; William Reddy and W. S. Smyth, (Cazenovia, N.Y., 1877), 669; Orrin Peter Allen, (Palmer, Mass., 1910), 173, 327. Esq., of Clarkville. I had meetings at Canastota4The farming and manufacturing community of Canastota is located in Madison County, New York, approximately twenty miles east of Syracuse. Seltzer, , 322; Cohen, , 522.
and this place; they were well attended for such a day, for it snowed hard all day. The meeting in this place in the evening, was a sterling one, and I talked to the people as well as I knew how. It seemed to have a good effect upon them, and I think good
was done. I had a good time myself with Brother Stickney’s5The son of Marcus Stickney, a merchant in Lockport, New York, Washington Stickney inherited that business, but also ministered to an antislavery congregation in the Niagara County community. Stickney was an officer of the Lockport Anti-Slavery Society and attended conventions of the Liberty party. FDP, 25 September 1851, 15 December 1854. people. I was to go North to-day to attend other meetings; but the snow—O the snow, it compells me to disappoint, and will for some days. There are some things that we cannot overrule, you know, in this world. I am trying, in connec-
tion with talking on slavery, to do something for our brethren that are so
nobly struggling from bondage to freedom; and a noble struggle it 1s, to
try to be free. We are passing them every week, more or less.
I congratulate you on your late at the West,6 Douglass went on several speaking tours of the western United States and Canada in 1854. Loguen probably alludes to Douglass’s seven-week trip through Illinois, Wisconsin, and Ohio. , 29 September, 20, 27 October, 3, 10, 17, 24 November 1854; , ser. 1, 1:xxxvii, 538-59. and your
safe return to your own State again, where hundreds of us rejoice to know
that you are one among us, for we consider it an honor to live in the State
where your influence is felt, as it is in the State of New York. Would to
God we had a FREDERICK DOUGLASS in every State of this wicked and
hellish Union of political and church devils. O that every man among us
would truly be himself, and not ape after those that would use us meanly,
for their own convenience. (O, let us be men and not apes!) We cannot all
be Douglasses; but we could do a mighty work in this land for outraged
humanity. I rejoice at the stand that some of our friends have taken in the
State of Pa., in inviting FREDERICK DOUGLASS to their State,7This invitation from Franklin Turner of 13 October 1854 is published above. Douglass conducted that visit to Pennsylvania in late January 1855 as part of an extensive East Coast speaking tour. , 9 February 1855; , ser. 1, 3:xxi. where much
has been done by some to destroy his influence.—We are happy to see
such honorable names among the many—as Dr. J. J. Gould Bias, Prof.
C. L. Reason, and Wm. Whipper and others. If the LorD will enable you
to raise such a flame for liberty, in other parts of the State, as you did in
Sugar Grove, Pa., last summer,8Douglass visited Sugar Grove, Warren County, Pennsylvania, on 18 June 1854 to participate in a two-day abolitionist convention there. Douglass recounted that he had “never attended an out door meeting which was so orderly and impressive. . . . The meeting was strictly a religious Anti-Slavery meeting, and left a most favorable impression for the cause.” Frederick Douglass to William J. Watkins, 19 June 1854, in , 23 June 1854.
I shall rejoice greatly; for that was a time
that will never be forgotten by many of the friends in Sugar Grove, Pa. I
have seen a great many men that called themselves the ministers of the
most high God; (and many of them, no doubt, were;) but I never, in all
my remembrance, saw the man that looked more heavenly to me than did
FREDERICK DOUGLASS, the beautiful Sabbath day that he stood in that
Grove to address the hundreds that had come from afar to listen to his
unbounded eloquence. But enough from me, for the half cannot be told
by our pen.
Truly your friend,
J. W. L.
PLIr: , 15 December 1854.