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 SMITHSmith, Gerrit

Gerrit Smith (1797– 1874), a New York businessman and land speculator, became best known for his philanthropic work for such reform causes as temperance and abolition. Between 1828 and 1835, he donated large sums of money to the American Colonization Society, but abandoned that movement in 1835 when his sympathies shifted to the immediate abolitionists. In the 1840s, he gave approximately 140,000 acres of land in upstate New York to three thousand black settlers, thus qualifying them to vote. Smith was a founder and frequent candidate of the Liberty party, running for governor of New York on that ticket in 1840 and winning a seat in Congress in 1852. When the Free Soil merger with moderate antislavery Democrats and Whigs lured away many Liberty party supporters, Smith helped bankroll that organization until 1860. Smith befriended Douglass when the latter moved to Rochester, and Smith frequently helped finance Frederick Douglass’ Paper. Like Douglass, Smith supported John Brown, but psychological stress caused by the failure at Harpers Ferry brought on the first of a series of bipolar episodes that greatly reduced his subsequent reform activities. Ralph Volney Harlow, Gerrit Smith: Philanthropist and Reformer (1939; New York, 1972); Gerald Sorin, The New York Abolitionists: A Case Study of Political Radicalism (Westport, Conn., 1971), 269– 87; Lewis Perry, Radical Abolitionism: Anarchy and the Government of God in Antislavery Thought (Ithaca, N.Y., 1973), 170– 80; John R. McKivigan and Madeleine Leveille, “The ‘Black Dream’ of Gerrit Smith, New York Abolitionist,” Syracuse University Library Associates Courier, 20:61– 76 (Fall 1985); NCAB , 2:322– 23; DAB, 17:270– 71. ’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 BiasBias, James Joshua Gould

James Joshua Gould Bias (1807–60) was a physician and preacher living in Philadelphia. Born a slave in Maryland, he learned some medical knowledge while working with a physician there. When Bias obtained his freedom, he moved to Philadelphia, attending the Eclectic Medical School and graduating in 1852. He devoted much of his time before the Civil War tending to the medical and dental needs to fugitive slaves in Southeast Pennsylvania. Bias also was the pastor at the Bethel Church in Philadelphia. He played a leading role in the Colored Conventions movement, holding a number of positions. While Bias endorsed emigration, he rejected the policies of the American Colonization Society, rejecting its White leadership. “Our Philadelphia Letter,”(New York, N.Y.) Weekly Anglo-African, 7 July 1860; George F. Bragg, Jr., Men of Maryland (Baltimore: Church Advocate Press, 1925), 54–55; Michael Dickinson, “Dr. J. J. Gould Bias,” Colored Conventions Project, Coloredconventions.org. , Prof.
C. L. ReasonRemond, Charles Lenox

Charles Lenox Remond (1810-73), the first black lecturer hired by any antislavery society, was born in Salem, Massachusetts, to the daughter of a black hero of the American Revolution and a former slave from Curaçao. In his youth, he learned about the horrors of slavery from his father and experienced the segregation and discrimination practiced by Northern whites. In the late 1820s and early 1830s, Remond read David Walker’s Appeal and became acquainted with William Lloyd Garrison, which led him to dedicate his life to abolitionism. Remond became active in reform movements at an early age. A member of the Colored Association of Massachusetts when it merged with the New England Anti-Slavery Society in 1833, he became an officer in the latter organization. He became an agent for the Liberator and joined the Massachusetts Anti-Slavery Society shortly thereafter. In 1838 he began lecturing for the American Anti-Slavery Society. Both his color and his ability made him a very popular speaker in both the United States and Great Britain, where he attended the World’s Anti-Slavery Convention as a delegate in 1840 in London. Remond was the sole black lecturer for antislavery societies until Frederick Douglass began speaking in 1842. For a time, Remond and Douglass worked the lecture circuit together. Douglass admired Remond, the more experienced speaker, and named a son for him. Remond traveled and lectured in the British Isles for some sixteen months. Upon his return, Remond was employed as a lecture agent by the Massachusetts Anti-Slavery Society. Through the 1840s, however, Remond remained a steadfast Garrisonian while Douglass began to favor political action to end slavery, and their friendship suffered. Their close association was troubled as a rift between Douglass and Garrison threatened, and in 1852 Remond announced his intention to cancel his subscription to Frederick Douglass' Paper in protest against Douglass's adoption of non-Garrisonian views of the U.S. Constitution. Their goals, however, remained the same, and like Douglass, Remond recruited black soldiers for the Massachusetts Fifty-fourth Infantry Regiment during the Civil War. After the war, just before his death, Remond urged abolitionists to continue their fight by combatting the racial prejudice that persisted in both the North and South after the end of slavery. Illness curtailed his reform activities after the war. Les Wallace, "Charles Lenox Remond: The Lost Prince of Abolitionism," NHB, 40:696-701 (May-June 1977); William E. Ward, "Charles Lenox Remond: Black Abolitionist, 1838-1873" (Ph.D. diss., Clark University, 1977); FDP, 20 May 1852; New York Daily Times, 26 December 1873; NNE, 8 January 1874; Pease and Pease, They Who Would Be Free, 46; NCAB, 2:303; DAB, 15:499-500. , and Wm. WhipperWhipper, William

William Whipper (1804-76) first became known for his "free labor and temperance" grocery in Philadelphia. During the 1830s Whipper attended the annual National Negro Conventions regularly, and in 1835 he helped found the American Moral Reform Society and served as the editor of its journal, the National Reformer. That same year, Whipper moved to Pennsylvania's interior, where he became involved in the lumber business and in the Underground Railroad. Initially Whipper rejected the idea of racially based reform movements, but late in life he came to accept African American organizations as necessary for the attainment of racial equality. Because he desired the "moral elevation" of African Americans within American society, he often agreed with Douglass's approach to political and social reform. During the 1850s Whipper supported the emigrationist movement, but the outbreak of the Civil War prevented him from moving himself and his family to Canada. Instead, he returned to Philadelphia after the war and worked as a cashier for the Freedman's Bank, which failed in 1873. Richard P. McCormick, "William Whipper: Moral Reformer," Pennsvlvania History, 43:23-48 (January 1976); Jack Salzman, David L. Smith, and Cornel West, eds., Encyclopedia of African-American Culture and History, 5 vols. (New York, 1996), 5:2817-18; DANB, 643. 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.