For Frederick Douglass' Paper.

NORTH ELBA, N. Y., July 12, '54.

MR. EDITOR:—I lately received information from a friend of mine in New York City, of a contemplated celebration to come off in North Elba, in honor of 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 benevolence in the matter of lands donated to our colored brethren. It would be far more wise in us, as well as more pleasant to our honorable friend, if, instead of making a vain show, spending our time and means, we should so husband those means as to be able to settle on those lands, or otherwise make them available in securing a homestead for ourselves and for our children after us.

In connection with this, I wish to say there are some lands in this country (in the vicinity of the Saranac) densely covered with beautiful pine lumber. As the demand for this lumber increases, and as the supply is becoming scarce, these lands are rapidly increasing in value. A few years since, lumber contractors could get standard logs delivered on the banks of the Saranac for thirty-four cents a piece; now the same command nine shillings. Within a year or so past, large tracts of those lands (some, most probably, belonging to those gentlemen who would celebrate the grant) have been sold for taxes; and if not redeemed within two years from the day of sale, those who bid them in will realize from what they term "Nigger Lands," handsome fortunes. It appears to me, Mr. Editor, that were the grantees apprised of the fact that these lands are very valuable, and still increasing in value, they certainly would redeem them.— I take this method to inform them of these facts. It is daily becoming more and more apparent that we must ultimately seek some other modes of obtaining a livelihood than those in which we have been too long engaged; and now is the time, whilst making this change, to urge a fair proportion of them who possess the means and have the heart to emigrate to these lands, and make apparent their gratitude to the donor, in deeds and services, rather than in vain show and empty declamation.

Please give this an insertion for the benefit of those owning those lands, or speak in your own words in regard to them.

Yours obediently,

LYMAN E. EPPES.