WILLIAM E. WHITING¹William E. Whiting (?—1882) was the treasurer and an executive committee member of the American and Foreign Anti-Slavery Society. A committed political abolitionist, Whiting joined the American Abolition Society in 1855, was treasurer of its auxiliary the New York City Abolition Society, and was a manager of the religious antislavery American Missionary Association. AM, July 1882; FDP, 27 April 1855; McKivigan, War against Proslavery Religion, 220; Ripley, Black Abolitionist Papers, 4:277. TO FREDERICK DOUGLASS

Boston, [Mass.] 23 Nov[ember] 1855.

FRIEND DOUGLASS:—
We have at present in our midst a representative of your suffering people,²Whiting alludes to Charlotta Gordon Pyles (c. 1806-80), who was the child of a slave father and a Seminole mother. She grew up in Kentucky, where she married a free black man and started a family. When Pyles and her children were inherited by Frances Gordon, the latter removed the slave family to Iowa and freed them. Pyles then toured the North to solicit funds to purchase the freedom of her two sons-in-law, and one of her sons who had been kidnapped from Gordon and sold to a Mississippi slaveholder. Pyles raised $4,300 and returned to Kentucky, where she purchased her sons-in-law’s freedom, but she was unable to ever win her son’s freedom. Margaret Ann Reid, “Charlotta Gordon Pyles,” in Notable Black American Women, editor Jesse Carney Smith (Detroit, 1992), 534-536. who has won the hearts of large numbers of the citizens of this busy, bus
tling metropolis.

She was only about two years since “a chattel” down South, with her
husband and a large number of children, and grand-children.

One son, and two sons-in-law, are still in the prison house of slavery.
Except these, all her other children, her grand-children, and herself, and
husband, were emancipated and taken by their mistress to Iowa.

With a hopeful heart, she seeks now to raise the needful sum where
with to purchase the freedom of that one "who is bone of her bone,"³Possibly adapted from Gen. 2:23. and
those two others so dear to her daughters’ hearts and to their children.

Little, by little, she has gathered up by a perseverance and persuasion
that none but those in her circumstances can so eloquently use, a sum al
most sufficient for her purpose. She has only to collect a little more than
Five Hundred Dollars more, and the work will be done!

I refrain from detailing the sore trials she has endured, lest the knowl
edge of them should unnecessarily anger or distress your readers.—Suf
fice it to say, she has suffered enough, is a meek servant of the great Mas
ter, brings testimonials well authenticated, and which would interest even
the most indifferent or stoical one. Next to her own touching story, and
honest face, a sweetly melting appeal, written by a lady in Providence,
R. I.,⁴A poem erroneously entitled “Charlotte Piles” appeared in the 14 December 1855 issue of Frederick Douglass’ Paper. is helping to swell her collections, and I take liberty here to subjoin
it,*⁵Frederick Douglass’ Paper carried the following statement immediately following Whiting’s letter: “* This Appeal will appear in our next.” FDP, 7 December 1855. that your readers may realize again the luxury of weeping over suf
fering humanity, if they cannot render aid thereto.

WHITING.

PLSr: FDP, 7 December 1855.