The Sage of Anacostia: An Interview Given in Washington, D.C., in September 1892
THE SAGE OF ANACOSTIA: AN INTERVIEW GIVEN IN
WASHINGTON, D.C., IN SEPTEMBER 1892
Cleveland , 10 September 1892. Another text in Miscellany File, reel 31, frames
268-69, FD Papers, DLC.
In late summer 1892, T. Thomas Fortune, the editor of the New York ,
visited Douglass’s home in Washington, D.C., to interview him about his life
in retirement from public office. Although the two men had occasionally
quarreled in past years over the issue of black loyalty to the Republican party,
Fortune had supported Douglass during the controversy in the black commu-
nity following his marriage to Helen Pitts Douglass in 1884. Fortune and
Douglass frequently corresponded and the journalist had been a welcome
visitor to Cedar Hill previous to the occasion of this interview. Most likely,
Fortune first published the interview in his New York but no issues from
this period have survived. Douglass to T. Thomas Fortune, 26 May 1883,
Douglass Collection, CtY; T. Thomas Fortune to Douglass, 20 April 1886, 18
September 1889, General Correspondence File, reel 4, frame 326, reel 5,
frames 555-57, FD Papers, DLC; Thombrough, , 50, 62-
63, 85, 88.
Just beyond the Eastern branch, on the outskirts of Washington, embow-
ered in a magnificent cluster of oaks which have withstood the fierce
tempests of many winters, is the home of Frederick Douglass.
Few names in American history are surrounded with more of the
romance that delights the youthful and instructs the old than that of this
man, born a slave on the eastern shore of Maryland three-quarters of a
century ago. He has been the center of every vicissitude. The confidante of
William Lloyd Garrison, he was none the less the peer of Wendell Phillips
in the oratory which aroused the public conscience to its sense of duty, and
led ultimately to the enfranchisement of a race. He was present, practically,
at the birth of aggressive anti-slavery agitation; he watched with interest the
birth of the free soil party. and when the republican party first saw the light
of day, with its face set firmly against the further extension of slave territory
and the insolent domination of the slave power, he clapped his hands for
joy, as does the devout Moslem when he first sees the royal sun glint the
western hills with prisms that outshine the luster of the diamond.
As a slave he first gained his freedom by strategy. As an orator in the
anti-slavery convention he spoke as one having authority—as one into
whose soul had entered the steel of unutterable sorrows. As a freeman and a
citizen the respect of mankind has been heaped upon his head and public
trusts of great honor have been laid in his lap by a grateful party and
sanctioned by the approving amens of a great nation; in his old age, with his
wife and children and grandchildren about him, he rests in the evening of
his life from his labors, as one who has borne the heat and the burden of the
day, in a villa that is one of the finest and most desirable in the republic, a
villa whose original proprietor stipulated in the deed of transfer that the
property should never be owned by a descendant of the African race.
Fred. Douglass is a venerable, a picturesque and an historic character,
in whom the general public will always have a certain interest.
“I am an old man now,” said Mr. Douglass, as he looked afar over the
navy yard and rested his vision on the towering shaft of the Washington
monument outlined against the southern sky. “From this vantage ground I
have a magnificent view of the most magnificent city on the continent, and
I view, also, the history of the country for a half century as well as the
history as it transpires from day to day.
“How do I spend my time? I rise at five in the morning, walk over my
grounds and spend most of the day in answering a large correspondence, in
reading my favorite authors and in writing an occasional article for a
newspaper or a magazine. In the afternoon I usually go for a drive.
“Who are my favorite authors? Among the poets, Shakespeare, By-
ron, Burns, Bryant, Whittier and Longfellow;1William Shakespeare, Lord Byron, Robert Burns, William Cullen Bryant, John Greenleaf Whittier, and Henry Wadsworth Longfellow. among prose writers,
Hugo,2Victor Hugo. especially ‘Les Miserables’ and ‘The Toilers of the Sea;’ the works
of Sir Walter Scott, especially ‘lvanhoe;’ Charlotte Bronte3Charlotte Bronté Nicholls (1816-55), British novelist and sister of Emily Jane Bronté and Anne Bronté. Her best known work was the novel (1847). , 2: 1314-21. and Alexander
Dumas, especially ‘The Muskateer’ and ‘The Count of Monte Cristo.’ I
have a French edition of the latter, in three volumes, which I very much
prize. I regard Theodore D. Weld’s ‘Slavery As It Is’ as the most powerful
work of its kind written in the anti-slavery cause. Of course, I also read
those things in current literature of contemporaneous interest and the stan-
dard authors in history and social and political science. Oh, yes; I find
plenty to occupy my time. There are plenty of drafts upon it, I can assure
you.
“How long have I lived here? I have lived in Washington twenty years,
fifteen of them here at Cedar Hill; before I came here I lived at New
Bedford three years; at Lynn, five; at Rochester, twenty-five.
“I was first married fifty-four years ago,” said Mr. Douglass. “My
first wife died ten years ago, and two years thereafter I married my present
wife. The fact is, I look upon my life, as a whole, while it has some rough
places in it, as having been singularly happy."
Mr. Douglass is somewhat of a violinist. He learned to manipulate the
instrument in his youth. When the young folks of Washington gather about
him at his Cedar Hill home, as they often do, he frequently accompanies
some expert pianist of them with the violin to the general satisfaction of his
guests. Mr. Douglass is very fond of young people and their society. His
grandson, Joseph,4Born in Washington, D.C., to Douglass's son Charles, Joseph Henry Douglass (1871-1935) studied music at the New England Conservatory in Boston. He settled in Washington, D.C., where he taught music at Howard University and performed frequent recitals. A highly acclaimed violinist, the younger Douglass performed at the White House and became the first black phonographic recording artist. He often appeared with his grandfather at lectures in the early 1890s. Quarles, , 282, 347; Elise K. Kirk, (Urbana, Ill., 1986), 158-59. inherits Mr. Douglass’ musical gifts, and is not only a
professional violinist but has written some excellent scores. Joseph is Mr.
Douglass’ favorite grandchild.
Mr. Douglass laughingly acknowledged that in his youth he was guilty
of perpetrating some verse, all of which was destroyed when the files of his
paper were burned.5Fire destroyed Douglass's home in Rochester, New York, and much of his personal records on 3 June 1872. Douglass, , 294-95; Quarles, , 268. In the white heat of the anti-slavery agitation he wrote
a poem, only one stanza of which he could recall. This he recited to me in a
voice and accentuation which made it sound grand and heroic. I give the
stanza here:
The pathway of tyrants is over volcanoes;
The very air they breathe is heavy with sorrows;
Agonizing heart throbs convulse them while sleeping,
And the wind whispers death as over them sweeping.6Douglass quotes the last of twenty-nine stanzas of his poem, “The Tyrants’ Jubilee!," which he originally published in 1857. , 16 January 1857.
In his extensive and select library I saw splendid busts of Feuerbach
and Strauss. One of the most striking engravings on the walls of the library
is one of Joseph Cineque, the chief of the Amistad captives. An etching of
Wendell Phillips when he was a young man is much prized by Mr. Doug-
lass as a personal gift from the great orator. A steel engraving of William
Lloyd Garrison at thirty-five and of Charles Sumner at thirty attract the eye
at once, as does also one of James G. Birney, the forerunner of John C.
Fremont and Abraham Lincoln. A has relief of Dante overlooks all the
pictures on the wall, including one of Elizabeth Cady Stanton, bearing a
striking resemblance to the first Lord Chatham. Mr. Douglass was particu-
lar to point out to me a rich but modest picture of the home of John G.
Whittier at Haverhill.
“Don’t forget Peter’s picture,” exclaimed Mr. Douglass.
“Which Peter?” I asked.
“Why, Peter Jackson,7Born on St. Croix in the Virgin Islands, black pugilist Peter Jackson (1861-1901) went to sea in his early teens and eventually settled in Sydney, Australia. After briefly working on the docks, he took up prizefighting and became the Australian heavyweight champion in 1886. Between 1888 and 1892, he toured the United States and Great Britain, never losing one of his twenty-eight fights. His most famous match was a sixty-one-round draw with James “Gentleman Jim" Corbett in 1891. Neither John L. Sullivan nor Corbett, after he defeated Sullivan in 1892 for the heavyweight world championship, would fight Jackson. Rarely able to obtain fights after 1892, Jackson turned to the stage where he toured in Uncle Tom’s Cabin. Jackson contracted tuberculosis and friends raised funds for him to return to Australia but he failed to recover. Elliott J. Gom, (Ithaca, N.Y., 1986), 222, 238-39, 242-43; (London, 1966-), 9: 458-59. of course," said Mr. Douglass, admiringly
gazing upon the massive proportions of the Afro-Australian pugilist. “I
consider him one of the best missionaries abroad.”
As the silver moon lifted her horns above the romantic hills of Mary-
land, I turned away from the delightful arcadia of the sage of Anacostia and
soon buried myself in the heat and the fruitless ambitions of the nation’s
capital, marveling whether the repose of old age be not preferable to the
feverish aspirations of selfish or of patriotic maturity.
T. THOMAS FORTUNE.