Historical Annotation (Autobiography)
Historical Annotation
The two line counts supplied below for the annotation of passages in the text refer
to first the Yale edition and then to the 1845 Boston edition. Line counts include
chapter headings.
3.2/iii.2 [ADDED Perdue]
1] The son of impoverished Nova Scotian immigrants to Massa-
chusetts, William Lloyd Garrison (1805-79) learned the printer's trade as a youth
and went on to become one of the nation's most influential reform journalists. In
1831, he brought out the first issue of the Boston Liberator, which endorsed
immediate emancipation. Later Garrison became an advocate for temperance,
women's rights, and many other causes. His uncompromising radical positions
helped cause the schism in the abolitionist movement in 1840. Thereafter he served
as president of the American Anti-Slavery Society and led the "Garrisonian" wing
of abolitionism until the Civil War. John L. Thomas, The Liberator: William Lloyd
Garrison (Boston, 1963); James Brewer Stewart, William Lloyd Garrison and the
Challenge of Emancipation (Arlington Heights, Ill., 1992); Dictionary of Ameri-
can Biography, 20 vols. (New York, 1928-36), 7 : 168-72.
3.2-3/iii.2-3 [added perdue]
an anti-slavery convention in Nantucket] On 10-12 August
1841, Douglass attended a special summer convention on the island of Nantucket
called by the Massachusetts Anti-Slavery Society. Garrison also attended this
gathering and strongly applauded Douglass's novice performance as an abolition-
ist orator. Lib., 20 August 1841; McFeely, Frederick Douglass, 86-90.
3.10/iii.13 [added perdue]
a resident of New Bedford] Douglass lived in New Bedford, Mas-
sachusetts, after his escape from slavery, staying in the city from 1838 until 1842.
McFeely, Frederick Douglass, 74-92.
3.23-24/iv.1-2 added perdue
"gave . . . MAN,"] Hamlet, act 3, sc. 4, line 62.
3.35-36/iv.1-19
"created . . . angels"] c
4.8/iv.31
A beloved friend from New Bedford] In Chapter 11, Douglass identifies this individual as William C. Coffin. Coffin (1816-?) was a resident of New Bedford who in 1845 was an accountant for the local Mechanics Bank. An ardent abolitionist, Coffin was a good friend of William Lloyd Garrison and served as recording secretary of the Bristol County Anti-Slavery Society from the 1830s. Coffin, a Quaker, also advocated the doctrine of nonresistance and was jailed briefly in 1845 in New Bedford for refusing to swear an oath to the authority of a local judge. Lib., 3 September 1841, 18 April, 23 May 1845; Henry H.Crapo, New Bedford Directory [for 1845] (New Bedford, 1845), 794; D. Hamilton Hurd, comp., History of Bristol County, Massachusetts, with Biographical Sketches of
Many of Its Pioneers and Prominent Men (Philadelphia, 1883), 105; Walter M. Merrill and Louis Ruchames, eds., The Letters of William Lloyd Garrison, 6 vols. (Cambridge, Mass., 1971-81), 2 : 712 (hereafter cited as Garrison Letters); Narrative (Boston, 1845), 117.20.
4.16/v.5-6 PATRICK HENRY] Patrick Henry (1736-99), a Virginia patriot,
lawyer, and Revolutionary statesman, attended the First Continental Congress at
Philadelphia and was governor of Virginia from 1776 to 1779. DAB, 7 : 554-59.
4.19-20/v. 10-11 the peril which surrounded this self-emancipated young
man] The vulnerability of fugitive slaves in Massachusetts had been highlighted by
the capture of George Lattimer in Boston in October 1842. After abolitionists
failed to find legal means to block his return to the South, Lattimer's freedom was
purchased for four hundred dollars by northern sympathizers. Henry Wilson,
History of the Rise and Fall of the Slave Power in America, 3 vols. (Boston, 1872-
77), 1 : 477-87; Donald M. Jacobs, "A History of the Boston Negro from the
Revolution to the Civil War" (Ph.D. diss., Boston University, 1968), 209-21.
4.25-26/v. 19 the old Bay State] Massachusetts derived its nickname "Old
Bay State" from its original name, the Massachusetts Bay Colony. Mitford M.
Mathews, A Dictionary of Americanisms on Historical Principles, 2 vols. (New
York, 1965), 2 : 1155.
4.26/v. 19-20 "YES!" shouted the whole mass] Nantucket abolitionist Anna
Gardner confirms that the convention members shouted their pledge to protect
Douglass from reenslavement. McFeely, Frederick Douglass, 87-89, 394n.
4.27/V.21 Mason and Dixon's line] Disputes between Pennsylvania on the
north and Maryland and Virginia on the south were resolved when English sur-
veyors Charles Mason and Jeremiah Dixon determined and marked the precise
borders between these colonies in 1763-67. Hubertis M. Cummins, The Mason
and Dixon Line: Story for a Bicentenary, 1763-1963 (n.p., 1962).
5.1 /vi.1 Massachusetts Anti-Slavery Society] In late fall 1831, William Lloyd
Garrison convened a series of meetings to advance support in the Boston area for
the principles of immediate emancipation. Out of these meetings emerged the
New England Anti-Slavery Society in early 1832. As abolitionist strength grew
in the region, state-level societies were formed and the group renamed itself
the Massachusetts Anti-Slavery Society in 1835. Dwight Lowell Dumond,
Antislavery: The Crusade for Freedom in America (Ann Arbor, Mich., 1961),
172-73.
5.1/vi.2 JOHN A. COLLINS] Vermont native John Anderson Collins (1810-
c. 1879) attended Middlebury College and Andover Theological Seminary before
becoming a lecturer for the Massachusetts Anti-Slavery Society in the late 1830s.
He broke his ties with the Garrisonian wing of the abolitionist movement in 1843
in order to devote himself to advancing the utopian philosophy of Robert Owen.
Collins resided briefly on a communal farm near Skaneateles, New York, and
ultimately settled in California. Carleton Mabee, Black Freedom: The Nonviolent
Abolitionists from 1830 Through the Civil War (London, 1970), 76, 80-82, 88,
112-25, 212, 264, 394n; DAB, 4 : 307-08.
5:8-9/vi.12 American . . . Anti-Slavery Society] Inspired by the success of
the British emancipation movement, a group of sixty-two American abolitionists,
representing Quakers, free blacks, New York evangelicals, and such New England
radicals as William Lloyd Garrison, met in Philadelphia in December 1833 and
founded the American Anti-Slavery Society. Garrison drafted most of the society's
original Declaration of Sentiments, which endorsed a blend of immediatist princi-
ples and moral suasion tactics. By the time Douglass became a lecturer for the
American Anti-Slavery Society in the early 1840s, the organization had suffered a
serious schism when many abolitionists had quit in protest to Garrison's stands on
women's rights, religious orthodoxy, and an independent antislavery political
party. Merton L. Dillon, The Abolitionists: The Growth of a Dissenting Minority
(DeKalb, Ill., 1974), 52-53, 113-26; James Brewer Stewart, Holy Warriors: The
Abolitionists and American Slavery (New York, 1976), 50-51, 89-96.
5.18/vi.25-26 "grow . . . God,"] Garrison slightly adapts 2 Pet. 3 : 18.
5.25/vi.34-35 CHARLES LENOX REMOND] Born to free black parents in Salem
Massachusetts, Charles Lenox Remond (1810-73) was an early member of the
New England Anti-Slavery Society. A talented abolitionist lecturer, Remond
toured the British Isles in 1840-41. He and Douglass frequently traveled together
as speaking agents of the Massachusetts Anti-Slavery Society. A loyal Garriso-
nian, Remond denounced Douglass's embrace of political abolitionism in the
1850s. Les Wallace, "Charles Lenox Remond: The Lost Prince of Abolitionism,"
Negro History Bulletin, 40 : 696-701 (May-June 1977); DAB, 15 : 499-500.
6.1-2/vii.19 DANIEL O'CONNELL] Irish lawyer and parliamentarian, Daniel
O'Connell (1775-1847) was a leader of the movements to repeal the Act of Union
between England and Ireland and to remove civil disabilities on Roman Catholics.
An abolitionist from the 1820s, O'Connell loyally supported William Lloyd Garri-
on and his followers' cause despite the backlash it caused for American support
for the Irish repeal movement. Douglas C. Raich, "Daniel O'Connell and Ameri-
an Anti-Slavery;" Irish Historical Studies, 20 : 3-25 (March 1976); Gilbert
Osofsky, "Abolitionists, Irish Immigrants, and the Dilemmas of Romantic Nation-
lism," American Historical Review, 80 : 889-912 (October 1975); DNB, 14 :
816-34.
6.4-5/vii.22-23 speech . . . in the Conciliation Hall, Dublin] Garrison refers
to a controversial speech that Daniel O'Connell delivered in Dublin's Conciliation
Hall, the headquarters for the Loyal National Repeal Association. Founded in
April 1840, that organization sought the repeal of the legislation of 1800 that
abolished the separate Irish parliament and merged the governments of Ireland and
Great Britain. O'Connell's speech denounced slavery, as Garrison reported, but it
also pledged Irish support for British efforts to block American expansion. The
speech produced dissension in Irish nationalist circles and hostile attacks from the
United States. Angus Macintyre, The Liberator: Daniel O'Connell and the Irish
Party, 1830-1847 (New York, 1965), 80, 162-63; Raich, "Daniel O'Connell," 19.
6.29/viii.20-21 arm . . . save] A paraphrase of Isa. 50 : 2: "Is my hand
shortened at all, that it cannot redeem?"
6.30-31/viii.22-23 "in slaves and the souls of men."] Rev. 18 : 13.
6.34/viii.28 SLAVERY AS IT IS.] An allusion to Theodore Weld's American
Slavery As It Is: Testimony of a Thousand Witnesses (New York, 1839).
7.18-22/ix.22-29 the description . . . spirit of freedom] Garrison alludes to a
passage that appears in Chapter 10. Narrative (Boston, 1845), 64.4-65.26.
7.23-24/ix.30-31 a whole Alexandrian library of thought] Founded in the
third century B.C. by Egyptian ruler Ptolemy I, the library at Alexandria was reputed
to hold half a million literary works. Damaged in fighting when the Romans under
Julius Caesar besieged Alexandria in 47 B.C., the library continued to function until
the late third century A.D. Walter M. Ellis, Ptolemy of Egypt (London, 1994),
55-56.
8.24-25/xi.13-14 two instances of murderous cruelty] An allusion to Doug-
lass's accounts of the murders of slave Bill Demby by overseer Austin Gore and of
a second slave by Maryland farmer John Beale Bordley in Chapter 4. Narrative
(Boston, 1845), 22.25-24.8, 25.19-26.4.
8.30-31/xi.22-23 The Baltimore American, of March 17, 1845] This news
item from the Baltimore American & Commercial Daily Advertiser of 17 April,
not March, 1845 appeared in Garrison's Boston Liberator of 9 May 1845, the same
issue that contained a copy of the "Preface" he wrote for Douglass's Narrative.
8.33/xi.26 Charles county, Maryland] The site of the earliest European settle-
ments in present-day Maryland, Charles County lies in the southern portion of the
state along the Potomac River. Leon E. Seltzer, ed., The Columbia Lippincott
Gazetteer of the World, rev. ed. (New York, 1962), 374.
8.34/xi.27 a young man, named Matthews] Probably William B. Matthews, a
seventeen-year-old youth from Charles County, Maryland, at the time of the
incident. 1850 U.S. Census, Maryland, Charles County, 578; Baltimore Sun, 18
April 1845.
8.35/xi.28-29 whose father . . . at Washington] William B. Matthews's father
was John Matthews (c. 1783?), a wealthy slaveowner and landholder in Charles
County, Maryland. The Matthews family owned property in the Middletown dis-
trict of the county. 1850 U.S. Census, Maryland, Charles County, 578; Baltimore
Sun, 18 April 1845.
9.5-6/xii.5 incompetent to testify against a white man] Garrison possibly
relies on the compilation of slave codes by Theodore Weld that concluded that
statutes, as well as public opinion, precluded testimony from slaves and free blacks
when a white person was accused. [Weld,] American Slavery, 148-49.
9.14-15/xii.17 a cloud of witnesses] Heb. 12 : 1.
9.25-26/xii.31-32 " . . . No UNION WITH SLAVEHOLDERS!"] In 1844, the
American Anti-Slavery Society adopted a resolution, penned by Garrison, branding the
U.S. Constitution a proslavery document and calling for a dissolution of the Union.
The motto Garrison quotes later appeared on the masthead of his BostonLiberator.
Walter H. Merrill, Against Wind and Tide: A Biography of William Lloyd Garrison
(Cambridge, Mass., 1963), 204-14, 255, 269-75; Thomas, Liberator,, 328-59, 374.
10.2/xiii.2 WENDELL PHILLIPS] Boston-born and Harvard-educated Wen-
dell Phillips (1811-84) ranked second only to Garrison in influence in the Ameri-
can Anti-Slavery Society in the 1840s and 1850s. A highly gifted orator, Phillips
was in demand as a lecturer even in nonabolitionist circles. Besides abolition,
Phillips championed woman suffrage, prohibition, penal reform, Indian rights, and
legislative protection for workers. James Brewer Stewart, Wendell Phillips: Lib-
erty's Hero (Baton Rouge, 1986); Irving H. Bartlett, Wendell Phillips: Brahmin
Radical (Boston, 1961); DAB, 14 : 546-47.
10.5/xiii.5-6 "The Man and the Lion,"] Phillips loosely adapts a fable by
Aesop, alternatively known as "The Lion and the Statue." Thomas Newbigging,
The Fables and Fabulists: Ancient and Modern (1895; Freeport, N.Y., 1972), 9.
10.16/xiii.20 the West India experiment] The Abolition Act passed by Parlia-
ment on 28 August 1833 began the gradual emancipation of slavery in Great
Britain's West Indian colonies. The following year, the legislation freed all slaves
under six but held the remainder to work for the former masters as apprentices for a
period ending 1 August 1838. The owners received twenty million pounds in
compensation for the emancipated slaves. William A. Green, British Slave Eman-
cipation: The Sugar Colonies and the Great Experiment (Oxford, 1976), 129-75.
10.26/xiv.5-6 the "white sails" of the Chesapeake] Phillips probably alludes
to the same passage in Chapter 10 that Garrison earlier had.
10.36/xiv.19 Valley of the Shadow of Death] Ps. 23 : 4.
11.25-26/xv.19 the halter about their necks] Possibly an allusion to the state-
ment that early U.S. historian Jared Sparks in 1840 claimed that Benjamin Franklin
had made to John Hancock at the time of the signing of the Declaration of Indepen-
dence: "Yes, we must indeed all hang together, or most assuredly we shall all
hang separately." Carl Van Doren, Benjamin Franklin (Garden City, N.Y., 1941),
551-52.
12.8/xvi.12-13 "hide the outcast,"] A slight misquotation of Isa. 16 : 3.
13.5/1.2 in Tuckahoe, near Hillsborough] Talbot County, on Maryland's
Eastern Shore, had been an important tobacco-growing region since colonial
times. In 1788 the state legislature designated Easton, until then known as Talbot
Town, as the administrative center for state operations for all nine Eastern Shore
counties. Hillsborough (or Hillsboro) is situated northeast of Easton on Tuckahoe
Creek, a tributary of the Choptank River that forms part of the eastern boundary of
Talbot County. Dickson J. Preston, Talbot County: A History (Centreville, Md.,
1983), 140, 191, 256; Paul Wilstach, Tidewater Maryland (Indianapolis, 1931),
104-05.
13.6-7/1.4 knowledge of my age] As nearly as can be determined, Douglass
was born in February 1818. Ledger books kept by his master Aaron Anthony
contain a table, "My Black People," with the notation "Frederick Augustus son of
Harriott Feby 1818." Further evidence for the year 1818 is presented in Preston,
Young Frederick Douglass, 31-34, 218-19nnl-5; Aaron Anthony Ledger B,
1812-26, folder 95, 165, Dodge Collection, MdAA.
13.16/2.3-4 my master] Aaron Anthony (1767-1826), Frederick Douglass's
first owner and possibly his father, was born at Tuckahoe Neck in present-day
Caroline County, Maryland. Anthony's father was a poor and illiterate farmer who
died when Aaron was only two. Despite his impoverished origins, Anthony ac-
quired a rudimentary education and a small amount of property. He became the
captain in 1795 of the Sally Lloyd, the family schooner of Edward Lloyd IV, the wealthiest planter in Talbot County. In 1797 he increased his wealth through his
marriage to Ann Catherine Skinner, the daughter of an old and prominent Eastern
Shore family, who brought with her the slave family into which Douglass was later
born. Soon thereafter, Anthony became chief overseer and general manager of the
Lloyd family's thirteen farms, one of the largest estates in the United States. He
remained in this position for the remainder of his life, all the while accumulating
land and slaves of his own. By the time of his death in 1826, Anthony had become a
moderately wealthy planter, accumulating three farms totaling 597 1/2 acres, thirty
slaves worth $3,065, and personal property. His estate was valued at $8,042.
Anthony Family Bible, Oxford Museum, Oxford, Md.; Harriet L. Anthony, anno-
tated copy of My Bondage and My Freedom, folder 93, 58, Dodge Collection,
MdAA; Inventory of estate of Aaron Anthony, 13 January 1827, Talbot County
Inventories, box 13, 5-9, MdTCH; Hulbert Footner, Rivers of the Eastern Shore:
Seventeen Maryland Rivers (New York, 1944), 285, 299-304; Charles B. Clark,
ed., The Eastern Shore of Maryland and Virginia, 3 vols. (New York, 1950), 1 :
491-92; Preston, Young Frederick Douglass, 22-30; idem, "Aaron Anthony"
(unpublished paper, Easton, Md., 1977), MdTCH.
13.21 /2.6 Harriet Bailey ] Harriet Bailey (1792-1825) was the second child of
a free black man, Isaac Bailey, and his enslaved wife, Betsey. She was owned by
her mother's master, Aaron Anthony. From 1808 until her death, she was hired out
by Anthony to local farmers as a field hand. In February 1818, while serving Perry
Steward, a tenant farmer on Anthony's Holme Hill Farm in Tuckahoe Creek, she
gave birth to Frederick Augustus Bailey, her fourth of six or seven children. In late
1825 or early 1826, she died on the Holme Hill Farm in Tuckahoe Creek after a
long illness. Aaron Anthony, Ledger B, 1812-26, folder 95, 165, Dodge Collec-
tion, MdAA; Preston, Young Frederick Douglass, 8,9, 17, 21, 34-35,62-64, 205,
206, 219n9.
13.21/2.7 Isaac] Born some time before 1775, Isaac Bailey was a free black
man and the husband of Betsey Bailey, a slave owned by Aaron Anthony. Isaac and
Betsey lived together on Anthony's Tuckahoe Creek farm. A sawyer, Bailey was
frequently employed by both Anthony and Edward Lloyd V to provide lumber for
their plantations. On occasion, he hired one of Anthony's slaves to assist him in his
work. He also sometimes earned wages as a plowman and harvest laborer on
Anthony's farms. Bailey appears in the 1820 Talbot County census as a free black
presiding over a large household with four adult women and nine children. The 1840 census lists him as living with one adult woman and a young boy. Bailey died
during the 1840s. Ledger B, 1812-26, folder 95, Ledger C, 1809-27, folder 96,
Anthony Family Papers, Dodge Collection, MdAA; 1820 U.S. Census, Maryland,
Talbot County, 336; 1840 U.S. Census, Maryland, Talbot County, 9; Preston,
Young Frederick Douglass, 17-20.
13.22/2.7 Betsy Bailey] Betsey Bailey (1774-1849), the maternal grand-
mother of Frederick Douglass, grew up a slave on the Skinner plantation in Talbot
County, Maryland. In 1797 she became the property of Aaron Anthony, who
acquired her and several other slaves through his marriage to Ann Skinner. An-
thony moved her to his farm on Tuckahoe Creek in Talbot County. She married
Isaac Bailey, a free black who earned his living as a sawyer, and lived with him in
her cabin. There she bore nine daughters and three sons. She was also a midwife, a
service for which Anthony paid her. Upon Anthony's death in 1826, Bailey was
inherited by Andrew Skinner Anthony, Aaron's son; when Andrew died in 1833,
she became the slave of John Planner Anthony. Despite this succession of masters
and the death of her husband, she remained in her cabin on the Tuckahoe Creek
farm, living alone, nearly destitute, and going blind. In 1840, Thomas Auld, John
Anthony's uncle, learned of Bailey's condition and sent for her, caring for her in his
Talbot County home until her death. Aaron Anthony Slave Distribution, 22 Octo-
ber 1827, Talbot County Distributions, V.JP#D, 58-59, MdTCH; Inventory of
Negroes owned by Aaron Anthony, 19 December 1826, folder 71, Aaron Anthony
Slave Distribution, 27 September 1827, folder 77, "My Black People[s] Ages,"
Aaron Anthony Ledger A, folder 94, Aaron Anthony Ledger B, 1812-26, folder
77, 159, 165-68, Harriet Anthony's annotated copy of Bondage and Freedom,
folder 93, 180, all in the Anthony Family Papers, Dodge Collection, MdAA;
Douglass to Thomas Auld, 3 September 1848, 3 September 1849, in NS, 8 September 1848, 7 September 1849, reprinted in Lib., 22 September 1848, 14 September 1849; Preston, Young Frederick Douglass, 8, 16-20, 167.
14.2/2.32 Mr. Stewart] From 1817 to 1821, Perry Ward Steward (?-1821), a
tenant farmer, rented Holme Hill Farm from Aaron Anthony and hired the slave
Harriet Bailey as a domestic servant. A Perry W. Stewart was listed in the 1820
Census as the head of a large household of eleven members. Aaron Anthony
Ledger A, 1790-1818, file #94, 18, 19, 22, Dodge Collection, MdAA; 1820 U.S.
Census, Maryland, Talbot County, 336; Preston, Young Frederick Douglass, 35,
219n7.
14.14/3.17 Lee's Mill] Levi Lee owned a mill near Holme Hill Farm and the
Tuckahoe River in 1820. In that year, he headed a large household of eight family
members and six slaves. 1820 U.S. Census, Maryland, Talbot County, 48; Preston,
Young Frederick Douglass, 36.
15.14/5.8 God cursed Ham] Douglass refers to the account in the book of
Genesis in which Noah curses Canaan, the son of Ham, for an offense that Ham had
committed against his father, Noah. Through an obscure history the meaning of the
curse "a servant of servants shall he be unto his brethren" had evolved in Christian
Europe as a justification for the enslavement of Africans, the "sons of Ham."
Proslavery advocates in the American South used this argument extensively in the
renewed debates of the 1840s. Gen. 9 : 25; David Brion Davis, The Problem of
Slavery in the Age of Revolution, 1770-1823 (Ithaca, N.Y., 1975), 539-41, 555-
56; Larry E. Tise, Proslavery: A History of the Defense of Slavery in America,
1707-1840 (Athens, Ga., 1987), 106, 118, 189; George M. Fredrickson, The Black
Image in the White Mind: The Debate on Afro-American Character and Destiny,
1817-1914 (New York, 1971), 60-61.
15.25/5.24
Mr. Plummer] This individual is probably either James Plummer
or Philemon Plummer. Both men were longtime residents of Talbot County and, at
various times during Douglass's youth, worked for Aaron Anthony as overseers on
his Tuckahoe farms. Philemon Plummer is listed in Anthony's accounting records
for 1819. Aaron Anthony Day Books, folder 97, 30, Dodge Collection, MdAA;
Preston, Young Frederick Douglass, 71, 222n7.
15.34-35/6.4-5 an own aunt of mine] Hester Bailey (1810-?) was one of
twelve children born to Isaac and Betsey Bailey and owned by Aaron Anthony of
Talbot County. The last trace of Hester and the lone child she bore was recorded in
1827, when she was awarded to Thomas Auld after the death of Aaron Anthony.
Aaron Anthony Slave Distribution, 22 October 1827, Talbot County Distributions,
V.JP#D, 58-59; Preston, Young Frederick Douglass, 18, 27, 206, 221n2.
16.15-16/7.1 Colonel Lloyd] Edward Lloyd V (1779-1834) of Wye House
was the scion of Talbot County's first family. One of the state's largest landowners
and slaveowners, he was also Maryland's most successful wheat grower and cattle
raiser of his era. As a charter member of the Maryland Agricultural Society, a
founder of at least two banks, and a speculator in coal lands, he became the
wealthiest of a long line of Lloyds that reached back to colonial Maryland. In terms
of slaves alone, his huge holdings increased from 420 in 1810 to 545 in 1830. An
eager student of politics as an adolescent and a frequent auditor of political debate
at the Annapolis State House, Edward V became a Republican delegate to the state
legislature as soon as he reached the age of majority in 1800. The following year,
he was active in securing passage of a bill removing all restrictions to white male
suffrage. From 1806 to 1808 he was a U.S. congressman, voting in 1807 against a
bill to end the African slave trade. For the next two years he was governor of
Maryland, and from 1811 to 1816 he returned to the state legislature. In 1819 he
was elected to the U.S. Senate, from which he resigned in 1826 to return to the
Maryland senate, where he was president until 1831. Edward V married Sally Scott
Murray on 30 November 1797 and had six children with her. 1810 U.S. Census,
Maryland, Talbot County, 342; Oswald Tilghman, History of Talbot County, Mary-
land, 1661-1861 2 vols. (Baltimore, 1915), 1 : 184-210; Footner, Rivers of the
Eastern Shore, 283-90; Preston, Young Frederick Douglass, 26, 30, 48-54, 57-
58, 74, 82; Biographical Directory of the American Congress, 1774-1989: Bicen-
tennial Edition (Washington, D.C., 1989), 1381.
16.16/7.2 Ned Roberts] Ned Roberts (1810-?) was a slave owned by Edward
Lloyd V. It was 1825 when Aaron Anthony discovered that his slave Hester Bailey
was continuing to see Ned Roberts. Return Book, 1 January 1824, Land Papers—
Maintenance of Property, Land Volume 39, reel 10, Lloyd Family Papers, MdHi.
17.8/8.11 two sons, Andrew] Andrew Skinner Anthony (1797-1833) was
the eldest son of Aaron and Ann Catherine Skinner Anthony and the nephew of
Edward Lloyd V. His father apprenticed him as a young man to James Neall, a
cabinetmaker, in Easton, Maryland. After completing his apprenticeship, Anthony
migrated to Indiana, where he married Ann Wingate of Martin County in 1823. He
and his bride returned to Talbot County shortly thereafter. In 1826 Andrew's father
died and he inherited a third of his estate, including eight slaves. Although he
increased his estate and owned twenty slaves, Andrew suffered from alcoholism
and operated a whiskey shop in his final years. John Manross to Douglass, 14
January 1856, General Correspondence File, reel 1, frames 654-56, FD Papers,
DLC; Harriet Anthony's annotated copy of Bondage and Freedom, folder 93, 176
Dodge Collection, MdAA; 1830 U.S. Census, Maryland, Talbot County, 51; Pres-
ton, Young Frederick Douglass, 26, 29, 218nl7, 224n10.
17.8/8.12 Richard] Richard Lee Anthony (1800-28), the second eldest of
three children born to Aaron and Ann Anthony, was trained as a blacksmith for five
years before inheriting land, money, and slaves after his father's death in Novem-
ber 1826. Douglass incorrectly asserted that Richard died before his father. Harriet L.
Anthony's annotated copy of Bondage and Freedom, folder 93, 173-74, Dodge
Collection, MdAA; Aaron Anthony Slave Distribution, 22 October 1827, Talbot
County Distributions, V.JP#D, 58-59, MdTCH; Preston, Young Frederick Doug-
lass, 27, 28, 29, 52, 91, 218n17.
17.8-9/8.12 one daughter, Lucretia] Lucretia Planner Anthony Auld (1804-
27) was the third child and only daughter of Aaron and Ann Anthony. In 1823 she
married Thomas Auld, a boarder in her father's household and an employee of
Edward Lloyd. Lucretia subsequently moved to Hillsborough, Maryland, where
she and her husband opened a store. Following the deaths of her father and brother
Richard Lee, Lucretia and her older brother Andrew inherited their father's estate.
Her portion included the young slave Frederick Douglass. She died in 1827 and
was survived by one child, Arianna Amanda Auld. Auld Family Bible (courtesy of
Carl G. Auld); McFeely, Frederick Douglass, 27; Preston, Young Frederick Doug-
lass, 28, 30, 62, 87-88, 223n6; Preston, Talbot County, 191; Emerson B. Roberts,
"A Visitation of Western Talbot," MdHM, 41 : 244-45 (September 1946).
121
17.9/8.13 Captain Thomas Auld] Born in St. Michaels, Maryland, Thomas Auld (1795-1880) was the eldest son of Hugh and Zipporah Auld. Trained as a shipbuilder, Auld supervised the construction of the Lloyd sloop, the Sally Lloyd, and subsequently became its captain. In 1823, he met and married Lucretia Anthony while a boarder in the Anthony home. Shortly thereafter, in 1827, Auld became a storekeeper in Hillsborough, Maryland, and inherited Douglass along with ten other slaves from the estate of Aaron Anthony. He later kept store in St.
Michaels where he also served as postmaster, before retiring to a nearby farm. The 1850 census listed him as a "farmer" with $8,500 worth of real estate. References to Thomas Auld in Douglass's Narrative and public speeches are generally uncomplimentary although Douglass disclaimed any personal hostility toward his former owner. A reconciliation occurred in the post-Reconstruction period when Douglass visited the dying Auld in St. Michaels. NASS, 25 November 1845; NS, 8 September 1848, 7 September 1849; Baltimore Sun, 19 June 1877; Aaron Anthony Slave Distribution, 22 October 1827, Talbot County Distributions, V.JP#D, 58-59, MdTCH; 1850 U.S. Census, Maryland, Talbot County, 1169 (schedule of free
inhabitants); Benjamin Quarles, Frederick Douglass (Washington, D.C., 1948), 342-43; Tilghman, Talbot County, 1 : 395; Preston, "Aaron Anthony," 5; Roberts, "Visitation of Western Talbot," 235-45.
17.10/8.14 the home plantation of Colonel Edward Lloyd] Settled by Edward Lloyd I in 1658, Wye House, the home plantation of the Lloyds, was situated on a peninsula formed by the Wye River on the north and the Miles River on the south. By 1790, Edward Lloyd IV, father of Edward Lloyd V, owned 11,884 acres in the region. The mansion house to which Douglass refers was built in 1784 and overlooks Lloyd's Cove on the Wye River. Aaron Anthony and his family lived in the "Captain's House," a brick outbuilding near the mansion. Douglass lived at Anthony's home at Wye House from August 1824 to March 1826. Footner, Rivers of the Eastern Shore, 269-93; H[enry] Chandlee Forman, Old Buildings, Gardens, and Furniture in Tidewater Maryland (Cambridge, Md., 1967), 51-80; Preston,
Young Frederick Douglass, 37-40, 199.
17.21 -22/9.4-5 This sloop was named Sally Lloyd] In 1819 Edward Lloyd V ordered the construction of a new sloop to replace the aging schooner Elizabeth & Ann, which carried his crops to markets in Baltimore and Annapolis and brought back supplies to his scattered Talbot County farms. Thomas Auld had supervised the construction, in Joseph Kemp's St. Michaels shipyard, of the replacement vessel, named the Sally Lloyd in honor of the colonel's eldest daughter, Sally Scott Lloyd. Auld remained in Lloyd's employment as the master of the Sally Lloyd, which was manned by a slave crew. The latter gained celebrity status among the Lloyd slaves because of their contact with the world outside the rural plantations and their ability to purchase small items in the cities for resale to other slaves. Various account books and cash books, Land Papers—Maintenance of Property, Land Volume 39, reel 10, Lloyd Family Papers, MdHi.
122
17.22/9.5 one of the colonel's daughters] Sally Scott Lloyd Lowndes, the second daughter of Edward Lloyd V, was the namesake of her mother Sally Scott Murray Lloyd. She married Charles Lowndes, a U.S. Navy officer, on 24 May 1824. Colonel Lloyd purchased an estate called the Anchorage on the Miles River as a gift for the couple. Their son Lloyd Lowndes served as governor of Maryland from 1896 to 1900. Rossiter Johnson, ed., The Twentieth Century Biographical Dictionary of Notable Americans, 10 vols. (Boston, 1904), 7:n.p.; Tilghman, Talbot County, 1 : 207; Preston, Young Frederick Douglass, 47, 222n4.
17.24-25/9.8-9 Peter, Isaac, Rich, and Jake] Two of the slaves who served as the crew of the Sally Lloyd appear in the business records of Edward Lloyd V: Peter (1799-?) and Rich (1817-?). Various account books and cash books, Land Papers—Maintenance of Property, Land Volume 39, reel 10, Lloyd Family Papers, MdHi.
17.28/9.13-14 three to four hundred slaves] Douglass exaggerates the number of slaves owned by Edward Lloyd V. In 1824, the year Douglass arrived on the Lloyd's main plantation, there were 181 slaves at Wye House, including the fifteen owned by Aaron Anthony who also lived there. The Lloyds owned slaves on adjoining farms as well, though their number is not available. Edward Lloyd IV owned 305 slaves in 1790, and his grandson, Edward Lloyd VI, owned an estimated 700 slaves, including those on his Mississippi Valley plantations. Return Book, 1 January 1824, Land Papers—Maintenance of Property, Land Volume 39, reel 10, Lloyd Family Papers, MdHi; Footner, Rivers of the Eastern Shore, 280-81; Tilghman, Talbot County, 1 : 225; Preston, Young Frederick Douglass, 48, 220nl3.
17.31/9.17 Wye Town] Wye Town is located at the confluence of the Miles River and the Wye River in Talbot County, next to the main Lloyd plantation Wye House. At the urging of the Lloyds, the Maryland General Assembly had established the site of a town here in 1683 which was later abandoned. Wye Town Farm, part of the land owned here by the Lloyds, encompassed 260 acres. Henry Chandlee Forman, Tidewater Maryland Architecture and Gardens (New York, 1956), 49-54.
17.31/9.17 New Design] New Design Farm was one of several smaller plantations owned by Edward Lloyd V in Talbot County. At least through the 1820s, Lloyd used it primarily for growing wheat. Various account books and cash books, Land Papers—Maintenance of Property, Land Volume 39, reel 10, Lloyd Family Papers, MdHi.
17.32/9.19 Noah Willis] In 1819 Aaron Anthony's records indicate that he employed a Noah Willes. A Noah Willis is listed in the 1820 census as an overseer in Talbot County. He was between 26 and 45 years old. Willis is listed again in the 1830 census but without any job designation. He was married by then, having eight children under 15 in his household, and owned four slaves. Willis held over 400 acres of land by the late 1820s. Aaron Anthony Papers, Ledger A, 1790-1818, file
123
94, 19; 1820 U.S. Census, Maryland, Talbot County, 7; 1830 U.S. Census, Maryland, Talbot County, 14; Whitman H. Ridgway, Community Leadership in Maryland, 1790-1840: A Comparative Analysis of Power in Society (Chapel Hill, 1979), 339.
17.33/9.20 Mr. Townsend] Between 1809 and 1812, George Townsend worked for Aaron Anthony, probably as an overseer. In 1820, he was between twenty-six and forty years of age, and managed a farm which had 23 slaves. 1820 U.S. Census, Maryland, Talbot County, 6; Aaron Anthony Ledger C, 1809-27, folder 96, 3, 35,69, 114, 119, 128, 171, 177, 286, 315, Dodge Collection, MdAA.
18.3/9.30 Austin Woolfolk] Austin Woolfolk of Augusta, Georgia, became a slave trader serving the Southwest, which rapidly expanded following the Battle of New Orleans in 1815. He settled in Baltimore in 1819 to avail himself both of the large surplus slave population in the state and the excellent shipping facilities which the port afforded. During the 1820s he lived on Pratt Street to the west of the city's commercial center. Woolfolk's business prospered as he sent agents through-out Maryland ready to pay high prices in cash for young black males. He annually
transported from 230 to 460 slaves to markets in New Orleans, many of them having been purchased from planters on the Eastern Shore. In the 1830s, however, Woolfolk's business declined due to increased competition from larger firms, a decrease in the number of slaves for sale owing to manumissions and owner emigrations, and the heightened opposition of Marylanders to the interstate slave trade. Preston, Young Frederick Douglass, 50, 58, 76-80, 96, 102; William Calderhead, "The Role of the Professional Slave Trader in a Slave Economy: Austin
Woolfolk, A Case Study," Civil War History, 23 : 195-211 (September 1977).
18.10-11/10.8 negro cloth] Coarse, durable, inexpensive cloth manufactured for sale to slaveowners for their servants.
18.34/11.8-9 Mr. Severe] During the years 1809-12 and possibly thereafter, William Sevier worked for Aaron Anthony, probably as an overseer on his farms. In 1820, he was between twenty-six and forty years old. At that time Sevier occupied a small red frame house on the east side of Wye House's Long Green, and was Edward Lloyd V's overseer for the more than 150 slaves at the main plantation. Aaron Anthony Ledger A, 1790-1818, folder 94, 19, Ledger C, 1809-27, folder 96, 1, 3, 13, 87, 119, 124, 177, 286, 291; 1820 U.S. Census, Maryland, Talbot County, 7; Preston, Young Frederick Douglass, 70-71, 222n5 and n6.
19.14/12.3 Mr. Hopkins] James Hopkins briefly took the place of William Sevier as overseer of the Wye House plantation. Preston, Young Frederick Douglass, 73.
19.25-26/12.20 the Great House Farm] A reference to the principal plantation of Edward Lloyd V, the Wye House plantation. Douglass visited there in June 1881 and several younger members of the Lloyd family escorted him around the grounds. Preston, Young Frederick Douglass, 192-96.
21.2/14.29-30 "there . . . heart."] Douglass quotes line 8 from The Time
124
Piece by William Cowper. J.C. Bailey, ed., The Poems of William Cowper (London, 1905), 267.
21.17-18/15.19-20 the chief gardener, (Mr. M'Durmond.)] In 1824 Aaron Anthony hired William McDermott to work for Edward Lloyd V. McDermott lived and ate at Anthony's house at least through spring 1825. Aaron Anthony Ledger A, 1790-1818, folder 94, 42, 43, Dodge Collection, MdAA.
22.3-4/16.24 Old Barney and Young Barney] Old Barney was Barnett Sampson (c. 1768-?). He was owned by Edward Lloyd V and was the father of Young Barney, Barnett Bentley (c. 1810-?). He was listed as fifty-five years old in January 1824. Return Book, 1 January 1824, Land Papers—Maintenance of Property, Land Volume 39, reel 10, Lloyd Family Papers, MdHi.
22.31/17.31 Edward] Born in the Annapolis home of his maternal grandparents, Edward Lloyd VI (1798-1861) was the oldest child and principal heir of his father's great wealth. Educated at the Wye House plantation by tutors, the younger Lloyd received charge of a nearby plantation where his father built him the beautiful Wye Heights mansion upon his marriage in 1824 to Alicia McBlair, daughter of a Baltimore merchant. She died prematurely in 1838 after bearing five children. After inheriting the bulk of his father's landholdings, Lloyd successfully
shifted from tobacco to grain farming and weathered the agricultural depression that struck most of the Eastern Shore in the 1840s and 1850s. Lloyd also purchased cotton growing land in Mississippi in 1837 and later added more in Arkansas and Louisiana. He transferred some of his swelling slave population to those new plantations. Although reputedly a stern disciplinarian, he did try to avoid separating families during these relocations and when sales occurred. A life-long Democrat, Lloyd served as a delegate to the Maryland constitutional convention of 1850 and as a state senator (1851 -52). 1850 U.S. Census, Maryland, Talbot County, 6-10 (slave schedule); Tilghman, Talbot County, 1 : 210-21; Preston, Young Frederick Douglass, 42-43,44-45, 70, 192; J. Donnell Tilghman, "Wye House," MdHM, 48 : 89-108 (June 1953).
22.31/17.31 Murray] James Murray Lloyd (1803-47) was the middle son of Edward Lloyd V and Sally Murray Scott. When he married, his father built a mansion for him called Presqu'ile which quickly became a Talbot County show-place. In 1840, he was one of the region's richest farmers, owning 113 slaves. 1840 U.S. Census, Maryland, Talbot County, 60; Stella Pickett Hardy, Colonial Families of the Southern States of America, (New York, 1911), 387; Preston, Young Frederick Douglass, 47, 49-50, 69, 70; Tilghman, Talbot County, 1 : 207, 222.
22.31/17.31 Daniel] Daniel Lloyd (1811-75) was the sixth-born child and youngest son of Edward Lloyd V. Daniel became a farmer and his wealth increased steadily, expanding the number of slaves he owned from 18 to 36 between 1840 and 1850. By the latter year, he possessed real estate valued at $25,000. After the death of his father, Lloyd resided at the nearby Wye Heights Plantation, earlier
built for Edward Lloyd VI and his wife. Daniel's son, Henry, was Maryland's governor in the 1880s. 1840 U.S. Census, Maryland, Talbot County, 59; 1850 U.S. Census, Maryland, Talbot County, 11a (free schedule), 14 (slave schedule); Preston, Young Frederick Douglass, 54-55, 61, 81, 221n21; Tilghman, Talbot County, 1 : 207, 212.
22.32/17.32 Mr. Winder] Edward Stoughton Winder, son of Levin Winder, the sixteenth governor of Maryland, and Mary Sloss, married Elizabeth Tayloe Lloyd, the eldest daughter of Edward Lloyd V, in 1820. Their son, Charles Sidney Winder, became a Confederate brigadier general. Edward most likely died before 1850 as that year's census lists Elizabeth, rather than him, as the family head. 1850 U.S. Census, Maryland, Talbot County, 52; Tilghman, Talbot County, 1 : 207; Preston, Young Frederick Douglass, 221-22; Hardy, Colonial Families, 387; National Cyclopaedia of American Biography (New York, 1898), 5 : 514.
22.32/17.32 Mr. Nicholson] Joseph Nicholson was the son of Rebecca Lloyd, Edward V's sister, and her husband, Joseph Hopper Nicholson (1770-1817), a Democratic-Republican Congressman from Baltimore from 1799 through 1806 and thereafter a prominent Maryland jurist. The younger Nicholson was the nephew of Edward Lloyd V, not the son-in-law, as Douglass identifies him. Preston, Young Frederick Douglass, 70, 222n4; Hardy, Colonial Families, 500-11; DAB, 13 : 505-06; BDAC, 1570.
22.32/17.32-18.1 Mr. Lowndes] Born in Kent County, Maryland, Charles Lowndes (1798-1885) entered the navy as a midshipman in 1815. He married Sally Scott Lloyd in the mid-1820s and by 1840 was a prosperous Talbot County farmer with thirty-five slaves. By the start of the Civil War, he had risen to the rank of captain in the U.S. Navy. Suspected of Confederate sympathies, he was placed on the retired list in 1862 and later promoted to commodore and placed on a war prize commission. 1840 U.S. Census, Maryland, Talbot County, 70; Preston, Young Frederick Douglass, 47, 222; Johnson, Twentieth Century Biographical Dictionary, 7 : n.p.; Christopher Johnston, "Lowndes Family," MdHM, 2 : 279 (September 1907); Appleton's Cyclopaedia of American Biography, 6 vols. (New York, 1888-89), 4 : 44.
22.34/18.3-4 William Wilkes] William Wilks (c. 1791-?) was a slave of Edward Lloyd V. Sometime in the first half of the 1830s he purchased his freedom and moved to Baltimore. In that city, Wilks worked as a general laborer and resided on Lexington Street, east of Park Street. Return Book, 1 January 1824, Land Papers—Maintenance of Property, Land Volume 39, reel 10, Lloyd Family Papers, MdHI; Matchett's Baltimore Director[y]. . . 1835-6 (Baltimore, 1835), 275; Matchett's Baltimore Director[y] . . . 1837-8 (Baltimore, 1837), 472.
22.39/18.9 the riches of Job] Douglass refers to the biblical story of Job, where his wealth is enumerated and he is described as "the greatest of all in the east." Job 1 : 1-3.
23.26-27/19.13-14 a still tongue makes a wise head] This saying probably
had its roots in an old English epigram, "Hauyng a styll toung he had a besy head." The Proverbs and Epigrams of John Heywood (1562; New York, 1967), 214.
24.5/20.6-7 Jacob Jepson] Jacob Gibson (1759-1818), a slaveowner locally feared for his volatile temper, resided at Marengo, a plantation bordering the Lloyd property. Douglass mistakenly refers to him as "Jacob Jepson." Appointed an associate judge for Talbot County in 1802, Gibson won election to the legislature in 1806. Residents remembered him because of his numerous vitriolic broadsides and newspaper essays as well as his physical assaults on his enemies. The 1810 U.S. census listed him as the owner of thirty-four slaves, whom Gibson reputedly ruled
over as a stern taskmaster. Gibson's plantation belonged to his son Fayette at the time to which Douglass refers. 1810 U.S. Census, Maryland, Talbot County, 342; Tilghman, Talbot County, 1 : 231-56; Preston, Young Frederick Douglass, 60, 221n28.
24.18-19/20.25 Mr. Austin Gore] Austin Gore (1794-1871), also referred to as Orson Gore in the Lloyd family account and cash books, was the overseer of Edward Lloyd V's Davis's Farm plantation where in 1822 a young slave named Bill Demby died. A friend of Gore's later challenged Douglass's assertion that Gore coolly murdered Demby, insisting that he was "a respectable citizen living near St. Michaels, and . . . a worthy member of the Methodist Episcopal Church; . . . all who know him, think him anything but a murderer." Lloyd apparently tolerated Gore's brutal actions because he later promoted him to be overseer of the much larger Wye House plantation. The 1830 U.S. census listed Gore as the head of a household which contained three boys and two girls under 10, his wife, and an elderly woman. Only a child at the time of Demby's death, Douglass must have constructed his narrative of the incident from plantation legends. A. C. C. Thompson, "To the Public—Falsehood Refuted," reprinted in the NASS, 25 November 1845 and in Lib., 12 December 1845; Various account books and cash books, Land Papers—Maintenance of Property, Land Volume 39, reel 10, Lloyd Family Papers, MdHi; 1830 U.S. Census, Maryland, Talbot County, 14.
25.27/22.29 by the name of Demby] Bill Demby (c. 1802-22) lived with twenty-two other slaves, including his family, on Davis's Farm, one of several Talbot County plantations owned by Edward Lloyd V. Plantation records indicate that Demby, a prime field hand, died sometime during the year 1822. Return Book, 1 January 1822, 1 January 1823, Land Papers—Maintenance of Property, Land Volume 39, reel 10, Lloyd Family Papers, MdHi; Preston, Young Frederick Douglass, 72-73, 213n 10.
26.22/24.12 Mr. Thomas Lanman] Thomas H. W. Lambdin (c. 1807-?) had labored at a number of trades by 1850: ship carpenter, schoolteacher, town bailiff for St. Michaels (1848), and miller (1850). In 1850 he was married and had five young children. He owned real estate valued at $1,000.00 in that year. In a rebuttal to Douglass's negative characterization, a Maryland friend described Lambdin as "too good-natured and harmless to injure any person but himself." A. C. C.
127
Thompson, "To the Public—Falsehood Refuted," reprinted in NASS, 25 November 1845 and in Lib., 12 December 1845; Tilghman, Talbot County, 2 : 395.
26.28/24.21 Mr. Giles Hicks] A Giles Hicks resided in Caroline County, Maryland in 1820. 1820 U.S. Census, Maryland, Talbot County, 92.
26.29/24.22 my wife's] Anna Murray Douglass (c. 1813-82), Frederick Douglass's first wife, was born free in Denton, Caroline County, Maryland. She was the eighth child of Bambarra Murray and his wife Mary, slaves who had been manumitted shortly before Anna's birth. At seventeen she moved to Baltimore, where she worked as a domestic. She met Douglass at meetings of the East Baltimore Mental Improvement Society, helped finance his escape, and, according to plan, joined him in New York City, where they were married on 15 September 1838. During Douglass's tour of the British Isles in 1845-47 she remained in Lynn, Massachusetts, where she supported herself by binding shoes. There she gained a reputation for frugality and skillful household management—qualities that would contribute greatly to her family's financial prosperity over the years. A member of the Lynn Ladies' Anti-Slavery Society and a regular participant in the annual antislavery bazaars in Boston, she continued her antislavery activities after moving to Rochester in 1847. Unlettered, reserved, and, according to her husband, never completely at ease in white company, she seldom appeared at public functions with Douglass. She was nevertheless affectionately remembered by her husband's associates as a "warm" and "hospitable" hostess at their home. On 9 July 1882, Anna Douglass suffered an attack of paralysis in Washington, D.C. She died there on 4 August. In January 1884 Douglass married Helen Pitts, a white woman. Lib., 18 November, 2 December 1853; Philadelphia Christian Recorder, 20 July 1882; Washington Post, 5 August 1882; Rosetta Douglass Sprague, Anna Murray Douglass: My Mother as I Recall Her (1900; Washington, D.C., 1923); Jane Marsh Parker, "Reminiscences of Frederick Douglass," Outlook 51 : 552-53 (6 April 1895); Preston, Young Frederick Douglass, 149, 151, 154, 159; Quarles, Frederick Douglass, 9-10, 100-01, 106, 109-10, 297-98.
27.15/25.25 Mr. Beal Bondly] John Beale Bordley (1800-82) was the son of Matthias Bordley (1757-1828) and the grandson of John Beale Bordley (1727-1804), a noted agriculturalist and Revolutionary War era patriot from Maryland. Often called simply Beale Bordley, John Beale Bordley was born on his father's Wye Island estate, across the river from the Lloyd plantation, and remained there until his mid-twenties when he moved to Philadelphia to study law with Pennsylvania Chief Justice John Bannister Gibson. Quickly tiring of the law, Bordley came to develop a very successful career as a portrait painter of prominent figures in Baltimore, Philadelphia, and elsewhere. A number of his paintings are held by the Maryland Historical Society. Francis Sims McGrath, "A Letter to Eileen," MdHM, 24 : 306 (December 1929); Eugenia Calvert Holland and Louisa MacGill Gray, comps., "Miniatures in the Collection of the Maryland Historical Society," MdHM, 51 : 342, 346, 353 (December 1956); Anna Wells Rutledge, "Portraits
128
Painted Before 1900 in the Collection of the Maryland Historical Society . . . ," MdHM, 41 : 35, 36, 43 (March 1946); Baltimore American and Commercial Advertiser, 14 March 1882; Francis Sims McGrath, Pillars of Maryland (Richmond, 1950), 393.
28.3/26.26 tow linen] Rough, unbleached cloth manufactured from tow, the shortest fibers taken from flax or hemp.
28.19/27.24 Mr. Hugh Auld] Born in Talbot County, Maryland, Hugh Auld (1799-1861) moved as a young man to Baltimore. There he worked as a ship's carpenter, master shipbuilder, shipyard foreman, and occasionally served as a magistrate. Prior to moving to Baltimore, Hugh married Sophia Keithley. Between 1826 and 1833 and again between 1836 and 1838, the young Frederick Douglass lived and worked in their household, lent to them by his owner, Hugh's brother Thomas. In 1845, Hugh, incensed by Douglass's depiction of his family in the Narrative, bought Douglass, then on a lecture tour of Britain, from his brother Thomas. According to the Pennsylvania Freeman, Auld was determined to reenslave Douglass and "place him in the cotton fields of the South" if the fugitive ever returned to the United States. In 1846, two British abolitionists, Anna and Ellen Richardson, offered to buy Douglass from Auld; in exchange for $711.66 (£150 sterling) raised among British reformers, Auld signed the manumission papers that made Douglass a free man. PaF, 26 February 1846; Lib., 6 March 1846; Walter Lourie to Ellis Gray Loring, 15 December 1846, reel 1, frame 644, Benjamin F. Auld to Douglass, 11, 27 September 1891, reel 6, frames 240-41, 257-58, Douglass to Benjamin F. Auld, 16 September 1891, reel 6, frames 246-47, J. C. Schaffer to Helen Pitts Douglass, 21 October 1896, reel 8, frames 92-93, General Correspondence File, FD Papers, DLC; Talbot County Records, V.60, 35-36, MdTCH, Easton, Md. (a copy is found on reel 1, frames 637-39, FD Papers, DLC); Hugh Auld Family Genealogical Chart, prepared by Carl G. Auld, Ellicott City, Md., 5 June 1976; Preston, Young Frederick Douglass, 81, 84-85, 92, 143, 173-75.
28.23/27.29 scurf] Scales of epidermis continually being detached from the skin.
28.38-39/28.19-20 I had two sisters] Sarah Bailey (1814-?) was Frederick Douglass's oldest sister and the second of seven children born to Harriet Bailey. Aaron Anthony owned Sarah but after his death in 1826, she became the chattel of his son, Andrew Skinner Anthony. In 1832, Andrew sold Bailey, her son Henry, and four other slaves to Perry Cohee of Lawrence County in south Mississippi. Douglass and Sarah remained separated until 1883, when she, then living in Louisville, Kentucky, and calling herself Mrs. Sarah Pettit, wrote to Douglass and reestablished their relationship. Sarah O. Pettit to Douglass, 26 September 1883, General Correspondence File, reel 3, frame 778-80, FD Papers, DLC; Aaron Anthony Slave Distribution, 22 October 1827, Talbot County Distributions, V.JP#D, 58-59, MdTCH; Sale of Slaves, Andrew S. Anthony to Perry Cohee, 14 July 1832, Talbot County Records, V. 50, 192-93, MdTCH.
HISTORICAL ANNOTATION 129
28.38-39/28.19-20 I had two sisters] The third oldest of six children born to Harriet Bailey and the sister of Frederick Douglass, Eliza Bailey (1816-c. 1876) was a slave owned by Aaron Anthony. When Anthony died in 1826, Eliza became the property of Thomas Auld, Anthony's son-in-law. Eliza married Peter Mitchell, a free black who worked as a field hand in Talbot County, with whom she had nine children. In 1836, Mitchell bought Eliza and their then two children from Thomas Auld for one hundred dollars. After settling on an acre of land which they rented from Samuel and John Hambleton of Talbot County, they raised their own vegetables and meat and hired themselves out as a domestic and a field hand, respectively. Eliza and her brother Frederick were separated after the latter's escape from slavery in 1838. On 6 June 1844, Mitchell freed Eliza and the other children because state laws no longer required removal from Maryland upon manumission. Eliza and Frederick were reunited in 1865 when Douglass stopped in Baltimore while on a speaking tour. New York Independent, 2 March 1865; Lewis Douglass to Douglass, 9 June 1865, FD Papers, Moorland-Spingarn Library, DHU; Aaron Anthony Slave Distribution, 22 October 1827, Talbot County Distributions, V.JP#D, 58-59, Sale of Slaves, Thomas Auld to Peter Mitchell, 25 January 1836, Talbot County Records, V.52, 258, Manumission of Eliza Mitchell, 1 July 1844, Talbot County Records, V.58, 234-35, all in MdTCH; Preston, Young Frederick Douglass, 164-65, 184, 206-07, 229n7.
28.39/28.20 and one brother] Perry Bailey (1813-?), the oldest of seven children born to Harriet Bailey and Frederick Douglass's brother, was the slave of Aaron Anthony. When Anthony died in 1826, Perry was inherited by Anthony's son, Andrew J. Anthony. Andrew died in 1832, leaving Perry, now married to a slave named Maria, to John P. Anthony, who sold Maria to a slaveowner in Brazos County, Texas. Perry followed his wife to Texas, where a post-emancipation labor shortage allowed him to earn "fifteen dollars gold wages a month." In 1867, Perry, Maria, and their four children traveled to Rochester to reunite with Frederick. Elated by this reunion, Douglass built a cottage for them on his Rochester estate, where the family stayed for two years. In 1869, Perry and Maria returned to Maryland's Eastern Shore where Perry died some time after 1878. Perry Downs to Douglass, 21 February 1867, Douglass Papers, Moorland-Spingarn Library, DHU; Douglass to J. J. Spelman, 11 July 1867, reprinted in New York Independent, 25 July 1867; Douglass to Theodore Tilton, 2 September 1867, FD Papers, NHi; Anna Downs to Douglass, 5 October 1869, General Correspondence File, reel 2, frames 497-99, FD Papers, DLC; Aaron Anthony Slave Distribution, 22 October 1827, Talbot County Distributions, V.JP#D, 58-59, MdTCH; Preston, Young Frederick Douglass, 175-77,206.
29.11/29.5 Cousin Tom] Tom Bailey (1814-?), the fourth of Milly Bailey's seven children and Douglass's cousin, was a slave belonging to Aaron Anthony. When Anthony died in 1826, Bailey became the property of Thomas Auld. Auld granted Bailey his freedom in 1845. The last record of Bailey's existence is a letter
130 HISTORICAL ANNOTATION
to Douglass from his son Lewis, who visited Talbot County in 1865. During his visit, Lewis wrote, he met with Bailey, who was still living in St. Michaels. Lewis Douglass to Douglass, 9 June 1865, FD Papers, Moorland-Spingarn Library, DHU; Aaron Anthony Slave Distribution, 22 October 1827, Talbot County Distributions, V.JP#D, 58-59, MdTCH; Preston, Young Frederick Douglass, 91, 174, 206, 221n29, 230n25.
29.21/29.18 Miles River] Originally known as the St. Michaels River, the twelve-mile-long Miles River lies entirely within Talbot County. The right-angled river flows southwest for its first eight miles and then flows northwest to meet the Chesapeake Bay at the town of St. Michaels. Footner, Rivers of the Eastern Shore, 236, 239-40, 255.
29.21/29.18-19 on a Saturday morning] Douglass departed St. Michaels for Baltimore on a Saturday in March 1826, probably the 18th. Preston, Young Frederick Douglass, 82.
29.34-35/30.5 at Smith's Wharf, not far from Bowley's Wharf] Smith's Wharf and Bowley's Wharf were two sturdily-built wharves below Pratt Street in Baltimore's inner harbor, the Basin, west of Fells Point. The city directory at times spelled the latter as "Bowly's Wharf." Matchett's Baltimore Directory for 1827 (Baltimore, 1827), 18-19 (street register); Sherry H. Olson, Baltimore: The Building of an American City (Baltimore, 1980), 60.
29.36-39/30.7-8 the slaughterhouse of Mr. Curtis] The Baltimore city directory of 1824 lists two "victuallers": Thomas Curtain on Eden Street and James Curtain on Bond Street. Three years later the city directory lists Thomas Curtis as a "victualler." Matchett's Baltimore Directory for 1824, 74; Matchett's Baltimore Directory for 1827, 70.
29.38/30.10 my new home in Alliciana Street] Neither the 1824 nor 1827 Baltimore directories, the only extant directories in this period, list Hugh Auld's residence. The Baltimore City Commission on Historical and Architectural Preservation established that Hugh Auld's house was on the southeast corner of Aliceanna and Durham (formerly Happy Alley) streets in Fells Point. Contemporary sources spelled the street "Alisanna" (1824) or "Alice Anna" (1827). Matchett's Baltimore Directory, for 1824 (Baltimore, 1824), 343; Matchett 's Baltimore Directory for 1827, 1 (street register); Fielding Lucas, Jr., Plan of the City of Baltimore (Baltimore, 1836); Preston, Young Frederick Douglass, 223nl.
29.39/30.11 near Mr. Gardner's ship-yard] William Gardner, a ship carpenter or shipbuilder, resided on Fleet Street, Fells Point, between 1827 and 1836. The shipyard of George and William Gardner was at the "lower end of Fountain Street," on the eastern edge of the Fells Point wharf area. Matchett's Baltimore Director[y] . . . 1831 (Baltimore, 1831), 141, 5 (street register).
29.39/30.11 on Fells Point] Fells Point, first settled by William Fell in 1726, was a separate enclave east of Baltimore center not annexed to Baltimore until 1773. This hooked piece of land jutting into the outer harbor had been a shipbuild-
HISTORICAL ANNOTATION 131
ing site since the mid-eighteenth century. After the War of 1812 it was the construction site for the famous Baltimore clipper ships. By the time of Douglass's arrival, Fells Point was a heavily-populated neighborhood whose residents worked in shipbuilding and other maritime pursuits. Shipyards and wharves for unloading cargo lined its waterfront. To reduce the frequency of yellow fever epidemics, a marshy area between Fells Point and the central city was dredged in the 1820s to form the City Dock, also called the City Block, which added to the Fells Point wharf area. A drawbridge at the entrance to the City Dock connected Block Street in Fells Point to the Basin area wharves. J. Thomas Scharf, History of Baltimore City and County from the Earliest Period to the Present Day (Philadelphia, 1881), 54, 59-60, 292-94; Olson, Baltimore, 52-53, 85.
30.1-2/30.13 their little son Thomas] Thomas Auld (1824-48), the son of Hugh and Sophia Auld and the nephew of Thomas Auld, Aaron Anthony's son-in-law, was the charge of the young slave Douglass. He died in an unsuccessful attempt by the brig Tweed to rescue a sinking British vessel. Benjamin F. Auld to Douglass, 11 September 1891, General Correspondence File, reel 6, frame 240, FD Papers, DLC; Preston, Young Frederick Douglass, 148, 228n10.
30.4/30.17 Sophia Auld] Sophia Keithley Auld (1797-1880) was born in Talbot County, Maryland, to Richard and Hester Keithley. Her parents were poor, devout Methodists who held to the antislavery teachings of their church. Before marrying Hugh Auld, she worked as a weaver. Soon after their marriage, the couple moved to Baltimore, where Hugh worked as a ship's carpenter, master shipbuilder, and shipyard fireman. Between 1826 and 1833, and again in 1836-38, the young slave Frederick Douglass lived and worked in their household. Both Douglass and Sophia Auld retained enormous affection for one another long after Douglass had established himself in the North. Douglass tried to visit Auld in Baltimore during the Civil War. Years after her death, Auld's son Benjamin told Douglass that "mother would always speak in the kindest terms of you, whenever your name was mentioned." Baltimore Sun, 5 July 1880; Benjamin F. Auld to Douglass, 11 September 1891, General Correspondence File, reel 6, frame 240, FD Papers, DLC; Preston, Young Frederick Douglass, 87, 165-66, 168.
31.28/33.12-13 If you give nigger an inch, he will take an ell. A paraphrase of the old English proverb, "For whan I gaue you an ynche, ye tooke an ell." An ell is an antiquated English unit of length equal to forty-five inches. Heywood, Proverbs and Epigrams, 78.
32.35/35.13 Philpot Street] Philpot Street ran east to west, parallel to the waterfront on Fells Point. The Aulds moved to Philpot Street in 1827 or 1828 soon after Hugh Auld began working at Durgin and Bailey's shipyard. Benjamin F. Auld to Douglass, 27 September 1891, General Correspondence File, reel 6, frames 257-58, FD Papers, DLC; Lucas, Plan of the City of Baltimore.
32.35/35.13 Mr. Thomas Hamilton] Thomas Hamilton, a ship carpenter, lived
132 HISTORICAL ANNOTATION
at 22 Philpot Street in Baltimore from at least 1831 through 1838. In 1833 his address was probably incorrectly listed as 18 Philpot Street. Matchett's Baltimore Director[y]. . . 1831, 163; Matchett's Baltimore Director[y]. . . 1833 (Baltimore, 1833), 83; Matchett's Baltimore Director[y] . . . 1835-6, 110; Matchett's Baltimore Director[y] for 1837-8, 154.
33.9/35.31 gip] Gypsy.
34.2/37.13-14 for every mourner that came within her reach] Possibly a loose paraphrase of Prov. 25 : 20-23.
34.38/38.31-32 Durgin and Bailey's ship-yard] John Durgin and Thomas Bailey operated a shipwright business on Philpot Street in Fell's Point in the late 1820s and the 1830s. Douglass later recalled that as a boy he carried Auld's dinner to him while Auld was employed as a carpenter at this shipyard near the Auld home. Bailey continued as a ship carpenter in the same area into the 1830s. Douglass to Benjamin F. Auld, 24 March 1894, SC-163, Mrs. Howard V. Hall Collection of Auld Family Papers, MdAA; Matchett's Baltimore Director[y] . . . 1829 (Baltimore, 1829), 94; Matchett's Baltimore Director[y] . . . 1831, 21; Matchett's Baltimore Director[y] . . . 1835-36, 12.
35.8/39.12 "The Columbian Orator"] Boston schoolteacher and book-seller Caleb Bingham (1757-1817) authored the Columbian Orator (1797; Boston, 1827), one of the first textbooks on English grammar and rhetoric published in the United States. It contained short extracts from speeches by such famous orators as William Pitt, George Washington, Charles James Fox, and Cicero, as well as plays and poems on the themes of patriotism, education, and freedom. The Columbian Orator remained one of the most popular textbooks of its kind in America through the 1820s. Bingham himself contributed an essay on oratorical skills, "General Directions for Speaking," whose rules Douglass followed in his early years as a public speaker. NCAB, 8 : 19; DAB, 2 : 273-74.
35.9-10/39.14-15 a dialogue between a master and his slave] The anonymous "Dialogue between a Master and Slave" is a conversation between a master and slave in which the slave is caught trying to run away for the second time. Bingham, Columbian Orator, 1827 ed., 240-42.
35.19-20/39.27-28 Sheridan's mighty speeches on and in behalf of Catholic Emancipation] Douglass is probably referring to another selection in the anthology entitled "PAlthough Richard Sheridan (1751-1816), the Irish orator, playwright, and politician who entered Parliament in 1780, championed Irish and other reform causes, the only speech extracted in the Columbian Orator is "Mr. Sheridan's Speech Against Mr. Taylor," which is not on Catholic "emancipation."art of Mr. O'Connor's Speech in the Irish House of Commons, in Favor of the Bill for Emancipating the Roman Catholics, 1795." Arthur O'Connor (1763-1852), a liberal Protestant member of the Irish parliament, was a strong supporter of Catholic rights, including "Catholic emancipation" or the right of Catholics to hold office and sit in Parliament. O'Connor resigned his seat after delivering this speech.
HISTORICAL ANNOTATION 133
Bingham, Columbian Orator, 1827 ed., 130-31, 243-48; Dictionary of National Biography, 21 vols. (London, 1921-22), 18 : 78-85, 21 : 394-95.
36.29-30/42.1-2
petitions from the north] The sending of petitions to Congress, calling for an end to the slave trade and to slavery in the District of Columbia, dated back to the early years of the federal government. In 1828, a national petition drive had helped force the House of Representatives to vote on abolishing slavery in the District of Columbia. The newly organized movement for immediate emancipation adopted the petition strategy in the 1830s and deluged Congress with antislavery memorials bearing thousands of signatures. Louis Filler, The Crusade Against Slavery, 1830-1860 (New York, 1960), 3, 99; Russel B. Nye, Fettered Freedom: Civil Liberties and the Slavery Controversy, 1830-1860 (1949; Ann Arbor, Mich., 1963), 41-51.
36.34-35/42.9 on the wharf of Mr. Waters] George P. Waters was a ship chandler and grocer who operated both of his businesses very near the wharf he owned at the south end of Fell Street in Fell's Point. Matchett 's Baltimore Director[y]. . . 1833, 189, 15 (street register); Matchett's Baltimore Director[y] . . . for 1835-6, 267; Lucas, Plan of the City of Baltimore.
37.18/43.9 larboard side] The left side of a ship when looking toward the bow.
37.34/44.1 Webster's Spelling Book] The first version of the spelling book, A Grammatical Institute of the English Language (Hartford, Conn., 1783), by Noah Webster (1758-1843), a Connecticut teacher, editor, and Federalist politician, rapidly became the standard spelling and pronunciation guide in the new nation. In 1788 the title became The American Spelling Book and in 1829 The Elementary Spelling Book. Harry R. Warfel, Noah Webster: Schoolmaster to America (New York, 1936); Richard J. Moss, Noah Webster (Boston, 1984); DAB, 19 : 594-97.
37.39/44.7-8 the Wilk Street meeting-house] The Fifth Methodist Episcopal
Church, on the corner of Wilke (Wilks) Street and Apple Alley, was about seven blocks from Auld's house on Philpot Street. Matchett's Baltimore Director[y] . . . 1831, 16 (street register); Matchett's Baltimore Director[y]. . . 1837-8, 18; Lucas, Plan of the City of Baltimore.
38.8/44.18 youngest son, Richard, died] Douglass is mistaken in believing that Richard died before his father. According to the Anthony Family Bible, Richard did not die until 18 May 1828, and had shared in the division of his father's estate. Harriet Anthony's annotated copy of Bondage and Freedom, folder 93, 173-74, Aaron Anthony Slave Distribution, 27 September 1827, folder 77, both in Dodge Collection, MdAA; Preston, "Aaron Anthony," 5.
38.9/44.20 Captain Anthony, died] Aaron Anthony died on 14 November 1826, at age 59. According to his great-granddaughter Harriet Lucretia Anthony, he was buried in an unmarked grave in the family graveyard on Holme Hill Farm. Harriet Anthony's annotated copy of Bondage and Freedom, folder 93, 173-74, Harriet Anthony mss. notes, 1919, folder 89, 9-11, both in Dodge Collection, MdAA; Preston, Young Frederick Douglass, 29-30.
134 HISTORICAL ANNOTATION
38.19/45.7 Captain Rowe] Captain Joseph H. Rowe lived in Baltimore on Market Street south of Bank Street from at least 1831 through 1836. Matchett's Baltimore Director[y] . . . 1831, 320; Matchett's Baltimore Director[y] . . . 1833, 159; Matchett's Baltimore Director[y] . . . 1835-6, 222.
38.19/45.7-8 the schooner Wild Cat] The schooner Wild Cat was a slow, shallow-draft merchant ship designed to carry cargo up and down the tidal creeks of the Chesapeake Bay. Preston, Young Frederick Douglass, 88.
38.33/45.27 then came the division] Aaron Anthony's heirs, Richard Anthony, Andrew Anthony, and Thomas Auld, agreed to the division of his slaves on 27 September 1827. Twenty-eight slaves, including Frederick Douglass, comprised the division and were valued at $2,805. Frederick was among the slaves awarded to Thomas Auld, widower of Lucretia Anthony Auld. Aaron Anthony Slave Distribution, 27 September 1827, folder 77, Dodge Collection, MdAA; Aaron Anthony Slave Distribution, 22 October 1827, Talbot County Distributions, V.JP#D, 58-59, MdTCH.
39.26/47.5-6 was sent immediately back to Baltimore] After court-appointed appraisers oversaw the actual assignment of Aaron Anthony's slaves to each of his heirs, Douglass probably returned to Baltimore by November 1827 at the latest. Preston, Young Frederick Douglass, 90.
39.31/47.12-13 my mistress, Lucretia, died] Lucretia Anthony Auld died 6 July 1827. Douglass is mistaken in his recollection that he was awarded to Lucretia, as she had died after her father Aaron Anthony but before his estate was settled. County records indicate that Frederick was awarded to her husband Thomas Auld as her heir. Anthony Family Bible, Oxford Museum, Oxford, Md.; Aaron Anthony Slave Distribution, 22 October 1827, Talbot County Distributions, V.JP#D, 58-59, MdTCH; Preston, "Aaron Anthony," 5.
39.32/47.13-14 one child, Amanda] Born in Hillsborough, Maryland, Arianna Amanda Auld Sears (1826-78) was the only child of Thomas and Lucretia Anthony Auld. With her mother's death in 1826 and her father's subsequent remarriage, she fell under the charge of her stepmother Rowena Hambleton Auld. In 1843 she married John L. Sears, a Philadelphia coal merchant, with whom she bore four children. The Sears moved to Philadelphia, but returned to Maryland in the early 1860s, settling in Baltimore. Amanda Auld's childhood acquaintance with Frederick Douglass was reestablished in 1859 when he called upon her while on a speaking engagement in Philadelphia. Douglass and Auld maintained a warm friendship over the years that followed; after her death in 1878, Auld's husband John wrote to Douglass, "God bless you for your kindness to her." Auld Family Bible (courtesy of Carl G. Auld); New York Herald, 6 September 1866; Philadelphia Evening Bulletin, 6 September 1866; John L. Sears to Douglass, 10 January 1878, Thomas E. Sears to Douglass, 1 February 1878, General Correspondence File, reel 3, frames 215-16, reel 3, frame 225, FD Papers, DLC; Preston, Young Frederick Douglass, 30, 106-
HISTORICAL ANNOTATION 135
07, 168-70; McFeely, Frederick Douglass, 297, 306; Roberts, "Visitation of Western Talbot," 245.
39.32-33/47.14-15 after her death, Master Andrew died] Andrew Anthony died in June 1833 but not before he had sold several of Douglass's Bailey relatives to a Mississippi slaveholder. Andrew Anthony Slave Distribution, 28 August 1835, Talbot County Distributions, V.JB#D, 1825-45, 185-86, MdTCH; Preston, Young Frederick Douglass, 110, 225.
40.20-21/48.20-21 the slave's poet, Whittier] Born in Haverhill, Massachusetts, Quaker poet and abolitionist John Greenleaf Whittier (1807-72) was a journalist and editor for such journals as Free Press, American Manufacturer, Washington (D.C.) National Era, and the Atlantic Monthly. Among Whittier's volumes of poetry are Voices of Freedom (1846), The Panorama and Other Poems (1856), and At Sundown (1890). Douglass often quoted Whittier's poems in his speeches. Edward Wagenknecht, John Greenleaf Whittier: A Portrait in Paradox (New York, 1967); DAB. 20 : 174.
40.33/48.33 Woe is me, my stolen daughters] Douglass quotes the first twelve lines from the 1838 poem, "The Farewell of a Virginia Slave Mother to Her Daughter Sold into Southern Bondage," by John G. Whittier. The Poetical Works of John Greenleaf Whittier, 4 vols. (Boston, 1892), 3 : 56.
41.13/49.25 Rowena Hamilton] Rowena Hambleton Auld (1812-42) was the eldest daughter of William Hambleton, a wealthy slaveowner in Martingham, Maryland. She became the second wife of Thomas Auld on 21 May 1829. Auld Family Bible (Courtesy of Carl G. Auld); Preston, Young Frederick Douglass, 106-07; Roberts, "Visitation of Western Talbot," 245.
41.14/49.26 Mr. William Hamilton] William Hambleton (c. 1783-?), not Hamilton, descended from an old Eastern Shore family and lived at Martingham, a Talbot County plantation. He was the father of Rowena Hambleton Auld and the brother of "Purser" Samuel Hambleton who had won national fame as a hero at the Battle of Lake Erie. In 1850 Hambleton possessed real estate valued at $10,000 and owned ten slaves. 1850 U.S. Census, Maryland, Talbot County, 1016 (schedule of free inhabitants), 32 (slave schedule); Preston, Young Frederick Douglass, 108, 109, 130.
41.17/49.30 to live with himself at St. Michael's] Hugh Auld returned Douglass to Thomas Auld in St. Michaels in March 1833 not 1832 as Douglass erroneously believed at the time of writing the Narrative. Preston, Young Frederick Douglass, 104-05.
41.35/50.21 Captain Edward Dodson] Edward Dodson was captain of a packet ship that conveyed passengers and freight between St. Michaels, Talbot County, and Baltimore during the early nineteenth century. In 1830 he was in his twenties and lived in Talbot County. The members of his household included three children, two white women both in their twenties, and a slightly older free black woman. 1830 U.S. Census, Maryland, Talbot County, 37; Tilghman, Talbot County, 2 : 396.
41.37/50.24 on reaching North Point] North Point, on Chesapeake Bay east of Baltimore, is located at the mouth of the Patapsco River at the tip of Patapsco River Neck. To reach northern ports from Baltimore, ships traveled around North Point and headed north on the bay to the Chesapeake and Delaware Canal, which opened to navigation in 1830. Scharf, Baltimore City and County, map preceding p. 13; George Rogers Taylor, The Transportation Revolution, 1815-1860 (New York, 1951), 41-42.
42.5-6/51.4 at St. Michael's, in March, 1832] Actually March 1833.
42.25/52.4 my aunt Priscilla] Priscilla Bailey (1816-?), the eleventh of twelve children born to Isaac and Betsey Bailey, was a slave belonging to Aaron Anthony. When Anthony died in 1826, his son Richard Lee Anthony inherited her. Aaron Anthony Slave Distribution, 22 October 1827, Talbot County Distributions, V.JP#D, 58-59, MdTCH; Preston, Young Frederick Douglass, 18, 206.
42.26/52.4 Henny] Henny Bailey (1816-?), a cousin of Frederick Douglass, was one of seven children born to Milly Bailey, a slave on one of Aaron Anthony's farms. Henny was apparently ill-fitted for work: Anthony estimated her value at fifty dollars, in 1826, less than half the value he placed on her younger cousin Frederick. When Anthony died in 1826, his son-in-law Thomas Auld inherited Bailey and four other slaves. Some time before 1840, Auld granted Bailey her freedom. The last record of Henny's existence is an entry in the 1840 U.S. Census, which identifies her as a free black, between the age of thirty-six and fifty-five, living in St. Michaels District. Inventory of Negroes owned by Aaron Anthony, 19 December 1826, folder 71, Aaron Anthony, Ledger B, 1812-1826, folder 95, 159, both in Dodge Collection, MdAA; Aaron Anthony Slave Distribution, 22 October 1827, Talbot County Distributions, V.JP#D, 58-59, MdTCH; 1840 U.S. Census, Maryland, Talbot County, 42; Preston, Young Frederick Douglass, 91, 174, 225n14.
43.29-30/53.30-31my master attended a Methodist camp-meeting] Douglass accompanied his master, Thomas Auld, to some of the services at a Methodist camp meeting held at Haddaway's Woods on what is presently known as the Tilghman Peninsula along the Chesapeake. The meeting lasted from 16 to 21 August 1833 and attracted people from as far as Baltimore, Preston, Young Frederick Douglass, 111-13.
44.9/54.24-25 Mr. Storks] The Reverend Levi Storks was the circuit preacher of the Talbot Circuit of the Methodist Episcopal Church in 1832 and 1833. When the British invaded the Eastern Shore in 1814, Storks served as a private in a local regiment. In 1820 he was probably an overseer in Talbot County and in 1834, he married Anne G. Nicholson. 1820 U.S. Census, Maryland, Talbot County, 6; William M. Marine, The British Invasion of Maryland, 1812-1815 (Baltimore, 1913), 451; Edith G. Bevan, "Maryland Bookplates," MdHM, 39 : 93-94 (March
1944); Thomas H. Sewell, "St. Michaels Methodism" (unpublished paper, 1894), 717, 723, MdAA.
HISTORICAL ANNOTATION 137
44.9/54.25 Mr. Ewery] In 1832, William Uriey (c. 1810-80) was a circuit preacher for the Methodist Episcopal Church's Talbot Circuit, which included St. Michaels Parish. Sewell, "St. Michaels Methodism," 717.
44.9/54.25 Mr. Humphry] Joshua Humphries (c. 1801-79) entered the Methodist Episcopal ministry in 1829 and soon became a prominent member of that faith in Talbot County. In 1834 he was the presiding elder and circuit preacher for the Talbot Circuit. Humphries continued in charge in the Talbot Circuit in 1835 when he issued an important report on the state of Sunday schools. James M. McCarter and Benjamin F. Jackson, eds., Historical and Biographical Encyclopedia of Delaware (Wilmington, Del., 1882), 410; Sewell, "St. Michaels Methodism;" 675, 730.
44.9/54.25 Mr. Hickey] William—or possibly Thomas—Hickey was a Methodist preacher who in the 1830s rode a circuit which included St. Michaels Parish. Sewell, "St. Michaels Methodism," 723; Preston, Young Frederick Douglass, 114, 226n16.
44.10/54.26 Mr. George Cookman] Born into a wealthy family in Hull, England, George Cookman (1800-41) began working in his father's merchant firm at the age of twenty. Between 1821 and 1823, he visited the United States on business and during this sojourn became convinced of his duty to preach the gospel. Despite his father's protestations, he resolved to settle permanently in America and become a Methodist minister. Soon after migrating in 1825, Cookman became a popular figure in the Methodists' Philadelphia Conference, preaching throughout parts of Pennsylvania, New Jersey, Maryland, and the District of Columbia. His powerful sermons won him the position of chaplain to the U.S. Congress. As revivals were sweeping the Eastern Shore, Cookman became the minister of the St. Michaels Methodist Episcopal church in the summer of 1829 and labored to hold it in the denomination. He remained in that position at least through the early 1830s. By 1830 Cookman was married and had two young sons. He had some antislavery leanings and apparently persuaded Samuel Harrison, one of Talbot County's largest slaveholders, to emancipate all of his adult male slaves in his will. In March 1841, the steamship President on which Cookman was sailing for England was lost at sea. 1830 U.S. Census, Maryland, Talbot County, 6; Matthew Simpson, ed., Cyclopaedia of Methodism, 5th rev. ed. (Philadelphia, 1882), 255-56; Preston, Young Frederick Douglass, 114-15, 226n17; Sewell, "St Michaels Methodism," 665-67, 675-76, 677-78, 680, 707; ACAB, 1 : 722.
44.12/54.29 Mr. Samuel Harrison] Samuel Harrison (?-1837) was one of the wealthiest slaveholders in Talbot County: in 1802 he inherited a lucrative import and export business from his father Thomas Harrison. He increased his fortune in the 1810s by lending money and supplies to those engaged in the then booming shipbuilding industry of Talbot County and by 1830 he owned 84 slaves. At the request of his friend and confidante, the Reverend George Cookman, Harrison stipulated in his will that all adult male slaves be manumitted upon his death. 1830
U.S. Census, Maryland, Talbot County, 42; Tilghman, Talbot County, 2 : 379, 383, 389-90, 397; Preston, Young Frederick Douglass, 115, 226n17.
44.21/55.8 Mr. Wilson] Nathan Wilson (c. 1797-c. 1861), an unmarried Quaker about fifty years old, taught at a local school for whites in the early 1840s near Denton in Caroline County, only a few miles from Talbot County. While Quakerism no longer was the influential religious force on the Eastern Shore that it had been in the eighteenth century, numerous Quakers remained in the region and some continued to argue against slavery and for teaching the slaves to read the Scriptures. This particular teacher could plausibly have been interested in opening a Sabbath school for blacks, as could have any of the other various Quaker Wilsons who populated Talbot and other Eastern Shore counties. Among other local whites interested in black education was Louisa Hambleton from the Eastern Shore's famous first family, who unsuccessfully attempted to open a Sabbath school for St. Michaels' slaves in 1843. Robert Todd, Methodism of the Peninsula (Philadelphia, 1886), 249-53; Kenneth Carroll, Quakerism on the Eastern Shore (Baltimore, 1970), 219, 245; Sewell, "St. Michaels Methodism;" 687.
44.23/55.11 Mr. West] Garretson West (1800-53) was famous among Methodists in St. Michaels, Maryland, for his religious enthusiasm and moral zeal. Although he worked first as an oysterman and later as a teamster, West primarily devoted himself to spurring public prayer, exhorting the faithful at the Methodist classes he led, and—despite his illiteracy—conversing at length with others over the meaning of various biblical passages. In 1829, West was elected to the board of trustees of the Methodist church in St. Michaels and held that position until 1836.
He also was appointed that church's sexton in 1830 and again in 1836. At the time of his death, West was married, had at least one child, and had accumulated little wealth. 1850 U.S. Census, Maryland, Talbot County, 80; Tilghman, Talbot County, 2 : 400-01; Todd, Methodism of the Peninsula, 113-23; Preston, Young Frederick Douglass, 116; Sewell, "St. Michaels Methodism," 672-74, 680-81, 701. 707, 727.
44.23/55.12 Mr. Fairbanks] Wrightson Fairbank or Fairbanks (c. 1806-?) was a resident of Talbot County who in 1850 worked as a merchant and headed a household that included his wife, four children, and two female relatives. He owned neither land nor slaves. Fairbanks was an active member of the Methodist Episcopal Church in St. Michaels and ran unsuccessfully for the board of trustees of the parish in September 1835, 1850 U.S. Census, Maryland, Talbot County, 80; Sewell, "St. Michaels Methodism," 725.
44.32—33/55.25 beaten with many stripes] A paraphrase of Luke 12 : 47.
45.25/57.5-6 Edward Covey] Edward Covey (1806?-75), who started out as a poor farm-renter from Talbot County, Maryland, managed to accumulate $23,000 in real estate by 1850. Covey's reputation as a slave breaker enabled him to rent or even to receive the free use of field hands from local slaveowners anxious to have their slaves taught proper discipline. Harriet Lucretia Anthony, the great
granddaughter of Aaron Anthony, remembered that "Mr. Covey was really noted for his cruelty and meanness." Inventory of the Estate of Edward Covey, 15 May 1875, Talbot County Inventories, TNC#3, 578, MdTCH; Harriet Anthony's annotated copy of My Bondage and My Freedom, folder 93, 203, Dodge Collection, MdAA; 1850 U.S. Census, Maryland, Talbot County, 240 (schedule of free inhabitants); Preston, Young Frederick Douglass, 117-31.
46.13/58.15 in-hand . . . off-hand] In a team of harnessed animals, the in-hand one is directly under control of the driver.
50.5/65.4 ague] A fit of shaking or shivering, often accompanying a violent fever.
50.27/66.2 Bill Smith] Bill Smith (1804-?) was a slave owned by Samuel Harrison of Rich Neck Manor and hired out as a servant to Edward Covey in 1834. Smith probably received his freedom in 1837, as Samuel Harrison's will stipulated that all adult male slaves should be freed upon his death. Simpson, Cyclopaedia of Methodism, 225; Preston, Young Frederick Douglass, 119, 122, 123, 128, 226n17.
50.28/66.4 fanning wheat] Exposing cut grain to the wind to have the chaff blown away.
51.1-2/66.21 treading-yard] Place where plants are beaten down into a smaller size for storage by means of treading.
52.29/69.19 Mrs. Kemp's fields] Elizabeth Doyle Kemp (c. 1787-?) probably owned a farm adjacent to the farm Edward Covey rented from her son, John. Married to the shipbuilder Thomas Kemp in Baltimore in November 1809, Elizabeth moved with him in 1816 to a 236-acre farm, Wades Point, west of the town of St. Michaels in Talbot County. After his death in March 1824, most of his property was divided between his two eldest sons, Thomas and John, but provisions were also made for Elizabeth. In 1830 she was the head of a household which comprised
five white males, two white females, six male slaves, and three female slaves. 1830 U.S. Census, Maryland, Talbot County, 38; M. Florence Bourne, "Thomas Kemp, Shipbuilder, and His Home, Wades Point," MdHM, 49 : 271-89 (December 1954); Preston, Young Frederick Douglass, 118.
52.38/69.32 Sandy Jenkins] Sandy Jenkins was a slave owned by William Groomes of Easton, Maryland, who often hired him out to farmers in Talbot County. Preston, Young Frederick Douglass, 125-26, 131, 134-36, 138-39, 227n3.
57.5-6/77.4 Mr. William Freeland] William Freeland, the son of William and Elizabeth Freeland of Talbot County, Maryland, was a farmer and slaveowner near St. Michaels. The 1820 U.S. Census lists William as a young adult between sixteen and twenty-five years of age. Between 1820 and 1830, and perhaps later, he lived in a household headed by his mother. They shared their home with two white boys and six slaves. By 1830 the Freeland's household had diminished: Elizabeth and William now lived with only one young white man and four slaves. 1820 U.S.
Census, Maryland, Talbot County, 10; 1830 U.S. Census, Maryland, Talbot County, 35.
57.32/78.9 the Rev. Daniel Weeden] Daniel Weeden (c. 1794-?) was a farmer and Methodist minister in Talbot County. Although an overseer without any of his own slaves in 1820, Weeden appears by 1830 to have become an independent farmer with two slaves and a growing family. By 1850 he owned six slaves. In 1839 Weeden forced a free black man back into slavery by revealing that he had served time in a Maryland jail. He then purchased the man at a greatly reduced price. By the early 1840s Weeden was well established as a local minister, having presided over a number of Talbot County weddings in 1843 and 1844. 1820 U.S. Census, Maryland, Talbot County, 7; 1830 U.S. Census, Maryland, Talbot County, 32; 1840 U.S. Census, Maryland, Talbot County, 36a; 1850 U.S. Census, Maryland, Talbot County, 37 (slave schedule); Preston, Young Frederick Douglass, 130, 227n8; Charles Montgomery Haddaway III, "Marriages Recorded in Talbot County Newspapers: 1819-1823, 1841-1843, & 1870," MdHM. 81 : 254, 260, 262, 267, 268, 270 (Fall 1986).
57.32-33/78.10 the Rev. Rigby Hopkins] Rigby Hopkins was a Methodist minister who had long lived and farmed in Talbot County. In 1830 he was between 50 and 60 years old and had within his household two white males, six white females, and one black female. While in 1820 he owned seventeen slaves, in 1830 he had none, possibly indicating a preference for renting black labor by then. 1820 U.S. Census, Maryland, Talbot County, 19; 1830 U.S. Census, Maryland, Talbot County, 31; Preston, Young Frederick Douglass, 130.
57.33-34/78.11-12 the Reformed Methodist Church] An agitation for greater lay authority inside the Methodist Episcopal Church resulted in the expulsion of a small number of members and some congregations from the Methodist Episcopal Church in the mid-1820s. Additional sympathizers of this reform movement withdrew and formed the Associate Methodist Church in 1828, soon after renamed the Methodist Protestant Church. This controversy inspired a large majority of the members of the Sardis Chapel in St. Michaels to affiliate with the new denomination. The minority led by the Reverend George Cookman and Garretson West successfully retained the original church building and eventually rebuilt their congregation's numbers. In the late 1850s, the Methodist Protestant Church underwent a sectional schism over the slavery issue as had its parent Methodist Episcopal Church in the mid-1840s and the Maryland conference sided with the South. Sewell, "St. Michaels Methodism," 674-99; Ancel H. Bassett, A Concise History of the Methodist Protestant Church from Its Origin (Pittsburgh, 1887), 167-221; Simpson, Cyclopaedia of Methodism, 602-07.
62.11/85.29 " . . . that we knew not of"] Hamlet, act 3, sc. 1, lines 81-82.
62.13/85.31-86.1 resolved upon liberty or death] Douglass paraphrases Patrick Henry's speech in a Virginia revolutionary convention, on 23 March 1775. William Wirt, Sketches of the Life and Character of Patrick Henry, 7th ed. (New York, 1835), 141.
62.17/86.6 Henry Bailey] Henry Bailey (1820-?) was the youngest of twelve
children born to Douglass's maternal grandparents, Isaac and Betsey Bailey. Henry was owned by Aaron Anthony of Talbot County; when Anthony died in 1826, Henry became the property of Richard Lee Anthony. When Richard died in 1828, Thomas Auld, Richard's brother-in-law, became Henry's master. Aaron Anthony Slave Distribution, 22 October 1827, Talbot County Distributions, V.JP#D, pp. 58-59, MdTCH; Preston, Young Frederick Douglass, 18, 109, 206.
62.22/87.1 Easter holidays] Easter Sunday in 1836 fell on 3 April.
64.21-22/89.24 Tom Graham, the constable] Thomas Graham was the constable for St. Michaels Parish in 1833 and the next-door neighbor of Thomas Auld. In 1830 he was between the age of forty and fifty, married, the father of one son, and the owner of one female slave. He appears to have died between 1846 and 1850 as he was not listed in the census for the latter year. After the publication of the Narrative, Graham publicly disputed Douglass's characterization of his treatment by Auld. Lib., 20 February 1846; 1830 U.S. Census, Maryland, Talbot County, 39; 1840 U.S. Census, Maryland, Talbot County, 48a; Preston, Young Frederick Douglass, 116, 136-37.
65.28-29/91.23-24 the sheriff, Mr. Joseph Graham] Joseph Graham (c. 1797-?) was the sheriff of Talbot County in 1836. By 1830 he was married and the father of two young daughters. Graham was still alive in 1878 when Douglass returned to visit Talbot County. 1830 U.S. Census, Maryland, Talbot County, 36; Preston, Young Frederick Douglass, 139, 190.
66.36/93.24-25 to my old home at Baltimore] Douglass returned to Baltimore in mid-April 1836. While Douglass makes no mention of the Aulds having moved, Benjamin Auld thought that his family had moved from Philpot Street to "Fell Street" around 1834. The Baltimore city directories list Hugh Auld as residing on Philpot Street until 1837, when he is listed as a shipwright on "Falls Street south of Thames." Benjamin F. Auld to Douglass, 27 September 1891, General Correspondence File, reel 6, frames 257-58, FD Papers, DLC; Matchett's Baltimore Director[y] . . . 1837-8, 50.
67.14/94.17 cant] To tilt or turn over an object.
67.18/94.22 fall] The loose end of a hoisting tackle.
67.22/94.28 bowse] To haul an object by means of a tackle.
67.37-38/95.19-20 at once to put a stop to it] Most free blacks in Baltimore held jobs as laborers, draymen, and servants, though they also held such craft positions as carpenter, blacksmith, barber, and caulker. They dominated the latter two trades through the 1850s. In the mid-1830s Baltimore witnessed increasing mob violence, brought on by worsening economic conditions and the failure of the Bank of Maryland in 1834. Claiming that free blacks were depriving them of jobs, white Baltimore workers unsuccessfully petitioned the Maryland legislature in the 1830s and 1840s to restrict free blacks from working in certain trades. Economic competition between the races continued, and in 1845 Dr. R. S. Steuart of Baltimore claimed that white labor had driven blacks out of many unskilled jobs in the Fells
142 HISTORICAL ANNOTATION
Point area. "The Condition of the Coloured Population of the City of Baltimore," Baltimore Literary and Religious Magazine 4 : 174-75 (April 1838); Ira Berlin, Slaves Without Masters: The Free Negro in the Antebellum South (New York, 1974), 217-49; Jeffrey R. Brackett, The Negro in Maryland: A Study of the Institution of Slavery (Baltimore, 1889), 210; James M. Wright, The Free Negro in Maryland, 1634-1860 (New York, 1921), 154-55, 172; Olson, Baltimore, 98-101; M. Ray Delia, Jr., "The Problems of Negro Labor in the 1850s," MdHM, 66 :
25 (Spring 1971).
68.27/96.28 death by Lynch law] The actual individual for whom the term
"lynch law" derived its name has been disputed but the expression was in common use by the early nineteenth century as a description for the punishment of individuals without due process of law. David C. Roller and Robert W. Twyman, eds., The Encyclopedia of Southern History (Baton Rogue, 1979), 762-64.
69.4-5/97.19 to Esquire Watson's, on Bond Street] William H. Watson (?-
1846) was a justice of the peace and prominent attorney, who lived at 76 Bond Street in Baltimore's Fells Point district in the late 1830s. He joined a Baltimore volunteer battalion as a captain during the war with Mexico. Watson quickly rose to the rank of lieutenant colonel but died in the Battle of Monterey in October 1846. Matchett 's Baltimore Director[y] . . . 1837-8, 321; J. Thomas Scharf, The Chronicles of Baltimore; Being a Complete History of "Baltimore Town " and Baltimore City from the Earliest Period to the Present Time (Baltimore, 1874), 516, 517; Morris Radoff, ed., The Old Line State: A History of Maryland (Baltimore, 1971), 258.
69.28/98.21 Mr. Walter Price] Walter Price, whose family had long been
engaged in shipbuilding, operated a shipyard on Fell Street south of Thames Street along the waterfront in the 1830s. By the latter part of the decade, a number of Baltimore shipbuilders had begun construction of fleet clippers which found their way into the international slave trade. Brazilian and Cuban slave traders prized these ships for their ability to evade the British blockade of Africa's Slave Coast. Benjamin Auld thought that Hugh Auld began working for Walter Price about 1834, after serving a short period as a master builder in partnership with Edward Harrison. Both Auld and Douglass worked for Price during the construction of at least three ships, which he covertly sold in Cuba or Brazil. Matchett's Baltimore Director[y]. . . 1837-8, 258; Benjamin F. Auld to Douglass, 27 September 1891, General Correspondence File, reel 6, frames 257-58, FD Papers, DLC; Howard I. Chapelle, The Search for Speed Under Sail, 1700-1855 (New York, 1967), 297-312; Preston, Young Frederick Douglass, 145-47, 228n8.
69.31 /98.25-26 to the most experienced calkers] Blacks, both free and slave, dominated the semi-skilled caulking occupation in Baltimore in the 1830s. The largest Baltimore slaveholders in the 1810s and 1820s included master ship-builders who used slave caulkers in their own shipyards or hired them out to other shipbuilders. Though information on caulkers' wages in the 1830s is elusive, free black caulkers earned $1.50 per day in 1812 and during the height of wartime
building had raised their daily wages to $1.67 1/4. Slave caulkers in the same year earned $1.25 to $1.31 1/4 per day. By 1838 free blacks had formed their own organization, the Caulker's Beneficial Association. Controlling the trade through the 1850s, by the end of that decade members of the Association were receiving $1.75 a day, while their apprentices were paid $1.50. The black caulkers owed their power to an alliance with the white shipwrights' association to control wages and conditions in shipbuilding. Blacks' hold on the trade was shaken when clashes erupted in 1858 between black Association members and white caulkers who were willing to accept lower wages. Blacks faced increasing discrimination in the 1860s, prompting black carpenters and caulkers to organize their own shipyard in 1866. In 1871 Douglass visited the Fells Point shipbuilding area and commented on the success of the black shipyard, noting that the "leading shipbuilders [of] forty years ago, are all gone, and have not even left their firms behind to perpetuate their names." Ironically, in 1836-38 some of the Fells Point shipyards where Douglass worked as a caulker built ships destined for the illegal African slave trade. [Washington, D.C.] New National Era, 6 July 1871; ''Condition of the Coloured Population," 174; Charles G. Steffen, The Mechanics of Baltimore: Workers and Politics in the Age of the Revolution, 1763-1812 (Urbana, Ill., 1984), 38-42; Barbara Jeanne Fields, Slavery and Freedom on the Middle Ground: Maryland During the Nineteenth Century (New Haven, 1985), 37-38, 40-62; Wright, Free Negro in Maryland, 154-55; Preston, Young Frederick Douglass,
145-47, 228; Bettye C. Thomas, "A Nineteenth Century Black Operated Shipyard, 1866-1884: Reflections upon its Inception and Ownership," JNH, 59 : 1-3 (January 1974); Delia, "Problems of Negro Labor," 14-32.
71.6/101.6 the underground railroad] Northern blacks along with some sympathetic white supporters maintained a loose, clandestine system to clothe, feed, and shelter fugitive slaves from the South. In addition, "vigilance committees" operated in many northern communities to expose the presence of slave hunters and, on occasion, to rescue fugitives in the process of rendition to their masters. Larry Gara, The Liberty Line: The Legend of the Underground Railroad (Lexington, Ky., 1961), passim.
72.8/102.31-32 came to Baltimore to purchase his spring goods] This visit
apparently occurred in March 1838. McFeely, Frederick Douglass, 64.
73.5/103.1 allow me to hire my time] In the urban South masters commonly hired their slaves out to other employers for specified periods of time. The less common practice of allowing their slaves to seek their own employment and pay their masters a specified sum grew over time, causing public fears that it would undermine the slave system itself. The Maryland legislature periodically passed legislation to control or abolish this practice, with little result. Richard C. Wade, Slavery in the Cities: The South, 1820-1860 (New York, 1964), 38-54; Robert S. Starobin, Industrial Slavery in the Old South (New York, 1970), 128-37; Brackett, Negro in Maryland, 104-08, 174.
73.7-8/104.22-23 my attending a camp meeting] Douglass attended a camp
meeting on the weekend of 4-5 August 1838. Revivals abounded in the South in the hot month of August, two more occurring near Baltimore the following weekend. Baltimore Sun, 8 August 1838; Preston, Young Frederick Douglass, 152-53.
73.38/106.2-3 Mr. Butler, at his ship-yard] Samuel Butler, a Baltimore ship
carpenter, established a shipyard in 1819 in partnership with Robert Lambdin. Apparently Lambdin moved to St. Michaels, Talbot County, in 1830 while maintaining his financial interest in the yard. Butler remained to manage the operation throughout the 1830s during which time it launched the noted ship Catherine. Entries for Samuel Butler, a ship carpenter on Exeter Street, and Robert Lamden, a ship carpenter on City Block, appear in the 1840 city directory. Matchett's Baltimore Director[y], for 1840-41 (Baltimore, n.p.), 86, 221; Chapelle, Search for Speed Under Sail, 302; John Philips Cranwell, ed., "Ship-Building on the Chesapeake: Recollections of Robert Dawson Lambdin," MdHM, 36 : 172 (June 1941); Lewis Addison Beck, "The Seaman and the Seaman's Bride, Baltimore Clipper Ships" MdHM. 51 : 305 (December 1956).
74.31/107.16-17 succeeded in reaching New York] Not until 1881 did Doug-
lass publicly reveal the details of his escape from slavery. On 3 September 1838, he boarded a train bound from Baltimore to New York City. Douglass had borrowed the uniform and seaman's protection papers of a free black friend in Baltimore. Fortunately for Douglass the conductor did not check the description in the papers carefully and several white acquaintances on the train failed to recognize him. Douglass, "My Escape from Slavery" Century Magazine, 23 : 125-31 (November 1881), reprinted in idem, Life and Times of Frederick Douglass (1894; New York, 1941), 218-23.
75.36/109.16 Mr. DAVID RUGGLES] David Ruggles (1810-49), a free black
man, was bom and educated in Norwich, Connecticut. In 1827 he moved to New York, where he worked as a grocer. In 1834 he opened a printing and book shop that specialized in abolitionist literature. Ruggles became active in the New York antislavery movement, serving as a writer, lecturer, and traveling agent for the reform publication, Emancipator and Journal of Public Morals. He also was a conductor on the Underground Railroad, editor of the Genius of Freedom and the Mirror of Liberty, and secretary to the New York Vigilance Committee. His career in the antislavery movement ended abruptly in 1842 when temporary blindness, an illness that would plague him for the remainder of his life, forced him to curtail his activities and seek medical attention. At the Northampton Association of Education and Industry in Florence, Massachusetts, he underwent hydrotherapy, which temporarily relieved his blindness. Soon thereafter he began a new career as a hydrotherapist in Northampton, Massachusetts, treating such celebrated individuals as Sojourner Truth and William Lloyd Garrison. His reputation as a hydrotherapist gave him a prominence that rivaled his stature as an abolitionist. NASS, 20 December 1849; Lib., 21 December 1849; New York Evangelist, 21 December
1849; ASB, 29 December 1849; NS, 1 February 1850; I. Garland Penn, Afro-American Press and Its Editors (Springfield, Mass., 1891), 118; Rayford W. Logan and Michael R. Winston, eds., Dictionary of American Negro Biography (New York, 1982), 536-38.
76.5/109.26-27 the memorable Darg case] The Darg case became a celebrated example of the persecution of abolitionists by established local authorities and proslavery newspapers. In August 1838, Thomas Hughes, a slave, escaped from his owner, John P. Darg of Arkansas, while the two were in New York City. Hughes also stole approximately $8,000 from Darg. He soon sought assistance from Isaac T. Hopper, a leading Quaker abolitionist. Suspicious of Hughes, Hopper housed him for only one night and soon thereafter learned of the stolen money. While Hopper did not want to harbor a felon, he also did not want to return a man to slavery. Seeking counsel from David Ruggles and other abolitionists, Hopper learned that Darg would free Hughes and not charge him if all of his money was returned. The abolitionists immediately commenced recovering the money but local police officials working with Darg were intent upon convicting Hopper, Ruggles, Barney Corse, and others as accomplices to the theft. Only after sixteen months of legal hearings and the brief imprisonment of both Ruggles and Corse did the prosecution abandon its case as hopeless. The outcome for Hughes is not known. New York Colored American, 15 September 1838, 26 January 1839; Isaac T. Hopper, Exposition of the Proceedings of John P. Darg, Henry W. Merrill, and Others, in Relation to the Robbery of Darg, . . . (New York, 1840); Dorothy B. Porter, "David M. Ruggles, An Apostle of Human Rights," JNH, 28 : 23-50 (January 1943).
76.18/110.13 the Rev. J. W. C. Pennington] Born into slavery as Jim Pembroke, James William Charles Pennington (1809-71) was owned by Frisbie Tilghman of Maryland's Eastern Shore until the age of twenty-one, when he fled north to the home of a Pennsylvania Quaker who taught him to read and write. Later Pennington found work in Long Island, attended night school and private tutorials, and taught black children in Newtown, New York, and New Haven, Connecticut. In 1840, after studying theology in New Haven, Pennington entered the Congregational ministry in Hartford, Connecticut, where he ministered to a black congregation. In 1847 he left to serve another black church in New York City. Committed to a variety of reform causes such as temperance, missionary work, and world peace, Pennington's greatest exertions were devoted to the antislavery movement. In 1843 he traveled to England as a delegate-at-large to the World's Anti-Slavery Convention in London and lectured throughout Europe. Fearing recapture after the passage of the Fugitive Slave Law, Pennington again traveled abroad in 1850, remaining there until a Hartford friend, John Hooker, was able to purchase his freedom. In addition to many sermons, addresses, and regular contributions to the Anglo-African Magazine, Pennington wrote A Text Book of the Origins and History, &c., &c. of the Colored People (1841), and an autobiography.
J. W. C. Pennington, The Fugitive Blacksmith, 3d ed. (London, 1850); DANB, 488-90; DAB, 14 : 441-42.
76.18-19/110.14 Mrs. Michaels] In the late 1830s, Mrs. D. Michaels owned
and operated a boardinghouse in New York City at 33-36 Lespanard Street. She was married to Joseph Michaels who made floor mats and dealt in scrap metal, glass, and rags. [New York] Weekly Advocate, 14 January 1837; [New York] Colored American, 20 October 1838.
76.30/111.1-2 Mr. Shaw in Newport] George C. Shaw lived in Newport,
Rhode Island. In 1840, he was the corresponding secretary for the Newport Anti-Slavery Society, a group supporting William Lloyd Garrison's New England Anti-Slavery Society. Lib., 21 February 1840.
77.1 /111.11 Joseph Ricketson] Joseph Ricketson (1771-1841) was the owner of a candle factory and oil refinery in New Bedford, Massachusetts. He also helped form the New Bedford Fire Society in 1807, served as a cashier and a director of the New Bedford Commercial Bank and as a trustee of the New Bedford Lyceum and Antheneum. Ricketson was a Quaker and committed to various reform and antislavery endeavors. Although a scrupulously honest and hard-working businessman, Ricketson's last years were spent close to poverty because of several serious business reversals. Henry H. Crapo, The New Bedford Directory [for 1836] (New Bedford, 1836), 18; idem, The New Bedford Directory [for 1841] (New Bedford, 1841), 30; Vital Records of New Bedford, Massachusetts, to the Year 1850, 3 vols. (Boston, 1932), 1 : 386, 3 : 138; Leonard Bolles Ellis, History of New Bedford and Its Vicinity, 1602-1892 (Syracuse, 1892), 252, 509, 516, 517, 629; Our County and Its People: Descriptive and Biographical Record of Bristol County, Massachusetts (Boston, 1899), 351nl, 353, 406; Daniel Ricketson, The History of New Bedford, Bristol County, Massachusetts (New Bedford, 1858), 232-34; Hurd, Bristol County, 92, 105, 111.
77. 21/111.11-12 William C. Taber] A descendant of one of the earliest settlers of New Bedford, Massachusetts, William C. Taber (1797-?) operated a profitable store which sold books, stationery, charts, and engravings. In the 1850s Taber led local businessmen in converting from whale oil for illumination to gas, coal oil, and kerosene and was the first president of the New Bedford Gas-Light Company. He was long active in the city's financial institutions, having served at different times as a director of both the Marine Bank and the New Bedford Institution For Savings. Taber also represented New Bedford at one point in the Massachusetts legislature. An ardent Quaker, Taber held the post of first clerk at the New Bedford Monthly Meeting for nineteen years. He married Hannah Shearman of the same town. Crapo, New Bedford Directory [for 1836], 84; idem, New Bedford Directory [for 1841], 19; idem, New Bedford Directory [for 1845], 14; idem, The New Bedford Directory [for 1856] (New Bedford, 1856), 164; Hurd, Bristol County, 91-92, 105, 148; Ellis, New Bedford, 422, 469, 475, 517, 566, 638, 721; Our County, 353-54, 372-73, 416-17, and "Personal References," 343.
77.7/111.19 Mr. and Mrs. Johnson] Owners of a confectionery shop and a
thriving catering business, Nathan Johnson (?-1880) and Mary Page Johnson (?-c. 1870) were two of the most prominent blacks in New Bedford, Massachusetts. They had helped and housed black fugitives on many occasions and Nathan had long been an active abolitionist, serving as a manager of the American Anti-Slavery Society at one point. In 1832, Nathan represented New Bedford at the National Negro Convention in Philadelphia and in 1837 he was one of three local African Americans chosen to question all county political candidates as to their view on slavery and the slave trade. Johnson left New Bedford for California in 1849 and did not return until 1871 after his wife, who had remained behind, died. [New York] Colored American, 18 November 1837; Henry H. Crapo, The New Bedford Directory [for 1838] (New Bedford, 1838), 77; Vital Records of New Bedford, 2 : 309, 396; Barbara Clayton and Kathleen Whitley, Guide to New Bedford (Chester, Conn., 1979), 134-35; Merrill and Ruchames, Garrison Letters, 2 : 712; McFeely, Frederick Douglass, 76, 77, 78, 84.
77.26-27/112.15 the "Lady of the Lake,"] Sir Walter Scott (1771-1832)
published The Lady of the Lake in Edinburgh in 1810. Ellen Douglas and her father, Lord James of Douglas, are the principal characters. The Poetic Works of Sir Walter Scott, 12 vols. (Edinburgh, 1880.) 8 : 8, 63, 75-76; Paul Harvey, ed., The Oxford Companion to English Literature, 4th ed. (New York, 1967), 458, 735-36.
79.1-2/114.28 ". . . and he took me in"] Douglass paraphrases Matt. 25 : 35.
80.8/116.25 the "Liberator."] Pioneer abolitionist William Lloyd Garrison
published the weekly Boston newspaper, the Liberator, from 1831 to 1865. The paper advocated women's rights, temperance, pacifism, and a variety of other reforms in addition to immediate emancipation. Thomas, The Liberator, 127-28, 436; DAB, 7 : 168-72.
80.23-24/117.17 an anti-slavery convention at Nantucket] A reference to the same abolitionist convention at Atheneum Hall in Nantucket, Massachusetts, on 10-12 August 1841, which Garrison described in his Preface to the Narrative. Douglass spoke in favor of a resolution condemning northern white racial prejudice on 11 August. Douglass had earlier addressed antislavery meetings in New Bedford, Massachusetts. Lib., 29 March, 9 July, 20 August 1841.
81.16/118.26-119.1 "stealing . . . in."] Robert Pollok, The Course of Time, A Poem (Boston, 1843), Book 8, lines 616-18: "He was a man / Who stole the livery of the court of heaven, / To serve the Devil in."
82.26/120.13-28 Strength to the spoiler thine?] With minor punctuation
changes, Douglass quotes the first four stanzas of John Greenleaf Whittier's 1835 poem, "Clerical Oppressors." Poetical Works of John Greenleaf Whittier, 3 : 38-39.
82.28-83.12/121.1-30 "They bind . . . of hypocrisy and iniquity."] An adaptation of Jesus' denunciation of the scribes and Pharisees in Matt. 23 : 4-28.
84.1-84.3/123.4-6 "Shall I . . . a nation as this?"] Jer. 5 : 9, 29.
85.5/124.15 Bashan bull] A paraphrase of Ps. 22 : 12.