New York, N.Y. 23 October 1865.

Mr Frederick Douglass

Dear Sir

I enclose herewith a printed copy of a will, in which you will find yourself, under a proviso in Item 8. a legatee in connection with other gentlemen named & 18 others besides Oliver Dennett who happened to be the Vice President as therein named.—This bequest comes to these persons in consequence of the suit brought by the heirs at law to recover the entire Estate & which suit we lost. In other words, the will was sustained by the jury, and finally by the full court, in Aug. last on an appeal.—Of the four heirs at law, I was the only one who had the means to contest it. My wife Mary JaneWoodman, Mary Jane

being her niece, and the only relative to whom she gave any thing, and her bequest was what you see in the 1^st item of the will—worth merely a song. Even the Bedsteads, John S. Woodman who is no relation either to her testatrix, or any of the heirs, are kept by him, and he wrote every word of the will and made himself legatee of the old homestead and all the household goods which had been in the family from 80 to 127 years.

I expended in the suit Two thousand three hundred dollars & have to pay yet over three hundred dolls. more—which probably will exceed the whole amount now in the Executors hand as he has charged the most enormous expenses ever heard of—her funeral expenses alone about $150—

You will perceive by the will which I send you & which was printed at my expense, that you & others named were constituted trustees under 6th & 7th Items—But she makes them void and of none effect in Item 8th "in case any suit in law" "&c &c" which you can read. This suit I brought at a loss of $2300 already paid out & more to pay, therefore you perceive that if you & Mr PillsburyPillsbury, Parker

The outspoken abolitionist orator, editor, and author Parker Pillsbury (1809-98) was born in Massachusetts but moved to Henniker, New Hampshire, where he farmed and worked as a wagoner until 1835. The local Congregational church there encouraged him to pursue the ministry. Pillsbury graduated from New Hampshire's Gilmanton Theological Seminary in 1838 and studied an additional year at Andover before accepting a church in Loudon, New Hampshire. Converted to abolitionism in Andover, Pillsbury incurred the displeasure of his congregation with sharp attacks on the churches' complicity with slavery. After his license to preach was revoked in 1840, he became lecturing agent for the New Hampshire, Massachusetts, and American antislavery societies, posts he held for over two decades. He edited the Concord (N.H.) Herald of Freedom in 1840 and again in 1845 and 1846 and the National Anti-Slavery Standard in 1866. He lectured widely, often in the company of Stephen S. Foster, and earned a reputation for his successful use of nonresistance in dealing with hostile crowds. Although he served on the executive committee of the New Hampshire Non-Resistance Society, he was among the strongest defenders of John Brown after the Harpers Ferry raid. During the Civil War, Pillsbury criticized Union war aims, especially before the Emancipation Proclamation, and in 1865 broke with Garrison over the necessity for continued activity by the American Anti-Slavery Society. Pillsbury helped to draft the constitution of the feminist American Equal Rights Association in 1865, served as vice president of the New Hampshire Woman Suffrage Association, and in 1868 and 1869 edited a weekly, Revolution, with Elizabeth Cady Stanton. Pillsbury completed his abolition memoirs, Acts of the Anti-Slavery Apostles, in 1883. Stacey M. Robertson, Parker Pillsbury: Radical Abolitionist, Male Feminist (Ithaca, N.Y., 2000); James M. McPherson, The Struggle for Equality: Abolitionists and the Negro in the Civil War and Reconstruction (Princeton, N.J., 1964), 59-60, 100-102, 305-07; Mabee, Black Freedom, 112, 221-23, 329; Filler, "Parker Pillsbury," 315-37; DAB, 14:608-09. Mr PhillipsPhillips, Wendell

Boston-born and Harvard-educated Wendell Phillips (1811-84) ranked second only to Garrison in influence in the American Anti-Slavery Society in the 1840s and 1850s. Bored with the legal profession and influenced by his antislavery fiancee, Ann Terry Greene, Phillips dedicated himself to abolitionism beginning in 1837. 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. When Garrison retired from the presidency of the American Anti-Slavery Society in 1865, Phillips assumed the post and led abolitionists until passage of the Fifteenth Amendment in 1870. James Brewer Stewart, Wendell Phillips: Liberty's Hero (Baton Rouge, La., 1986); Irving H. Bartlett, Wendell Phillips: Brahmin Radical (Boston, 1961); DAB, 14:546-47. and those 19 Vice Presidents take this legacy it really & virtually comes out of my wife who of her own limited means has through her & my losses in the contest brought about the legacy to you & others. Had we not contested the suit & the will, this legacy would have gone to the trust in the 6th & 7th Items named.

Now under these circumstances a large proportion of the Vice President now living (4 being dead) have cheerfully transfered their respective interests to my wife in the manner and form of the blank assignment which I enclose to you to fill up if agreeable to your views.

I have the pleasure of saying to you that Edmund Quincy Thomas Garrett of Del. have transferred to my wife their interests without receiving any consideration—saying in each of those cases that they had no moral right to take money in that way—Wendell Phillips has promised the same most cheerfully—Parker Pillsbury now here in the city at 48 Beekman St. Editor of the Anti-Slavery Standard will cheerfully give his interest to my wife—and by the way, he authorizes me to say that you can refer to him about the matter.

Your friend Robert PurvissPurvis, Robert

Robert Purvis (1810-98) was a prominent leader of antebellum Philadelphia's black community and one of the most influential African Americans in the Garrisonian wing of the abolitionist movement. He was the son of Harriet Juda, a free black woman, and William Purvis, a white cotton broker of Charleston, South Carolina. In 1819 Robert moved north with his family to be educated. Upon his father's death in the mid-1820s, Purvis inherited a substantial fortune, which he used to support a wide array of benevolent causes, including temperance, women's rights, penal reform, and integrated education. He helped launch the Liberator in 1831, became a charter member of the American Anti-Slavery Society in 1833, and served as both president and vice president of the Pennsylvania Anti- Slavery Society. From the 1830s onward, he actively assisted fugitives to escape slavery. Still, Underground Rail Road, 711; Quarles, Black Abolitionists, 24-25, 55-56; Joseph A. Borome, "Robert Purvis and His Early Challenge to American Racism," NHB, 30:8-10 (May 1967); Pauline C. Johnson, "Robert Purvis," NHB, 5:65-66 (December 1941); NCAB, 1:413. offered to give my wife his interest, but I insisted on giving him $ 30. which was the highest sum paid to any one—He aided me very much & was greatly interested in a history which I personally gave him of the
family &c &c—

Should you feel inclined to place your interest in the hands of my wife without pay I shall feel very grateful—If you think it proper to require something I shall be Satisfied—In either case I will thank you to send the transfer to Mr. Parker Pillsbury Editor Anti Slavery Standard & write to me directly to 106 Clinton Place New York.

I am very respectfully Yours

William WoodmanWoodman, William

I enclose sufficient postage stamps for the return papers except the printed will which please keep with my regards.

W. W.

WILL OF MARGARET BLYDENBURGHBlydenburgh, Margaret

Margaret Blydenburgh (c. 1789-1862) of Durham, New Hampshire, daughter of Rev. John Blydenburg, lived in her father's house and taught Sunday School in her hometown. She was an anti-slavery supporter, had a sizeable estate of $8000 upon her death. She gave $1000 to William Lloyd Garrison, some to Dartmouth College, and the rest to Wendell Phillips, FD, and others "in trust for the benefit of indigent and aged negroes, once slaves, and for the dissemination of anti-slavery doctrines, leaving nothing of value to her nieces and nephews. The will was contested (Everett S. Stackpole and Lucien Thompson, History of the Town of Durham New Hampshire [n.d.] 1: 207, 343; Will of Margaret Blydenburgh, enclosed in William Woodman to Frederick Douglass, 23 October 1865; Boston Liberator, 2 Jan. 1863; Springfield Daily Republican, 2 Mar. 1865). ,

Late of Durham, New Hampshire,

In the name of God, Amen, I, Margaret BLYDENBURGH, of Durham, in the Country of Strafford, and State of New Hampshire, single woman, considering the uncertainty of this mortal life, and being of sound and perfect memory, blessed be Almighty God for the same, do make and publish this, my last Will and Testament, in manner and form following:

FIRST.

I resign my soul to the hands of Almighty God, hoping and believing remission of sins, by the merits and mediation of Jesus Christ; and my worldly estate I give and devise as follows:

ITEM FIRST.

I give and bequeath to Mary Jane WoodmanWoodman, Mary Jane

, daughter of my sister Mary, to have and to hold to her, the said Mary Jane, her heirs and assigns, all my wearing apparel, beds and bedding,
and table linen.

ITEM SECOND.

I give and bequeath to John S. Woodman, Esquire, son of Nathan Woodman, of said Durham, to have and to hold to him, the said John S., his heir and assigns, all the rest and residue of my household goods and furniture, and small articles of personal property, whatsoever and wheresoever, expecting money, and papers relating to money, rights, credits, stocks, or other property belonging to my estate.

(Page 2.)

ITEM THIRD.

I also give and devise to the said John S. Woodman all my real estate, to have and to hold the same to him, the said John S. Woodman, his heirs and assigns, forever.

ITEM FOURTH.

I give and bequeath to the Rev. Mr. Alvan Tobey, now pastor of the Congregational Society in said Durban, the sum of three hundred dollars, to have and to hold to him, the said Tobey, his heirs and assigns.

ITEM FIFTH.

I give and bequeath to Mr. William Lloyd GarrisonGarrison, William Lloyd

William Lloyd Garrison (1805-79) was the foremost white abolitionist of the nineteenth century and was credited with the discovery of Douglass as a speaker at an antislavery meeting in Nantucket in 1841. He began his career as an apprentice printer on the Newburyport (Mass.) Herald at the age of thirteen. Garrison became editor of the Newburyport Free Press in 1826, but the paper closed within a year. He was then associated with a series of periodicals in Boston that advocated reform before Benjamin Lundy offered the young journalist the opportunity to write for his antislavery newspaper. Garrison joined Lundy in editing the Genius of Universal Emancipation in Baltimore, Maryland, in 1829, during the last year of the paper's 1821-1830 run. In 1830 a libel suit against the editors forced the paper to close and landed Garrison in jail. After his release, he courted the wealthy merchants of New York and Boston in order to start the Liberator (1831-65), a weekly journal based in Boston in which he advocated an immediate end to slavery. Garrison's brand of abolition condemned any institution that would tolerate the existence of slavery, including churches, political parties. and even the United States itself and any scheme aimed at removing black people from the country. Instead, Garrison hoped to raise the public's awareness that slavery was morally wrong and thereby force its end in an almost millennial moment of emancipation. His approach appealed to both white and black antislavery advocates but earned him many enemies among those only moderately opposed to slavery and slaveholders alike. Seeing the need for greater action and organization beyond the pages of the Liberator; Garrison joined with other abolitionists to form the New England Anti-Slavery Society in 1831. Two years later he helped found the larger American Anti-Slavery Society. In 1833 he established ties with English abolitionists after a trip to Great Britain, and he later brought the noted and notorious speaker George Thompson to the United States for a tour. Garrison also dedicated himself to women's rights, encouraging women to enter the public sphere by inviting them, via the Liberator, to form female antislavery societies. In addition to the thirty-three women's antislavery societies that flourished by 1838, Garrison's American Anti-Slavery Society welcomed women as well as blacks into its ranks. However, female delegates were excluded from the World's Anti-Slavery Convention of 1840 in London. The issue of women's participation in the antislavery movement and Garrison's absolute refusal to turn to politics to end slavery caused a division in the American Anti-Slavery Society. Brothers Lewis and Arthur Tappan, who opposed women's acting as speakers and who hoped to use politics toward abolition, broke with Garrison's American Anti-Slavery Society, forming the American and Foreign Anti-Slavery Society, or the "New Organization" in 1841. Garrison's ideas were so closely associated with the "Old Organization" that the American Anti-Slavery Society became known simply as the "Garrisonians." With the passage of the Thirteenth Amendment in 1865, Garrison believed that he had accomplished his life's work and that of the antislavery movement. He then resigned from the presidency of the American Anti-Slavery Society and closed the Liberator. Wendell Phillips Garrison and Francis Jackson Garrison, William Lloyd Garrison, 1805-1879: The Story of His Life Told by His Children, 4 vols. (New York, 188589); Henry Mayer, All on Fire: William Lloyd Garrison and the Abolition of Slavery (New York, 1998); James Brewer Stewart, William Lloyd Garrison and the Challenge of Emancipation (Arlington Heights, Ill., 1992); John L. Thomas, The Liberator: William Lloyd Garrison (Boston, 1963); Dictionary of American Biography, 20 vols. (New York, 1928-36), 7:168-72. , the editor of the newspaper called The Liberator, now published in the city of Boston, Mass., and the well-known and devoted advocate of anti-slavery principles, through my regard to his devotedness and valuable services in the cause of truth, religion, and liberty, the sum of one thousand dollars, to have and to hold to him, the said Garrison, his heirs and assigns.

ITEM SIXTH.

As to all the rest and residue of my personal property, after the payment of all my just debts, I give and bequeath the same to the said William Lloyd Garrison, to Wendell Phillips of Boston, Parker Pillsbury of New Hampshire, and Frederick Douglass, the well-known advocates of anti-slavery principles, and the same, whose names are mentioned in No. 24 of Volume XIX, of the said newspaper called , dated May 18th, 1849, as having taken part in the fifteenth annual meeting of the American Anti-Slavery Society, holden in the city of New York in May, A.D. 1849, to the said Garrison, Phillips, Pillsbury, and Douglass, and to the survivors and and survivor of them, and the executors, administrators and assigns of such survivors, upon the special trust that they apply the same in their reasonable discretion ; but not more than sixty dollars to one person, nor more than the interest and one-tenth part of the first principal in any one year in charity to the relief and assistance of such aged, impotent, and poor persons as may be in the free States of these United States, and fugitives from slavery, as they, the said Garrison, Phillips, Pillsbury, and Douglass, or the survivors or survivor of them, or the executors, administrators, or assigns of such survivor, may believe to be in need of such charity; and all doubts, questions, and disputes as to executing the trust, and applying the charity, in this sixth item mentioned, shall be decided by and at the discretion of the first-named of the said Garrison, Phillips, Pillsbury, and Douglass, in the order in which they are herein named, who shall be a survivor.

ITEM SEVENTH.

In case the gift, bequests, provisions, and purposes heretofore mentioned in the sixth item of this, my last Will, cannot be lawfully carried into effect, according to my intentions therein expressed, in the opinion of the Honorable Judge of Probate, before whom this Will shall be proved, my Will is (continued on page 5th).

IN WITNESS WHEREOF, I, MARGARET BLYDENBURGH, have to this, my last Will, consisting of two sheets of paper, set my hand and seal, at the bottom of both sheets (this being the first sheet), this thirtieth day of May, A.D. 1849. MARGARET BLYDENBURGH, [L.S.]

Signed, sealed, and declared by the above-named Margaret Blydenburgh, to be her last Will and Testament, in the presence of us, who, at her request, and in her presence, have subscribed our names as witnesses thereto.

CHARLES F. WOODMAN,

DANIEL A. BEAN,

EDWARD M. LANCASTER,

FRANCIS M. BEAN.

(Page 5.)

(my Will is), in such case, that the gift, bequest, provisions and purpose of the sixth item of this, my last Will, shall be void, and of none effect ; and as to the said rest and residue of my
personal property, in said sixth item mentioned, I give and bequeath the same to the said Garrison,

Phillips, Pillsbury, and Douglass, and to the survivors and survivor of them, and the executors, administrators, and assigns of such survivors, in trust, to be sacredly appropriated and applied to the cause of true religion, by employing and paying, in their reasonable discretion, competent persons to lecture publicly, at such times and places in New England as they shall appoint, upon the subject of true religion and piety, and particularly that part of it which relates to the wrongfulness of, and the duties of Christians in regard to, domestic slavery; but not more than the interest and one-tenth part of the first principal shall be expended in any one year, and in case of any doubt, question, or dispute, among said trustees, as to executing the provisions and purposes of this bequest, the first-named of the said Garrison, Phillips, Pillsbury, and Douglass, in the order in which they are herein named, who shall be a survivor, shall decide

ITEM EIGHTH

My Will is, that in case the gifts, bequests, provisions and purposes mentioned in the sixth item of this, my last Will, are not carried into effect, and shall be void; and in case the gift, bequest and provisions and purposes mentioned in the seventh item of this, my last Will, cannot lawfully be carried into effect, according to my apparent intentions therein expressed; or, in case any suit in law or in equity, or otherwise, shall be brought, commenced, or prosecuted, for or concerning the said rest and residue of my personal property, mentioned in the sixth and seventh items of this, my last Will, by any other person or persons, excepting those, or any of those persons hereinafter designated as legatees in this eighth item, or persons in their behalf, then the gifts, bequests, provisions and purposes of the said sixth and seventh items of this, my last Will, shall be void and of none effect; and, in such case, I give and bequeath said rest and residue of my personal property in said sixth and seventh items mentioned to such of the following designated persons as shall be living at the time of my decease, to them, their heirs and assigns, namely, to the said Phillips, Pillsbury, Douglass, and to all those persons who are named in said number 20 of volume XIX. of the said newspaper called The Liberator, as reported for Vice-Presidents of the American Anti-Slavery Society, beginning with Oliver Dennett, of Maine, in equal shares and proportions, expecting they will be encouraged thereby to continue their generous efforts in behalf of truth, religion, and liberty, which have more need of this portion of my property than my lawful heirs not herein named.

ITEM NINTH.

I do hereby constitute and appoint said John S. Woodman, Esquire, son of Nathan Woodman, of said Durham, sole Executor of this, my last Will and Testament.

IN WITNESS WHEREOF, I MARGARET BLYDENBURGH, have to this, my last Will, consisting of two sheets of paper, set my hand and seal at the bottom of both sheets (this being the second sheet), this thirtieth day of May, A. D. 1849.

MARGARET BLYDENBURGH, (L. S.)

Signed, sealed, and declared by the above-named MARGARET BLYDENBURGH, to be her last

Will and Testament, in the presence of us, who, at her request, and in her presence, have subscribed our names as witnesses thereto.

CHARLES F. WOODMAN,

DANIEL A. BEAN,

EDWARD M. LANCASTER,

FRANCIS M. BEAN.

I, MARGARET BLYDENBURGH, of Durham, in the County of Strafford, and State of New Hampshire, hereby make the change herein specified in my last Will specified, to wit: My last Will is that the Rev. Alvan C. Tobey shall have none of my property; all gifts, devises and bequests to said Tobey, in any Will before this date, being hereby revoked and annulled. My former last Will and Testament to remain good and valid in all respects, except the change specified in this codicil.

Signed and sealed, this thirteenth day of June, 1855.
Margaret Blydenburgh, (L. S.)

The above Will was signed by the said Margaret Blydenburgh, and declared to be her last Will and Testament, in our presence, who, at her request, witness the same.

CHARLES F. WOODMAN,

SARAH A. WOODMAN,

A. H. WOODMAN.

Said Margaret Blydenburgh died Jan. 1, 1862, aged 73 years, 10 months.

Said Will and Codicil were proved, in common form, an allowed at the Probate Court for Strafford County, at Dover, N. H., Jan. 7, 1862.

The inventory of the whole Estate of said M. B., made and returned Jan. 15, 1862, was: Real Estate, $2,000; Personal Property, $5,746.40. Total, $7,746.40.

Jan. 6, 1863, the heirs-at-law of said M. B. petitioned for a proof of the Will, in solemn form.

May 7, 1863, the Will and Codicil was proved, in solemn form, and allowed. John Bordman appealed from the decision to the Sup. Jud. Court.

At Sup. Jud. Court, Dec. '63, Law Term, issues of fact were sent to the trial term, Sup. Jud. Court, said Bordman alleging unsoundness of mind and undue influence.

At Sept. Term, Sup. Jud. Court, Trial Term, all the other heirs were allowed to come into Court with said J. B.

Jury Trial at Feb. Term, '65. Verdict sustained the Will. Exceptions in law were taken to set aside the verdict.

At an adjourned term of the Sup. Jud. Court, at Manchester, N. H., the exceptions were overruled, and the verdict ordered to be affirmed.

At Dec. '65, Term, the decision establishing the Will was certified back to the Probate Court.