FREDERICK DOUGLASS ET AL. TO GEORGE F. HOAR¹A member of an important Massachusetts political family, George Frisbie Hoar (1826–1904) was the son, brother, father, and uncle of U.S. congressmen. A graduate of Harvard College and Harvard Law School, Hoar practiced law in Worcester, Massachusetts. Originally a Whig, he helped organize the Republican party in Massachusetts. After terms in the state house (1852) and state senate (1857), he won four consecutive terms in the U.S. House of Representatives (1869–77), where he was one of the managers of the impeachment trial of President Andrew Johnson. Elected to the Senate in 1877, Hoar held that office for the remaining twenty-seven years of his life. (online); , 3: 220; , 9: 87–88.

Washington, D.C. 22 June 1880[.]

HON: GEORGE F. HOAR,

SIR:

The undersigned colored citizens of the United States who have long held
you in very high esteem, and have observed with heartfelt satisfaction
your course as a Statesman in the National Senate, upon questions involving
the welfare of the colored race, notably in respect of National education,
wish now to congratulate you upon the high honors you have justly
won, by the able, impartial, and every way admirable manner in which
you discharged the onerous duties imposed upon you as the President of
the late National Republican Convention,²Hoar was elected president of the Republican National Convention on its second day, Thursday, 8 June 1880. Eugene Davis, (Chicago, 1881), 15, 22. in the Exposition building³Located on the Lake Michigan shore along Michigan Avenue in downtown Chicago, the Interstate Industrial Exposition Building was dedicated in 1872. It housed numerous exhibitions and two national political conventions. The building was razed in 1893 to make way for the construction of the Chicago Art Institute. (online). at
Chicago. They, however in this communication, desire to do more than
this. They wish to express to you their unbounded satisfaction with your
ringing words to the Senate and the Nation, upon what they believe to
have been a dastardly outrage upon Cadet Whittaker⁴Johnson C. Whittaker was the second African American cadet admitted to the U.S. Military Academy at West Point. In April 1880, Whittaker was found tied to his bed, unconscious, with lacerations to his face and earlobes. The commandant of West Point conducted an inquiry, concluded that Whittaker had done this to himself, and used it as justification for the exclusion of all further nonwhites from the military academy. Hoar raised this issue, though not mentioning Whittaker by name, during debate in the Senate on 20 May 1880 when proposing an amendment requiring that no preference be given to potential cadets on the basis of race. That proposal was defeated. Hoar also spoke in public denouncing the treatment of Whittaker. Indianapolis , 8 May 1880; , 46th Cong., Rec. 10, no. 4, S3548–3549; Stewart Rapalje and Robert L. Lawrence, eds., “Calligraphy and the Whittaker Case,” , 2: 145–49 (1881). at West Point, and
they more, especially, and in the most marked and emphatic manner, wish
to express to you a sense of their sincere gratitude for, and high appreciation of your noble conduct in calling Hon. B. K. Bruce,⁵Blanche K. Bruce served as a vice president of the convention for the state of Mississippi. He served at one point as the temporary chair of the convention and was a nominee for vice president of the United States. Davis, , 21, 42, 293. the colored Senator from Mississippi, and worthy representative of our race, to share with
you the high honor of presiding over the most august National Political
Convention ever assembled in the United States.

Acts like these are more eloquent than words, and will greatly tend
to weaken the force of the popular prejudice, the product of slavery, by
which we have been for ages oppressed and proscribed.

FREDERICK DOUGLASS
RICHARD T. GREENER, DEAN, LAW DEPT. HOWARD UNIV.
J. H. MERIWETHER⁶James H. Meriwether (1847–1906) was a wealthy African American in Washington, D.C., considered one of the wealthiest black men in the area by 1895, with an estimated worth of $60,000. Born in Kentucky, Meriwether was among the first graduates of Howard University and practiced law in the District of Columbia. He was an annual supporting member of the National Association for Rate Relief of Destitute Colored Women and Children. Gatewood, ; U.S. House of Representatives, 54th Cong., 2d sess., (Washington, D.C., 1896), 246–55.
A. T. AUGUSTA M. D.⁷Alexander Thomas Augusta (1825–90) was born a free black in Norfolk, Virginia. Starting out as a barber, he learned to read and write as a young man before moving to Philadelphia, where he became a doctor’s assistant. When he had earned enough money, Augusta moved to Toronto to enter the medical college at the University of Toronto, where he earned his medical degree. During the Civil War, Augusta wrote to Lincoln, asking to be assigned as a surgeon in one of the African American regiments being formed, and he eventually attained the rank of lieutenant colonel, the highest rank achieved by any person of color during the war. He was put in charge of the Freedmen’s Hospital in the District of Columbia, making him the first black hospital administrator in the nation’s history. After the war, Augusta was appointed one of the first professors in the medical school at Howard University. He served as a trustee of the Freedmen’s Bank during Douglass’s brief tenure as its president. After being denied membership in the District of Columbia chapter of the American Medical Association, he joined other African American physicians in organizing the National Medical Society. Whyte, , 293; Ripley, , 2: 211.
ROBERT PARKER⁸The identity of this individual cannot be confirmed. The city directory for Washington, D.C., lists two Robert Parkers in 1880, one a painter and the other a barber. Two years later, a Robert Parker was among the six pallbearers at the funeral of Anna Murray Douglass. Baltimore , 8 August 1882; William H. Boyd, (Washington, D.C., 1881), 587.
LEWIS H. DOUGLASS
FREDERICK DOUGLASS JR.
CHAS. B. PURVIS MD⁹Probably Charles Burleigh Purvis (1842–1929), the son of the famous abolitionist Robert Purvis. Born in Philadelphia, at eighteen he entered Oberlin College. Purvis then attended the Western Reserve Medical School in Cleveland, graduating in 1865. He enlisted with the Union army and served as an acting surgeon until his enlistment expired. From 1869 to 1881, Purvis was the assistant surgeon at the Freedmen’s Hospital in Washington, D.C. In that capacity, he attended to the wounds of President James A. Garfield. The next president, Chester Arthur, appointed Purvis surgeon-incharge at the Freedmen’s Hospital. He also was a member of the medical faculty at Howard University and a member of the District Board of Health. Purvis joined Alexander T. Augusta in organizing the National Medical Society to protest racial discrimination in the American Medical Association. He generated some controversy in the District’s black community by marrying a white woman. He later moved to Boston and practiced medicine. Jacqueline M. Moore, (Charlottesville, Va., 1999), 30; Whyte, , 293; Gatewood, , 167–268.
CHAS. H. PETERS.¹⁰Charles H. Peters.
E. B. WELBOURNE¹¹Eugene B. Welborne (sometimes spelled Welborn or Wilburn) was a prosperous black farmer from Mississippi who rose in politics following the Civil War, starting out as a state representative in the 1870s. In 1875, when tensions were heating up between whites and blacks in Mississippi, Welborne joined the militia formed by fellow state senator Charles Caldwell. On Election Day 1875, tension spilled over into violence in Clinton, Mississippi, where Welborne and other blacks were attacked by a group known as the “White Line.” Sometime after that, Welborne moved to Washington, D.C., and was employed by the pension office as a clerk. William H. Boyd, (Washington, D.C., 1880), 774; (Washington, D.C. 1909), 177; Eugene DeFriest Bétit, (n.p., 2019).
M HOWARD, MISS. SHERIFF, [ILLEGIBLE]¹²Merrimon Howard (1821–?), a former slave, was freed in the 1850s. Before attaining his freedom, Howard worked as a house servant and a carriage driver. After the Civil War, he represented Jefferson County in the Mississippi House of Representatives from 1870 to 1872 and served as county sheriff. Additionally, Howard helped found the first school for African Americans in Jefferson County. In January 1877, Howard testified before a U.S. Senate committee on the denial of elective franchise experienced by African Americans in Mississippi during the elections of 1875 and 1876. Howard had been targeted by death threats from Mississippi Democrats in Fayette following his direct confrontation with “White Liners” in a massive procession. Despite his position as a special federal marshal, Howard fled to Washington, D.C., before the 1876 elections in Mississippi. In Washington, Howard was appointed a messenger in the Treasury Department but lost his position in 1886 as a result of Mississippi representative Ethelbert Barksdale’s request for Howard’s removal. His son Michael Howard was one of four black cadets admitted to West Point in 1870. But the younger Howard failed the entrance examination and was sent home. During his brief time at West Point, Howard roomed with James Webster Smith, the first black cadet admitted to the institution. Washington , 9 November 1987; , U.S. Senate, 44th Congress, 2nd Session (Washington, D.C., 1876), 157–58, 163, 176; Justin Behrend, (Athens, Ga., 2015), 207–234, 242; Flipper, , 290–91; Monroe N. Work et al., “Some Negro Members of Reconstruction Conventions and Legislatures and of Congress,” , 5: 74 (January 1920).
JAMES HILL¹³James Hill (1845–?) was a former slave of one J. Hill from near Holly Springs, Mississippi. He received no formal education but was taught to read and write by the daughters of his master. During the war, he served as a valet to Hill’s sons in the Confederate army. After his emancipation, he maintained quite warm relations with his former masters, visiting often and even aiding them financially when they fell on hard times. During Reconstruction, Hill joined the Republican party and became a state representative, Speaker of the Mississippi House, and finally secretary of state of Mississippi (1874–78). He was well respected and well liked, working cordially with both Democrats and Republicans in Mississippi. In 1880, he served as one of the delegates from Mississippi to the Republican National Convention in Chicago. He was well respected by Republicans in Washington, D.C., and visited several times, at least once in 1872. George A. Sewell and Margaret L. Dwight, (Jackson, Miss., 1984), 48-49; Samuel Shapiro, “A Black Senator from Mississippi: Blanche K. Bruce (1841–1898),” , 44: 87 (January 1982): 87; Ruth Watkins, “Reconstruction in Marshall County,” , 12: 172 (1912).
GEO. C. SMITH¹⁴George C. Smith (c. 1822–?) was an African American Republican member of the Mississippi state senate in 1874–75 from Coahoma County. Born in Ohio, he moved south after the Civil War. He was the Louisiana state superintendent of education and then moved to Washington, D.C., and worked for many years as a private secretary to Blanche K. Bruce. After Bruce’s death, Smith worked for the Treasury Department. Jackson , 10 October 1875; Canton (Miss.) , 5 February 1876; Ralph R. Crowder, (New York, 2004), 53; Moore, , 26.

ALS: George Frisbie Hoar Papers, MHS.