FREDERICK DOUGLASS TO SAMUEL D. PORTER

Washington, D.C. 25 June 1879.

SAM.L D. PORTER ESQR.

MY DEAR SIR:

I am extremely obliged to you for your kind and timely letter which came
this morning detailed as it was on a sick bed (from which I hope you may
soon recover), for it was a relief from a real cause of embarrassment. When
first I read of the formal unveiling and the presentation of my Bust to the
City of Rochester,¹A reference to the bust sculpted by Mundy Johnson, which Douglass had sat for several years earlier. The statue was publicly unveiled and installed in Sibley Hall on the University of Rochester campus on 16 June 1879. Among the speakers were Dr. Martin Brewer Anderson, president of the university; Frederick Augustus Whittlesey, a wealthy local lawyer and merchant; and Cornelius R. Parsons, the mayor. The statue’s pedestal was also provided by Mr. Sibley. Boston Folio, 8: 70 (March 1873); Rochester Union and Chronicle, 17 April 1879. the speeches made on the occasion by eminent gentleman—notably the remarks of Doctor Anderson,²Martin Brewer Anderson (1815–90) was born in Brunswick, Maine, and graduated from Waterville (now Colby) College in 1840. He remained there for another decade, teaching rhetoric and modern history. From 1850 to 1853, he edited the New York Recorder, a weekly Baptist newspaper. Anderson served as president of the University of Rochester from its founding in 1853 until his retirement in 1889. In addition to his work as an educator, he published numerous articles on a variety of topics, including ethnology, history, and religion. Martin B. Anderson, Papers and Addresses of Martin B. Anderson, ed. William C. Morey, 2 vols. (Philadelphia, 1895); William Cathcart, ed., The Baptist Encyclopedia: A Dictionary of the Doctrines, Ordinances, Usages, Confessions of Faith, Sufferings, Labors, and Successes, and of the General History of the Baptist Denomination in All Lands (Philadelphia, 1881), 33–35; NCAB, 12: 243–44; DAB, 1: 269–70. the honored President of
Rochester University an Institution—which has done so much to make the
name of the city illustrious, I felt an almost irrepressible in impulse to do
or say something, out of the common way, to some one of my old friends
and fellow citizens, which should express however crudely, something of
the grateful sentiment stirred in my breast, by this distinguished honor.
But as no one of the respected gentlemen active in the procurement of the
Testimonial, said anything to me about it—and treated me as if I were out
of the world as all men should be when they are once reduced to marble, I
began at last to think that silence on my part was perhaps, the best way for
me to observe the proprieties of the occasion. Now however I am relieved.
You have made it easy for me to speak to express my warmest acknowledgements to the Committee gentlemen having this matter in charge and
who have conducted it to completion. Incidents of this character in my life
do much amaze me. It it is not however, the height to which I have risen
but the depth from which I have come that most amazes me. It seems only
a little while ago when a child, I might have been seen fighting with old
“Nep” my mother’s dog, for a small share of the few crumbs that fell from
the kitchen table when I slept on the hearth, covering my feet from the cold
with the warm ashes and covering my head with a corn bag: only a little
while ago dragged to prison to be sold to the highest bidder exposed for

sale like a beast of burden: later on put out to live with Covey³Edward Covey (c. 1806–75) began as a poor tenant farmer in Talbot County, Maryland, but managed to accumulate $23,000 worth of real estate by 1850. Covey’s reputation as a slave breaker enabled him to rent or receive the free use of field hands from local slave owners wanting to have their slaves taught proper discipline. Harriet Lucretia Anthony, the great-granddaughter of Aaron Anthony, remembered, “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 L. Anthony, annotated copy of Bondage and Freedom, folder 93, 203, Dodge Collection, MdAA; 1850 U.S. Census, Maryland, Talbot County, 240; Preston, Young Frederick Douglass, 117–31. the negro
breaker—beaten and almost broken in spirit—having little hope either
for my self or my race: yet here I am alive and active—and with my race
enjoying citizenship in the freest, and prospectively the most powerful nation on the globe. In addition to this you and your friends, while I am yet
alive, have thought it worthwhile to preserve my features in marble and to
place them in your most honored institution of learning to be viewed by
present and future generations of men. I know not my friend, how to thank
you and the gentlemen who have acted with you for this distinguished
honor. My attachment to Rochester—my home for more than a quarter of
a century will endure with my life.

Very gratefully and truly yours,

FREDK DOUGLASS—

ALS: Frederick Douglass Papers, NRU.