FREDERICK DOUGLASS TO SAMUEL D. PORTER

Washington[,] D.C. 4 Oct[ober] 1880[.]

S. D. PORTER ESQR.¹Samuel D. Porter.

MY DEAR SIR.

May I tell you that I deeply feel the sad event that has lately come to
your heart and home—I can hardly realize the fact that Mrs S. D. Porter
is dead.²Susan Farley Porter died on 24 September 1880 at sixty-eight years old. She was buried at the Mount Hope Cemetery. Find a Grave (online). The last time I met her she seemed the picture of health. This

impression is so vivid that my feeling at the moment refuses to accept
what my reason tells me is true. The bereavement to you and yours must
be keen. May heaven help you to bear it. Sorrow is its solace, mourning
its own comforter. I know your heart, my friend, is tender but it is strong
as well. You have need of all the strength of your well stored mind to
bear you up and support you in this great affliction, for you are alone and
lonely. You comforted me when my heart was sore of the loss of a precious child.³Douglass’s youngest child, Annie, died on 13 March 1860, while she was overseas in Great Britain. The Douglass family had not made burial provisions for the death of any of their children. Annie’s body was interred in the mausoleum of the family of Samuel D. and Susan F. Porter. Fought, Women, 172–73. I wish I could lift from your heart one shadow now. I have
sacred memories of Mrs Porter and yourself. I have seen you walking
together for more than thirty years. When I came to your city to start my
paper, when friends were few you both befriended. Mrs Porter though
keenly sensitive to popular disapproval was ever ready to go where her
sense of duty led—though that were in the face of public opinion. I remember how bravely but noiselessly she supported our earlier antislavery
sewing circles⁴Susan Porter was the first president of the Rochester Ladies Anti-Slavery Sewing Society. The society sponsored lecturers and philanthropic events with notable speakers such as Frederick Douglass and Ralph Waldo Emerson. These events collected funds, gathered signatures, raised awareness, and assisted antislavery publications. Finding Aids, Rochester Ladies’ Anti-Slavery Society Papers, 1851–1868, William L. Clements Library, Manuscripts Division, University of Michigan, Ann Arbor, Mich.—how she threw open her parlour for accommodation of
all would come and work for emancipation and to assist the slave on his
way to Canada.⁵The Rochester Ladies Anti-Slavery Society (the group had dropped “sewing” from its name by 1855) provided small amounts of cash to fugitive slaves to aid them on the last leg of their trip to Canada. The annual reports for 1855 and 1856 show that 136 fugitive slaves were aided by the society. The Rochester group’s diligence spurred a connection with Harriet Tubman in later years. Finding Aids, Rochester Ladies’ Anti-Slavery Society Papers, 1851–1868, William L. Clements Library, Manuscripts Division. I could write much, my dear sir, in the spirit of gratitude
to your dear departed one—The but I must not. Her good deeds and beautiful life rise before me. The poor children in Rochester have indeed lost
a friend⁶Susan Porter was a leader in the Rochester Orphan Asylum Association, an organization that focused on the well-being of local disadvantaged children. She personally obtained six hundred seventeen signatures in a door-to-door campaign to petition Congress for funds for an orphan asylum. Hewitt, Women’s Activism and Social Change, 90–91. —and the cause justice and liberty has lost a friend—and I have
lost a friend.

There is some consolation in the thought that you two dear people
were permitted to walk hand in hand so long in the world—

Pardon this seeming intrusion upon your sacred grief—and believe

Truly yours

FREDERICK DOUGLASS

ALS: Porter Family Manuscripts, NRU.