FREDERICK DOUGLASS TO SAMUEL MULLIKEN¹Born in Boston, Massachusetts, Samuel Mulliken (?–1887) served as the chief distributing clerk in the Department of Justice, resigning in 1882. New York Times, 12 November 1882; Biographical Record Class of 1891 Sheffield Scientific School, Yale University, New Haven, Connecticut (n.p., 1907), 79.

Washington City, D.C.²Douglass wrote this letter on stationery with the printed letterhead: “United States Marshal’s Office.” 7 February 1880.

SAMUEL MULLIKEN, ESQ

CHIEF CLERK. &—

SIR:

Your letter of the 3d inst. asking information in regard to the number
of Bailiffs, Criers and Messengers, employed in the U.S. Courts for this
District for the fiscal year commencing July 1st 1866 and ending June 30,
1867, is at hand, and in reply: I find there was employed during that time
one Crier whose pay for that period amounted to $1,390.00 Twelve Bailiffs

whose gross pay amounted to $10,227.00. Nine Messengers whose gross
pay was $2,019.00. Making in the aggregate $13,636.00 paid to those officers for that period.³Douglass possibly relied on the official register to supply details on the employees and salaries of the courts in the District of Columbia more than a decade before his appointment as marshal. Official Register of Officers and Agents, Civil, Military, and Naval, in the Service of the United States, on the Thirtieth September, 1867 (Washington, D.C., 1868), 172, 321–22.

I am very Respectfully,

FREDK. DOUGLASS, U.S.M.

by L. P. Williams,⁴L. P. Williams (c. 1831–?) was the deputy U.S. marshal under Douglass. A former newspaper editor from La Porte, Indiana, Williams served in the Union army during the Civil War, attaining the rank of major. In 1865 he moved permanently to Washington, D.C., living near Howard University. Williams became an assistant clerk in the District’s court system before accepting the position of Douglass’s deputy marshal on 20 March 1877. In Life and Times, Douglass describes Williams as very “capable, industrious, vigilant, and careful.” Douglass Papers, ser. 2, 3: 334, 931; 1870 U.S. Census, District of Columbia, Washington, 738; Washington Evening Star, 19 March 1877; New York Times, 20 March 1877; Packard, History of La Porte County, 76; Daniels, History and Biographical Record of La Porte County, 248–49; Zevely, “Old Residences and Family History.” Deputy.

ALS: General Correspondence File, reel 3, frames 325–29, FD Papers, DLC.