HENRY O. WAGONER TO FREDERICK DOUGLASS

Denver, Colo. 29 Ap[ri]l 1873.

MY DEAR DOUGLASS:

A few days ago I saw in our Morning paper a telegram stating that Hon.
Frederick Douglass would Lecture in Denver about the the 2d or 3d of
June.¹In April 1873, Douglass was invited to speak in Denver, Colorado. H. J. Traver wrote to Douglass on 10 April requesting a response to the invitation and the proposed financial terms. On 25 April 1873, the Denver Daily Rocky Mountain News reported that Douglass would deliver two lectures at the Governor’s Guard Hall during the first week of June. In May, the paper also stated that Douglass wrote to John Clough, confirming he would travel to Denver on 3–4 June. But before the scheduled lectures, the Daily Rocky Mountain News printed a telegram dated 22 May from Douglass to Clough, in which he stated, “It is impossible for me to come.” H. J. Traver to Douglass, 10 April 1873, General Correspondence File, reel 2, frames 671–73, FD Papers, DLC; Denver Daily Rocky Mountain News, 25 April 1873, 9, 23 May 1873.—I went directly to Jno. Clough²John A. Clough (1826–74), businessman and real estate agent, was a native of Cazenovia, New York. In the mid-1850s he moved to Chicago and began his hide and wool business, first with the firm Clough & King and, later, with John Clough & Co. He also invested in the development of Evanston, Illinois, and aided in its expansion. In 1870, he moved to Denver, Colorado. He started the John Clough & Co. Real Estate and Loan Agents, with its office located at 356 Larimer Street. His firm was widely successful, which allowed him to invest in several other public enterprises in Denver. In March 1874, Clough died from a self-inflicted gunshot wound. He left behind a wife and four children. Denver Daily Rocky Mountain News, 1 January 1873, 28 March 1874; Chicago Inter Ocean, 28 March 1874; Frank Hall, History of the State of Colorado, 4 vols. (Chicago, 1895), 4: 509. & Co., proprietors of “Governor’s
Guard Hall,”³Governor’s Guard Hall was designed by the architect Emmett Anthony and constructed in 1873–74. Located on the southwest corner of Fifteenth and Curtis streets, the building was fi rst used as a public meeting hall and as an armory for the governor’s guards. A small stage was added later, which created a space for theatrical performances. Cyrus Strong of New York then purchased the hall, and for a short time it was used by the Colorado School of Mines. In 1876, Nick Forrester bought the building and remodeled it as an opera house and music hall. Jerome C. Smiley, ed., History of Denver: With Outlines of the Earlier History of Rocky Mountain Country (Denver, 1901), 907; James Bretz, Denver’s Early Architecture (Charleston, S.C., 2010), 40; Frank W. Zern, “Early Day Show Houses and Actors,” Trail, 3: 18 (October 1910). and they told me that they had received such a dispatch
from your Agt in Kansas. I gave them, by request, your address, and they
said they would write you themselves. Well, our Honored President has
been in Denver and in the Mountains a part of three days,⁴In late April 1873, Grant visited Denver, Colorado, as part of a tour of the West. The president arrived there on 27 April. Other stops included St. Louis, Missouri; Idaho Springs, Colorado; and Omaha, Nebraska. Central City (Colo.) Daily Central City Register, 27 April 1873; Denver Daily Rocky Mountain News, 27 April 1873; Grant, Papers of Ulysses S. Grant, 24: xxi, 110. and left here
for Galena⁵Located in Jo Daviess County in northwestern Illinois, this small community was a local trade point on the Mississippi River and, until the 1860s, a center of lead mining. Both Wagoner and Grant had spent part of their pre–Civil War lives in Galena. Seltzer, Columbia Lippincott Gazetteer, 656. this morning. So great was the pressure upon <him> by the
people that I had bearly the chance of two shakes of his hand. No opportunity for an interview, and so I addressed him a note, which he got last
night, and I presume he will read it to-day uninterruptedly in the car.⁶A letter to President Grant from Wagoner regarding Dominican annexation does not appear to have survived.
You were not forgotten in significant allusions. In one paragraph I said: “I
fully accord with and , on St. Domingo. I believe
Island needs the protecting Arm of our Government. Her people need
our civilization, our System of schools, and our language. God grant that
she may come, in the .” I mention to the drift of
what I said that we may understand each other with reference to
President Grant. You might, at some convenient time, mention me to him,
in your own peculiar way. I was standing in the crowd near the carriage
that conveyed him down <town>, as he came from the cars, and as he got
into the carriage, he glanced his eyes forward and saw me standing near,
and he instantly reached out his hand and called me by name & shook me

heartly, and was about to enter into conversation. But the crowd behind
me took advantage of the occasion and pitched into shaking hands with
him that he was compelled to drive off to get rid of them. But my note,
in some degree, will have to supply the place of a personal conversation.
I shall continue to work, for & my ,⁷The only son and namesake of one of Douglass’s closest friends, Henry O. Wagoner, Jr. (1850–78), was born in Chicago and attended the city’s public schools. A precocious orator, the eleven-year-old Wagoner addressed an audience in Chatham, Ontario, in support of the Union cause and then reported on his speech for the Chicago Tribune. After the war, he joined his father in Denver, where he probably became well acquainted with Douglass’s sons Lewis and Frederick Jr., who lived for a time with the Wagoner family while perfecting their typesetting skills. The younger Wagoner later attended the Howard University school of law. Douglass used his influence to secure a job for him at the U.S. embassy in Paris in 1873, and Wagoner later transferred to the consulate at Lyons. When the head position of the Lyons consulate became available in 1877, he again sought the aid of Douglass in being promoted. Wagoner died in 1878 in Lyons. Denver Rocky Mountain News, 4 May 1870; Junger, “Thinking Men and Women,” 156–61. through Grant & my Galena
friends. I will go to Galena when I go East, and when I get to Washington
I will seek a personal interview with the General. , if possible.—
Let this be between , my son & self—

Sic semper in secula seculorum—⁸This Latin phrase most closely translates to “thus forever and ever.” P. G. Glare, ed., Oxford Latin Dictionary (1968; New York, 1982), 1720, 1733, 1753; Merriam-Webster Dictionary (online).

H. O. WAGONER

ALS: General Correspondence File, reel 2, frames 674–75, FD Papers, DLC.