JAMES E. DOWNEY AND CHARLES W. BROUSE¹Downey & Brouse was an Indianapolis publishing firm that specialized in printing business records and manuals. It printed materials for groups such as the Grand Army of the Republic and the Society of Odd Fellows. Charles W. Brouse (1839–1904), a recipient of the Medal of Honor, was the brother-in-law of James E. Downey (1832–1909); both were influential in the development of Irvington, a neighborhood on Indianapolis’s east side. Their company was later known as Downey, Brouse, Butler & Co. Indianapolis City Directory (Indianapolis, Ind., 1868), 54; David J. Bodenhamer and Robert G. Barrows, eds., The Encyclopedia of Indianapolis (Bloomington, Ind., 1994, 470).
TO FREDERICK DOUGLASS

Indianapolis, [Ind.]²This letter was written on stationery with the printed letterhead: “Office of DOWNEY & BROUSE / Job Printing and Book Publishing House / Corner Meridian and Circle Streets. 31 March 1868.

FREDERICK DOUGLASS.

ROCHESTER, N.Y.

DEAR SIR

We sent the agreements of which we spoke when you were here last week,³Douglas spoke on the evening of 25 March 1868 at a benefit for the African Methodist Episcopal Church hosted by Morrison’s Opera House in Indianapolis. Daily Wabash Express, 25 March 1868.
and to which we verbally agreed. When you return your agreement to us we
would like to have the outline sketches of four or five of the most eventful
scenes of your life in order that we may have them engraved for the work.⁴No record has been found to suggest this publication was ever created.

We would suggest that you give us some of the main points on the
disgraceful attack made upon you at Pendleton.⁵A mob attacked Douglass in Pendleton, Madison County, Indiana, on the morning of 16 September 1843. The previous day, Douglass and his two white abolitionist traveling companions, William A. White and George Bradburn, had spoken in Pendleton’s Baptist church despite rumors and threats from an excited “mob of thirty or more people,” many of whom were “very much intoxicated.” The next morning, with law-and-order resolutions posted prominently throughout the town, Douglass and his colleagues addressed an outdoor meeting on the wooded banks of nearby Fall Creek, where local Quakers had set up makeshift seats and stands. Menacing hecklers set upon the abolitionist trio, demolishing the speakers’ platform and attacking its occupants. The mob then focused its wrath on Douglass, pursuing and severely beating him. The bleeding and unconscious Douglass was taken to the farm of Mr. and Mrs. Neal Hardy, a Quaker couple, who treated Douglass’s broken right hand and other injuries. Because the bones were not properly set, the hand never regained its “natural strength and dexterity.” NASS, 18 September, 19 October 1832; Lib., 13 October 1843; Mary Howitt, “Memoir of Frederick Douglass,” People’s Journal, 2: 302–05 (November 1846); Wendell Phillips Garrison and Francis Jackson Garrison, William Lloyd Garrison, 1805–1879: The Story of His Life Told by His Children, 4 vols. (New York, 1885–89), 3: 101; Samuel Harden, comp., History of Madison County, Indiana: From 1820 to 1874 (Markleville, Ind., 1874), 203–03; J. J. Netterville, Centennial History of Madison County, Indiana, 2 vols. (Anderson, Ind., 1925), 1: 131–22; Ripley, Black Abolitionist Papers, 3: 422n. We think it would make
an interesting picture.

We should also like to have a fine engraving of yourself for a frontispiece. These things will add greatly to the sale of the work.

We are satisfied that by liberal and judicious advertising the work will
have an immense sale, especially through the West and South, and the
masses are very fond of pictures.

Hoping that the work in which we are about to engage will not only
be fruitful in its returns to both parties but that it will also aid in the great
cause of human freedom and justice we are

Very truly yours,

DOWNEY & BROUSE

ALS: General Correspondence File, reel 2, frames 357–58L, FD Papers, DLC.