ROSETTA DOUGLASS SPRAGUE TO FREDERICK DOUGLASS

Rochester, [N.Y.] 17 Sept[ember 18]76.

MY DEAR FATHER

The past two weeks have been full of events and I am having a singular
time and I wonder can it be me. My breaking up has caused such a flutter
among Nathan’s creditors¹Four months after the death of his daughter Alice in June 1875, Nathan Sprague was arrested and charged with stealing mail from the post office where he was employed. After being convicted, he was sent to jail for a year. During his imprisonment, Sprague’s creditors began demanding payment from his wife, Rosetta. Upon learning that she was planning to take her children and stay with her parents in Washington, D.C., the creditors moved from simply badgering her for repayment to obtaining a court order to seize all of Nathan’s property, stripping Rosetta of the chance to sell the property and settle her husband’s debts. Moreover, because of changes in New York’s laws regulating married women’s property rights, Rosetta was not allowed to separate or salvage her personal property, such as her piano, from Nathan’s property and prevent it from being sold at public auction to settle his debts. Blight, Prophet of Freedom, 570; Fought, Women, 220–21, 268–71. and I am being sued on every side Mrs Rodenbeck²This is most likely a reference to the wife of either William Rodenbeck (1838–1923) or his brother, Adolph Rodenbeck (1840–1915), who co-owned the A&W Rodenbeck grocery store. The Rodenbeck brothers were natives of Mecklenburg, Germany, who had immigrated to the United States in 1854. Adolph Rodenbeck married Margaret Greim (1840–1902), a German immigrant, in 1865. They had six children, only four of whom were living in 1900. William Rodenbeck married Jennie Schied (1848–1926) of New York in 1871. Her parents were immigrants from Bavaria. The couple had three children. 1870 U.S. Census, New York, Monroe County, 37; 1880 U.S. Census, New York, Monroe County, 32; 1900 U.S. Census, New York, Monroe County, 74A and 78A; 1875 New York State Census, Monroe County, 28; “U.S., City Directories, 1822–1995”; Find a Grave (online). brought a note for me to sign of $91.48 I refused to sign it as I told
her I could not promise to pay in six months not knowing how I could
meet the note she was very angry and left sending a Constable to attach
articles in the house to cover the amount. I gave up the black sofa furniture
a corner stand 49 ¾ yards of Brussels carpet that large chrono of Nathan’s
the smaller chrono’s two marble top stands a chest of Carpenters tools
the alarm clock my small rocking chair three office stools the two rugs
that were in the parlor, which made one cart load and the Constable said

all left over the sale came to me and then went away returning with three
other men took my piano out in a drenching rain and carried all of my
things to this woman’s house.

Every body in the neighborhood says she has taken too much for such
a debt and consider that she has acted outrageously, and it is questioned
if she can keep any thing. The piano she cannot hold at any rate. It is a
poor rule that does not work both ways.³Although variations of this proverb are found in both correspondence and printed sources as far back as the eighteenth century, its origins are unknown. Bartlett Jere Whiting, Early American Proverbs and Proverbial Phrases (1977; Cambridge, Mass., 1980), 373. cannot dispose of the furniture
to pay N’s debts as it is considered personal property, it is as
much as his for purposes and I can remove it but cannot
dispose of it, but my piano is my personal property and it can be seized
to settle debts contracted by Nathan. Dis[trict] Attorney Raines⁴The son of a Methodist minister, George Raines (1846–1908) was born in Pultneyville, New York, and raised in a series of towns across central New York (including Geneva, Corning, and Elmira) where his father served as a pastor. After graduating from the Elmira Free Academy at fifteen, he enrolled in college in Lima, New York, in 1862. The following year, he transferred to the University of Rochester after his father was appointed senior pastor of the Alexander Street Methodist Church in that city. After graduating in 1866, Raines was admitted to the bar in 1867, after which he joined the Rochester practice of H. C. Ives, where he remained until 1871. That same year, he was elected Monroe County’s district attorney on the Republican ticket. In 1874 he ran successfully for the same office as a Democrat. Three years later Raines was elected to the New York Senate, where he served until 1881. After losing his bid for reelection, he retired from politics (although he remained active in the Democratic party) and returned to private practice. New York Times, 28 November 1908; Peck, Semi-Centennial History of Rochester, 718–23; Find a Grave (online). assures
me it cannot be kept and tomorrow morning is the time set for deciding
if I can be made responsible for N’s debts if I cannot be so responsible
the other parties that have sued me will have to withdraw their suits. I am
all torn up here and I have disposed of many of Charles’ things.⁵Charles R. Douglass. I have
a few more to sell and I have the house rented from the first of October
I hope to get away by that time if it is possible. I was obliged to go to
see Nathan about this Rodenbeck debt I found him wondering at my not
having written to him or been to see him,⁶Nathan Sprague was in prison at the time this letter was written. He was not released until sometime in 1877, after which he rejoined his family in Washington, D.C. Fought, Women, 220–21. he said one story would hold
good until another was told. I told him I was going away and had rented
the house⁷Douglass purchased the property at 68 Hamilton Place (also referred to as the Bond Street property because of its location at the corner of Hamilton and Bond) in 1855. In 1872 he put the deed in his daughter’s name, and she and her family seem to have taken up residence there sometime in either 1873 or 1874. The exact date when Rosetta and her children joined her father’s household in Washington, D.C., is uncertain, but Douglass was actively seeking a tenant for the house in the spring of 1877. “U.S., City Directories, 1822–1995”; “Frederick Douglass Surviving Urban Homesite,” Freethought Trail, freethought-trail.org. he did not like it that I had rented, we could not talk much he
said he should see me but that he should not come to Washington. I came
away, the next evening his keeper came with a message from him not
to rent the house if I did I would simply ruin him. I cannot understand
him in that and propose to follow out my own plans as far as I can. I
have received no money down to bind the bargain and can conclude not
to rent if I choose. My selling Charles’ furniture has given the idea that
I am moving to Washington and she (Mrs Rodenbeck) swore that I was
“packing up to remove to Washington with the intention of defrauding
and cheating my creditors.” Parties have called to know if it is so and I
tell them I was thinking strongly of going to my fathers this winter the
house being rented.

I can tell you better in a couple of days how matters stand. Mollie⁸The editors have not been able to identify Mollie. is
with me me having arrived from Philadelphia yesterday morning. I suppose Elizabeth⁹The editors have not been able to identify Elizabeth. has been with you. Mollie desires to be remembered to
all. Lewis was down from Syracuse¹⁰More likely than not, Lewis Douglass was visiting members of his wife’s family in Syracuse and may have picked up his niece in order to bring her with him when he returned to Washington, D.C., where she would soon be joined by her mother and the rest of her siblings. Blight, Prophet of Freedom, 816n; Bernier and Taylor, If I Survive, 20–21. well before last and took Estella¹¹Estelle Irene Sprague.
back with him. It is a wild night a cold rain has fallen all day and as I
write it is pouring <with rain> and blowing the wind howling around the
house makes one shiver Good night dear father I wish I could be with you

to night and be out of this turmoil. I never knew so little what to think in
my life.

Love to all

Affectionately your Daughter

ROSETTA

ALS: General Correspondence File, reel 2, frames 862–65, FD Papers, DLC.