On Board the Steamer

Off Detroit, Sept. 29, 1849.

My Dear Friend: I had intended to call on you on my way westward from New York; but I have been detained so long on the sea and at New York, that I really durst not do it. I wanted to see the country before the cold weather came on. I shall be on my way back to New York in about ten days, when I shall try to give you a call at Rochester. I am well, and have been well pleased with the country so far. If I can so arrange matters, I shall, if all be well, return to this country with my family, to settle here. I think I shall settle in Ohio, near my brothers Samuel and James, in Summit Co. I had intended to lecture a little in America, before my return to England, but my work has been sufficient for me. I must lecture when I come to settle. I shall not be in a hurry to return to England then, perhaps.

I am, yours affectionately,

J. BarkerBarker, Joseph

Joseph Barker (1806–76), a British clergyman and abolitionist, was the editor of the Newcastle-upon-Tyne Christian, and he published an edition of Douglass’s Narrative during the latter’s first trip to Britain in 1846. A controversial figure, Barker was expelled from the Methodist New Connection in 1841, and he was arrested for advocating Chartism in 1848. From 1851 to 1860, he resided in the United States, where he actively participated in the abolition movement. Douglass Papers, ser. 2, 1:88–89; Joseph Barker, The Life of Joseph Barker, ed. John Thomas Barker (London, 1880); Betty Fladeland, “ ‘Our Cause Being One and the Same’: Abolitionists and Chartism,” in Slavery and British Society, 1776–1846, ed. James Walvin (Baton Rouge, La., 1982), 95; DNB, 1:1124–26. .