Syracuse, March 18, 1852.

Frederick Douglass—Dear Brother:—My carpet-bag is packed, and I am ready to start for Rochester, this morning. But last evening, the members of our Church had a meeting, and determined that it will be necessary for me to proceed, as soon as possible, to New England, and New York City, that we may get some aid towards the rebuilding of our Meeting House.

I have consented to start on Monday, and that I may do so, I must be very diligent at home, in making arrangements to be absent three of four weeks.

It is a great disappointment to me, that I cannot attend your Convention. But if you have Gerrit SmithSmith, Gerrit

Gerrit Smith (1797– 1874), a New York businessman and land speculator, became best known for his philanthropic work for such reform causes as temperance and abolition. Between 1828 and 1835, he donated large sums of money to the American Colonization Society, but abandoned that movement in 1835 when his sympathies shifted to the immediate abolitionists. In the 1840s, he gave approximately 140,000 acres of land in upstate New York to three thousand black settlers, thus qualifying them to vote. Smith was a founder and frequent candidate of the Liberty party, running for governor of New York on that ticket in 1840 and winning a seat in Congress in 1852. When the Free Soil merger with moderate antislavery Democrats and Whigs lured away many Liberty party supporters, Smith helped bankroll that organization until 1860. Smith befriended Douglass when the latter moved to Rochester, and Smith frequently helped finance Frederick Douglass’ Paper. Like Douglass, Smith supported John Brown, but psychological stress caused by the failure at Harpers Ferry brought on the first of a series of bipolar episodes that greatly reduced his subsequent reform activities. Ralph Volney Harlow, Gerrit Smith: Philanthropist and Reformer (1939; New York, 1972); Gerald Sorin, The New York Abolitionists: A Case Study of Political Radicalism (Westport, Conn., 1971), 269– 87; Lewis Perry, Radical Abolitionism: Anarchy and the Government of God in Antislavery Thought (Ithaca, N.Y., 1973), 170– 80; John R. McKivigan and Madeleine Leveille, “The ‘Black Dream’ of Gerrit Smith, New York Abolitionist,” Syracuse University Library Associates Courier, 20:61– 76 (Fall 1985); NCAB , 2:322– 23; DAB, 17:270– 71. , and R. R. Raymond, and Samuel D. PorterPorter, Samuel D.

Samuel D. Porter (1808-81), a prosperous land agent, moved to Rochester, New York, from Waldoborough, Maine, in 1835. His wife, Susan Farley Porter, founded and belonged to several reform organizations, and he served as the first president of the Western New York Anti-Slavery Society. The Porters aided fugitive slaves in crossing the border into Canada, and their barn was reputed to be a common hiding place. In the 1840s Samuel joined the Liberty party and supported the Free Soil party while attempting to mediate between Garrisonian abolitionists and those who, like himself. sought the end of slavery through political agitation. Additionally, he was a perennial candidate for mayor, running on an antislavery plat-form. Although he became a Republican in the late 1850s, he broke with that party in the 1870s, charging that it had abandoned reform and the plight of the freedmen. 1850 U.S. Census, New York, Monroe County, 92; Nancy A. Hewitt, Women's Activism and Social Change: Rochester, New York, 1822-1872 (Ithaca, N.Y., 1984), 60, 120, 149, 180, 206; Dexter Perkins, "Rochester One Hundred Years Ago," RH, 1:1-24 (July 1939). , there, you will not miss me.

The two great topics which I suppose will be discussed, are the Fugitive Slave Law, and Colonization. Upon each of them, I have some thoughts I should have been happy to present to the friends who will be assembled at Rochester, to-day and to-morrow. But I am denied that pleasure.

Yours very truly,

Samuel J. MayMay, Samuel Joseph

Samuel Joseph May (1797-1871) mixed abolitionism with a variety of other humanitarian concerns during his long career as a Unitarian clergyman. Boston-born and Harvard-educated, May studied theology at Harvard Divinity School and was ordained in 1822. During his forty-year ministry he championed such causes as temperance, women's rights, pacifism, universal education, and abolitionism. Originally a supporter of African colonization, May joined the abolitionist ranks in 1830, supported Prudence Crandall's efforts to establish a school for black youths in 1833, and enjoyed a long tenure as an agent of the New England Anti-Slavery Society. During the 1840s and 1850s he helped many fugitive slaves reach Canada; in 1851 he helped rescue Jerry McHenry from slave catchers inSyracuse, New York. After the Civil War he worked with black colleagues such as Jermain W. Loguen and Douglass to fight racial segregation in New York schools. Donald Yacovone, Samuel Joseph May and the Dilemmas of the Liberal Persuasion, 1797-1871 (Philadelphia, 1991); Pease and Pease, Bound with Them in Chains, 276-307; NCAB, 2:313; DAB, 12:447-48.