Frederick Douglass Ruth Dugdale, December 15, 1848
FREDERICK DOUGLASS TO RUTH DUGDALE1Ruth Dugdale (c. 1801–1898), a Quaker reformer, was active in the antislavery, temperance, and women’s rights movements. In October 1848, she served as one of the clerks of the Annual Meeting of Friends held at Green Plain, Ohio, and later submitted the minutes to Douglass. NS, 5 January 1849; Philadelphia Friends’ Intelligencer and Journal, 15 October 1898; Merrill and Ruchames, Garrison Letters, 4:251n.
Rochester, [N.Y.]2The placeline of the letter also includes “Alexander Street.” 15 Dec[ember] 1848.
MY DEAR FRIEND:
Your words of kindly greeting have come safely to hand,3Dugdale’s letter to Douglass has not been located.—and I wish it were in my power, to make such a response to it, as its loving and sisterly spirit deserves. In the press of public engagements by which I am ever surrounded, I find it difficult to write letters to many dear friends whose communion would always afford me happiness.
I feel greatly pleased with your kind expressions and aspirations for the “North Star.” The paper should have arisen among you, but for the “green eyed monster” jealousy4Othello, act 3, sc. 3, lines 189–91.—which ever has a place among those from whom better things ought to have been expected. It may, all however turn out for the best. Though my bodily presence is not in Ohio—the North Star shines there as well as upon New york—and I believe there is as many readers of it in that state as in Ohio.
Your reference to the malign prejudice which ever dogs the path way of the ill starred variety of the human family to which myself and Dear Children belong—is grateful to my heart. I love to think that are some who have over come this “most foul and unnatural”5Hamlet, act 1, sc. 5, line 25. feeling—and acknowledge man and respect him in whatever hue—our all wise Creator may see fit to send him into the world.
My Dear sister, what a work is before us—how much remains to be done in this cause—and kindred ones—how much faith in the truth we do need, to battle against the allied hosts of wrong, every where developed. The land staggers with “treachery and ruinous disorders”6King Lear, act 1, sc. 2, lines 126–27.—and powerful must be the element which shall restore it to peace, health and order. My Dear sister—Your sympathy and aid is gratefully appreciated by me although I seldom see you. I recieved a copy of the proceedings of your
meeting at Green Plain7Organized in 1822, the Green Plain Monthly Meeting of the Society of Friends lost more than half its membership in 1826 when adherents left to found an “Orthodox” society. The original society then associated itself with the Hicksite wing of Quakerism. A second division occurred in 1843, when conservative members seceded from the society over the issue of slavery. The Green Plain Meeting eventually disowned the Dugdales, who had been members of the society since 1835, for aiding runaway slaves. Douglass published extracts from the minutes of the Green Plain Meeting in the North Star. NS, 5 January 1849; Otelia Cromwell, Lucretia Mott (Cambridge, Mass, 1958), 114–15; William Wade Hinshaw, Ohio Quaker Genealogical Records, 2 vols. (1946; Baltimore, 1973–74), 1:812; History of Clark County, Ohio (Chicago, 1881), 765–66; Merrill and Ruchames, Garrison Letters, 5:44n. and hope that I shall to give some extracts from them to the readers of the North Star.
With best Love to yourself and Dear Husband,8Ruth Dugdale’s husband was Joseph A. Dugdale (1810–96), a farmer, teacher, and minister. Like his wife, he was a Quaker active in a number of social reform movements. In 1842 Dugdale led a faction out of the Ohio Anti-Slavery Society after the association refused to affiliate with Garrison’s American Anti-Slavery Society. His followers then founded the Ohio American Anti-Slavery Society. Philadelphia Friends’ Intelligencer and Journal, 21 March 1896; Merrill and Ruchames, Garrison Letters, 5:44n; C. B. Galbreath, “Anti-Slavery Movement in Columbiana County,” Ohio State Archaeological and Historical Quarterly, 30:392 (October 1921); Douglas A. Gamble, “Garrisonian Abolitionists in the West: Some Suggestions for Study,” CWH, 23:52–68 (March 1977). I am most Sincerely yours
FREDERICK DOUGLASS
ALS: Joseph A. Dugdale Papers, PSC-Hi.