New Lisbon, O., March 22, '48.

Dear Douglass:—Here I am. I left Pittsburgh, after an effectual settlement of my business and domestic affairs, on Monday, the 13th inst., on my western tour for the North Star.

I passed through New Brighton, sojourning with our kind mutual friends, Elizabeth and Milo A. TownsendTownsend, Milo A.

, stopping at Darlington, where I received kind attention from Dr. Frasier and Rev. Mr. Scott.

I have held meetings at Palestine, Columbiana, Salem, Cool-Spring, and New Lisbon, all in this State, which meetings were well, and, in some cases, numerously attended.

I am now, as you know, in the region of the "Anti-Slavery Bugle," a well-conducted paper, under the editorial management of our kind friends, Benj. and Elizabeth Jones. I shall leave this morning for Hanover, thence shape my course South-westerly, touching the most important places and settlements of the friends of humanity, both white and colored, until I reach Cincinnati. I have had a loud call to this city—I am in hopes it will not be in vain.

I have met thus far in my travels, with courtesy and kindness, the friends invariably keeping me clear of expense, and wherever I stopped at hotels, I fared, as common sense would have it, equally with the others.

Of all the places I have as yet visited in Ohio, I find New Lisbon to be the most under pro-slavery influence. There are, it is true, some noble spirits here, such as the Garrretsons, and others whom I could name; but, aside from these, there is an assumed mock-aristocracy, who endeavor to mould everything to suit their own caprices; and such is the influence they exert, that what is termed the "poor men," or common men, in walking along the streets, look and act the very slave. For instance, a respectable looking strange colored man, is assailed and assaulted on every side as he passes through the streets, with all manner of low and disparaging epithets, and those who do it, like spaniels fawning upon their masters, look about towards the doors of the stores and offices, to receive the grinning approbation of the hidden inmate, who, too proud to do the ditty work himself, sits or stands within the doors, and commands his miserable serfs without.

So prevalent is this serfdom of prejudice, that there is scarcely a child in the place able to lisp a name, but it flips out disparagement against the colored stranger—even the children of some who call themselves abolitionists. This proves, that such persons are so crushed with the prevailing influence of the place, that they readily yield to its base mandates, rather than fall victims to the odium consequent upon a contrary course. There are, however, but few such, as the majority or the abolitionists here, especially the Friends, are themselves wealthy, and (aside from their abolition) influential, and above the influences in question.

There is here a Sewing Circle, but few in number, though great in acting and the good they effect. I expect much good to the slave and the cause of bleeding humanity, to be effected by the efforts of these good Ladies. God bless them! Notwithstanding petty prejudices, this is a great field for Anti-Slavery labor, and I had a very large meeting, though there were several important meetings in session, together with a night session of the court, upon a very interesting case. Of course this manifests a desire on the part of the people to search after anti-slavery truths. Considering that this place is the seat of the county court house, you may not wonder at the servility of the lower classes, because where there is in this country the most law, there is the least liberty.

Columbiana is a place that promises much, only wanting more laborers; but Salem, of which I can speak but little now, has raised its head the highest above the pro-slavery influences of the state of any that I have yet visited. Here, the people are free, and pro-slavery is evidently at the foot instead of the head of society.

This independence of the place may easily be accounted for, when it is considered that the "Bugle" has here planted its standard, Benjamin and Elizabeth Jones, the fearless and unflinching bearers. Here, also, James Barnaby lives, and our indefatigable friend and co-laborer in the cause of the downtrodden, Samuel Brooke. Here, also, Isaac and Jane M. Trescott, among the foremost and best of the friends of humanity, reside. Jane M. Trescott is a most noble woman—a woman of the best and highest order of intellect, the largest and most excellent heart.

There are in New Lisbon but few colored people;—these very industrious and respectable. My kind friend, Isaac Pleasance, who, together with his kind wife, tenders hospitality to all the friends of freedom, is among the foremost here. I opine, that the colored citizens of the west generally will take the North Star.

Having now made a beginning, I shall, while on my tour, give you weekly advices of my whereabouts.

Yours in the cause of God and humanity,

M. R. D.Delany, Martin Robison

Born to a free mother and a slave father in Charlestown, in western Virginia, Martin Robison Delany (1812-85) was an editor, physician, and leading advocate of black emigration. In 1822 Delany's mother moved to Chambersburg, Pennsylvania, where his father later joined them, and the young Delany attended a local school. In 1831 he moved to Pittsburgh where he worked as a barber, attended a school run by a black Methodist minister, and studied medicine, upgrading his occupation from “cupper and leecher“ to physician. Between 1843 and 1847, Delany was editor of the Mystery, a black Pittsburgh newspaper. For the next two years he served as co-editor of Doug1ass’s North Star and lectured and traveled extensively to gain new subscriptions for that paper. In 1850-51 Delany attended Harvard Medical College but, owing to protests from white students, was denied admission to the final term needed to complete his medical degree. The following year he wrote The Condition, Elevation, Emigration, and Destiny of the Colored People of the United States, Politically Considered (Philadelphia, 1852), in which he argued that emigration was the only remedy for the oppressed state of black Americans. When many black abolitionists, including Douglass, rejected Delany's position, he organized a series of National Emigration Conventions that met in 1854, 1856, and 1858. These assemblies created a permanent National Board of Commissioners, of which Delany was president and chief propagandist. In 1856 Delany moved to Chatham, Canada West, and three years later explored the Niger river valley in Africa looking for possible emigration sites. His novel Blake was serialized in the Weekly Anglo-African from November 1861 through May 1862. During the Civil War, Delany served the North first as a recruiter and examining surgeon and eventually as a major of the 104th U.S. Colored Troops. From 1865 to 1868 Delany was a Freedmen's Bureau officer in South Carolina and later was active in that state's politics, running unsuccessfully for lieutenant governor on the Independent Republican ticket in 1874. Ullman, Martin R. Delany, 52-103, 115-21, 140-71, 211-46; Dorothy Sterling, The Making of an Afro-American: Martin Robison Delany, 1812—1885 (Garden City, N.Y., 1971); Thomas Holt, Black Over White: Negro Political Leadership in South Carolina during Reconstruction (Urbana, Ill., 1977), 74-75, 176-77; Miller, Search for a Black Nationality, 115-33, 171-83; Martin R. Delany, Blake; or, The Huts of America, ed. Floyd J. Miller (Boston, 1970), ix; DAB, 5: 219-20.