Items from a Spectator's Journal.
During a recent visit to Philadelphia, I was much interested with the several colored Schools, public and private, as also various Institutions where indigent and children are charitably provided with the means of mental, moral and physical comfort. So much has lately been transmitted through the North Star of the Progress and resources of our brethren in the city of Brotherly Love, that I feel justified in reserving the major part of my own lucubrations as a spectator. I cannot forbear however an allusion to the North Star association, a circle of devoted anti-slavery friends who manifest a readiness in and out of season to enlarge the circulation of the paper regarded by them as an efficient auxiliary in a good cause, and this too as I am happy to learn without lessening their hearty good will and patronage of the other prominent anti-slavery periodicals. A meeting was held under their auspices in Wesley Church, which was addressed by Robert Douglass, Jr., among others, in an elegant and pertinent manner, setting forth the claims of the paper, and urging a generous support. I trust the Philadelphia North Star Association will be successful in their effort, and that other cities will follow the example, thus creating a wide spread impetus in its behalf. The paper has successfully redeemed the pledges given at the outset; the favorable testimony of the Press generally to the ability displayed in its columnsーthe position it has already won as a faithful exponent of the colored Americanーthe channel through which his wants can be manifestedーhis incentives for improvement encouragedーhis faults rebuked, and his virtues exalted, are among the reasons why the hand and heart of himself and his friends should be zealous in its support; its watchfulness of the schemes of our common enemy, Slavery, and its twin ally the American Colonization Society; its bold tones in denouncing the former, and the skill in which it implies the scalping knife of truth to the latter, alike commend it to patronage. As a class the colored people have not yet done their duty in sustaining an Anti-Slavery Press. A few days since I heard an intelligent colored man rebuking another for not having subscribed for the Liberator, adding that as long as he lived the old pioneer sheet should be found on his table. Did but a similar spirit animate the nominally free colored people, their cause would progress with most rapid strides.
William P. Powell, of New-York city, with a determination of keeping up to the times, has recently removed his colored Sailor's Home, to 330 Pearl-street. A more favorable location could hardly be selected; the house is peculiarly adapted to his plan, and can accommodate seventy persons. Spacious drawing and dinning rooms, and private ones when desired by families. Library facilities, sleeping and bathing departments, are all arranged in the most unique order; though termed the Seamen's Home it is not exclusively such, and any who feel disposed to award their patronage will in the language of "mine host," "find every attention paid to their comfort."
Joseph C. Holley, recently an anti-slavery lecturer, though not now contributing as often as formerly to your columns is yet helping the cause along at Brooklyn, precept and example. Like Roger Sherman of Revolutionary fame, when not directly engaged in devising ways and means for the people's enlargement, employs his time at his shoemaking bench; his customers are no less satisfied with his work on account of a complexion unlike their own. May he, like the above named patriot, be not a peg behind his contemparies in Freedom's cause.
A visit to the Northampton Water Cure, and its enterprising proprietor David Ruggles, is at all times and particularly the present, very gratifying, the success thus far attending his persevering efforts has warranted the erection of an additional house, which is now about finished and ready for patients. The Water Cure is pleasantly situated near Bensonville, on the west bank of Mill river, about two miles from Northampton Centreーthe scenery around the building is a feast to the lover of the picturesque and romantic, and invalids can enjoy their retired walls ad libitum. The house is arranged with separate parlors, bathing and dressing rooms for ladies and gentlemen, and the water applied for baths is unrivalled for its peculiar propertiesーthe sick have only to accept the invitation, "come wash and be healed." David Ruggles is not merely a cold water theorist, but fortunately for him and the long list of his cured patients has been practicalーhimself restored to health and usefulness by the cure, is enabled more confidently to commend the system to others than if he had acquired his gift only from books and observation; his skill in detecting disease by sense of touch (and which is enhanced rather than impaired by his partial lack of vision) would be deemed miraculous were it not in accordance with the scientific demonstrations of several eminent medical scholars. Let then, those afflicted with any of the "ills flesh is heir to," haste to obtain ablution at this justly famed Fountain of Health.
Within a few years past, Boston has received quite an accession of colored citizens, a large majority hailing from the Southern States, and who now rank among the most industrious classes, many quietly pursuing the even tenor of their way, securing the means of comfort and elevation. There never was a greater libel uttered than charging the colored people with laziness. Indolent ones of course there are whose presence and evil influences are a continual eye-sore to the better portion; but the masses whether claiming a Northern or Southern origin as far as circumstances allow, honorably emulate the examples of enterprising white men. Of this there are abundant facts in confirmation.
Boston and New Bedford, have each contributed their quota of colored adventurers in the California gold hunting expedition; many of them have sacrificed long established business and fair prospects, investing much capital with the hope of realising a fortune. As with the whites so with them, their mission is condemned by some and approved by others. In business relations a colored man may now succeed if perseverance and patience be among his virtues. Daniel Laing is a coproprietor of a Power Printing Press, has now a fair share of patronage, as have also several journeymen compositors ー more facts of this kind could be mentioned. Colorphobia does not now seem as rampant as in days gone by. There are but few if any Omnibuses from which a colored passenger is colonized. In Eating Saloons and Soda Refectories they are generally treated as others, and in places of popular amusement, where the "upper ten" mostly do congregate, colored persons find ready access to seats of their choiceーand as an encouraging fact it may be mentioned, that in several instances this equality is practised where a few years since the very shadowing forth of such an advance would have given altogether too much COLOR to the idea.
Wm. W. Brown, who soon leaves for Europe, is an accredited delegate to the Peace Convention about to assemble in Paris and to be presided over by Lamartine. How would American Republicans here at home reciprocate, if a colored delegate was sent from Paris? We cannot answerーperhaps with fraternity and equality. William G. AllenAllen, William G.

Son of a free black mother and a white immigrant father, William G. Allen (1820–?) grew up in southeastern Virginia. After graduating from the Oneida Institute in New York, Allen taught school in Canada and New York. Allen was a popular lecturer and was regarded as an expert on black history and literature. In 1844, while teaching in Troy, New York, he assisted Henry Highland Garnet in editing the National Watchman, a temperance and abolitionist newspaper aimed at black readers. Shortly after having its title changed to the Clarion, the short-lived paper failed in 1847. No issues are known to have survived. In 1850 Allen became a professor of rhetoric and belles-lettres at New York Central College in McGrawville, New York, where he caused a public furor by marrying one of his white female students in 1852. The following year the Allens sailed to Great Britain, where William lectured for the abolitionist cause, and both he and his wife operated a series of small schools. Hutton, Early Black Press in America, 9; R. J. M. Blackett, “William G. Allen: The Forgotten Professor,” CWH, 26:39–52 (March 1980); Ripley, Black Abolitionist Papers, 4:135–36n; ANB, 1:346–47. former editor of the Troy National Watchman, is now lecturing in this vicinity on the history, literature, and destiny of the colored race, and with gratifying acceptance. One individual who had never been known to express any favorable feeling for the colored man and his cause, on leaving the lecture room the other evening confessed that the impression made on him by the subject as presented had given him new and exalted opinions of the class hitherto deemed so inferior.ーThus a chord had been struck in his breast never before vibrating to such sentiments. On Saturday evening June 2d, by invitation of William J. Bowditch Esq., a large delegation of colored school children partook of picnic festivities in his beautiful grove at Brookline about five miles from the city. The weather during the week had been extremely unpropitous, but on this day as if by benevolent design, a bland atmosphere, and cloudless sky greeted the merry-hearted children, their friends and benefactors; a variety of innocent recreations were indulged in, and not only by the juveniles, but by those of a larger growth, and that too most heartily. Several distinguished friends of the anti-slavery cause were present, who consistently appreciated such an opportunity. On separating, rounds of happy cheers were given in grateful testimony to the Proprietor and his Lady, both of whom always appear most pleased when contributing to the happiness of others.
W. C. N.Nell, William Cooper

William Cooper Nell (1816–74), a black Garrisonian abolitionist, was one of the original editors of the North Star. A graduate of Boston’s segregated Smith School, Nell studied law but never practiced because he refused, on Wendell Phillips’s advice, to take an oath to support the U.S. Constitution. During the early 1840s he worked for the Massachusetts Anti-Slavery Society and the Liberator. From 1847 to 1851 he assisted Douglass on the North Star and served as acting editor when Douglass was absent on speaking tours. Nell remained a Garrisonian loyalist and severed his ties with the North Star when Douglass shifted his allegiance to the Liberty party. At meetings of the Colored National Convention and its council in the 1850s, Nell, an opponent of racially exclusive organizations, attacked Douglass’s plans for a black manual-labor college on the grounds that it would hinder, not help, the movement for racial equality. After Nell advised Boston blacks not to subscribe to Douglass’s newspaper, Douglass branded his former associate a “hanger on” and “contemptible tool” of Garrison. In addition to his abolitionist activities, Nell wrote important histories of African Americans. His Services of Colored Americans in the Wars of 1776 and 1812 (1851) and The Colored Patriots of the American Revolution (1855) detailed the contributions of black people to the nation’s founding. In 1858 Nell staged the first Crispus Attucks celebration. During Lincoln’s administration he was appointed a clerk in the Boston post office. NS, 16 February 1849; FDP, 12, 19 August, 9 December 1853, 28 February, 31 March 1854, 12 January 1856; San Francisco Elevator, 27 June 1874; Quarles, Black Abolitionists, 111–12; Pease and Pease, They Who Would Be Free, 86, 245, 254; Robert P. Smith, “William Cooper Nell: Crusading Black Abolitionist,” JNH, 55:182–99 (July 1970); ACAB, 4:489; NCAB, 14:306; DAB, 13:413.
Boston, June 1849.