Rochester Jany. 25^th.
My dear friendDennett, W. Oliver

W. Oliver Dennett (c. 1799–1852) was married to Lydia Neal Dennett (1798-1881) and they resided in a house on Spring Street in Portland, Maine. Oliver and Lydia Dennett were active in the antislavery movement, and their home was a popular stop on the Underground Railroad. Oliver was elected a vice president of the American Anti-Slavery Society under William Lloyd Garrison in 1851. Lydia was considered an excellent conversationalist, storyteller, speaker, and entertainer. She and her husband became friends with William Lloyd Garrison, Frederick Douglass, and many other abolitionists, and frequently entertained them in their home. Boston Liberator, 7 June 1844, 17 May 1850; Concord (N.H.), [newspaper source?], 9 June 1881; Helen Coffin Beedy, Mothers of Maine (Portland, 1895), 239–41; W Oliver Dennett, Evergreen Cemetery, Portland Maine, findagrave.com. ,
I hasten to comply with your request, just received—The reason of the non-appearance of myself & friend, RemondRemond, Charles Lenox

Charles Lenox Remond (1810-73), the first black lecturer hired by any antislavery society, was born in Salem, Massachusetts, to the daughter of a black hero of the American Revolution and a former slave from Curaçao. In his youth, he learned about the horrors of slavery from his father and experienced the segregation and discrimination practiced by Northern whites. In the late 1820s and early 1830s, Remond read David Walker’s Appeal and became acquainted with William Lloyd Garrison, which led him to dedicate his life to abolitionism. Remond became active in reform movements at an early age. A member of the Colored Association of Massachusetts when it merged with the New England Anti-Slavery Society in 1833, he became an officer in the latter organization. He became an agent for the Liberator and joined the Massachusetts Anti-Slavery Society shortly thereafter. In 1838 he began lecturing for the American Anti-Slavery Society. Both his color and his ability made him a very popular speaker in both the United States and Great Britain, where he attended the World’s Anti-Slavery Convention as a delegate in 1840 in London. Remond was the sole black lecturer for antislavery societies until Frederick Douglass began speaking in 1842. For a time, Remond and Douglass worked the lecture circuit together. Douglass admired Remond, the more experienced speaker, and named a son for him. Remond traveled and lectured in the British Isles for some sixteen months. Upon his return, Remond was employed as a lecture agent by the Massachusetts Anti-Slavery Society. Through the 1840s, however, Remond remained a steadfast Garrisonian while Douglass began to favor political action to end slavery, and their friendship suffered. Their close association was troubled as a rift between Douglass and Garrison threatened, and in 1852 Remond announced his intention to cancel his subscription to Frederick Douglass' Paper in protest against Douglass's adoption of non-Garrisonian views of the U.S. Constitution. Their goals, however, remained the same, and like Douglass, Remond recruited black soldiers for the Massachusetts Fifty-fourth Infantry Regiment during the Civil War. After the war, just before his death, Remond urged abolitionists to continue their fight by combatting the racial prejudice that persisted in both the North and South after the end of slavery. Illness curtailed his reform activities after the war. Les Wallace, "Charles Lenox Remond: The Lost Prince of Abolitionism," NHB, 40:696-701 (May-June 1977); William E. Ward, "Charles Lenox Remond: Black Abolitionist, 1838-1873" (Ph.D. diss., Clark University, 1977); FDP, 20 May 1852; New York Daily Times, 26 December 1873; NNE, 8 January 1874; Pease and Pease, They Who Would Be Free, 46; NCAB, 2:303; DAB, 15:499-500. may be gathered from the following facts—
Just before leaving Mass; for Western New

York, 1^st. Dec^r. last; I requested M^r. Remond to correspond with the Anti-Slavery freinds in Portland, with a view to our lecturing there about the 18^th. of that month—I left him with the understanding that he would meet me at Lawrence, Mass: on the 15^th. Dec: When I should learn of him what arrangements had been made for meetings at Portland, & at other places, which we had contemplated to visit—On arriving at Lawrence, I went immediately to the meeting, where I learned that M^r. Remond had not reached that town: & I knew, not (consequently,) what arrangement had been made—and on Seeing Yourself, & expecting

that you were the person most likely to know if any plans had been made for a meeting, I applied to you & your answer was, "you didnt know"—but that you had made no arrangements for a meeting, & subsequently, you extended an invitation to me to lecture before the Anti-Slavery Lycium—I, therefore, inferred, from this, that no meetings had been appointed for myself & Remond: but, to

be certain of the real State of the case, I hastened to Salem to ascertain from M^r. Remond, that had been done—I asked Lewis if he had received an answer to his letter, sent to Portland? He said, "No"—I then decided not to go there—
These are the facts of the case—& the only facts that influenced

me in my decision—
The insinuation, in one of the extracts, acquitting me of being a party to an attempt to "humbug" the public has not the power to disturb me—
With kind regards to Mrs. Dennett, I am, dear friend,
Very truly yours,
Fredk. Douglass

I shall be glad to receive the names of any new [inhabitants?] from your town—and all orders shall be punctually attended to—