Rochester Aug. 8 [18]50.

E MontfordMountfort, Elizabeth

Elizabeth Mountfort was the corresponding secretary of the Portland Anti-Slavery Society. This was probably the junior Elizabeth Mountfort (1826–?), a daughter of the Elizabeth Mountfort listed as a widow in the 1847 Portland directory as, in 1850, she is referred to in the Liberator as “Miss Elizabeth Mountfort.” If so, she lived until at least 1910, still living in Portland, Maine. “Anti-Slavery in Portland,” Liberator, 31 May 1850; 1910 U. S. Census, Portland Ward 2, Cumberland, Maine; The Portland Reference Book and City Directory, for 1847–8, (Portland ME: S. B. Beckett, 1847), 91; Louis Ruchames, ed., The Letters of William Lloyd Garrison, 6 vols. (Cambridge, Mass.: Belknap Press, 1971), 4:34.

Dear Madam.

Your letter informing me, of a course of twelve lectures in Portland,—designed to be secured by the Society, which you represent—and that I am invited to give the ninth of said lectures—came Safely to hand more than three weeks ago, and should have had an earlier answer but for my continued absence from home.

I am quite sorry that I cannot give you a positive assurance of my presense with you at the time you appoint. I am at such a distance from Portland & am so variously and constantly engaged in the antislavery field west, that I feel it hazardous to make eastern engagements.

This however. I will say. Should it be in my power to visit New England during the present approaching Autumn or Winter—and your Society should desire my services they Shall be forthcoming.

I rejoice to find that Antislavery has again, acquired a "local habitation as well as a name" in Portland—and sincerely hope that the cause shall may always lead to the abandonment minor differences and secure the united cooperation of all your members to the end of the race.

Most truly yours

Frederick Douglass