Rochester Aug. 9th. 1850.

O. DennettDennett, 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. :

Dear Friend—You will have already been furnished with the cause of my delay in writing to you, in reply to your kind letter of july 22d. inviting me to lecture in Portland before your Antislavery Lyceum. I wish, I could say without hesitation or the Shadow of a doubt — I'll come! but that, I am now, unable to say. I am now nearly six hundred miles—from Portland—and the time appointed is some distance in the future. All that I can say is that should my circumstances call me to Boston during the winter—and there should be, a vacancy in your list of Speakers, it will give me pleasure to fill that vacancy.

I have been much from home of late and have labored very hard—and as a consequence I am greatly worn—but still my Spirit is bright—and my courage invincible. With the truth and the right on our side victory is certain. Please remember me kindly to Mrs. Dennett and all the faithful

Sincerely yours,

Frederick Douglass