Bridport March 27^th /77

My dear Mr. Douglass

I rejoiced when I heard of Mr. Hayes'Hayes, Rutherford Birchard

Rutherford Birchard Hayes (1822-93), nineteenth president of the United States, had previously served as governor of his home state of Ohio (1867-71) and as a Republican congressman (1865-67). Although Hayes had supported the Radical Reconstruction program while in Congress, events during Grant's administration had convinced him that the remaining southern Republican state governments, led by carpetbaggers and blacks, could no longer sustain themselves even with federal military intervention. As president, Hayes attempted to reinvigorate the southern Republican party through a program of sectional reconciliation aimed at attracting former Whigs and Douglas Democrats into the party. He believed that the goodwill of southern whites was better protection for the political and civil rights of blacks than federal military force. Soon after his inauguration, Hayes ordered U.S. troops in Charleston and New Orleans away from the statehouses and back to their garrisons, causing the Republican governments in South Carolina and Louisiana to collapse in the face of the armed force of their Democratic opponents. Hayes also appointed numerous southern Democrats to federal office, including former Confederate general David M. Key, who became his postmaster general. Despite Hayes's hope, few new southern white voters joined the Republican party, and it shrank into a powerless minority in most of the region for the remainder of the nineteenth century. Kenneth L. Davison, The Presidency of Rutherford B. Hayes (Westport, Conn., 1972); Keith Dan Polakoff, The Politics of Inertia: The Election of 1876 and the End of Reconstruction (Baton Rouge, La., 1973), 246-51, 317-21; Vincent P. DeSantis, Republicans Face the Southern Question: The New Departure Years, 1877-1897 (1959; New York, 1969), 66-132; William Gillette, Retreat from Reconstruction, 1869-1879 (Baton Rouge, La., 1979), 335-52. election that your efforts had been rewarded. I hope the last winter's campaign has not been too much for your strength—that the new President will prove all that you hope & expect. I was much interested in his Address—which seemed that of a wise and just man—in earnest to do the right to all parties—I hope that he will be a firm friend to the colored people, and in

every way that he can help them to help themselves.

A nephew of mine, Howard ThomasThomas, Howard

, my sister Lucy'sThomas, Lucy Browne

The third daughter of Mary and William Browne, Lucy Browne (1825–1909) married Charles Thomas of Bristol in May 1850. 1851, 1871, 1901 England Census, Gloucestershire, Bristol, FamilySearch.org; “England and Wales, Death Index, 1837–1915”; London Christian Reformer, 6: 452 (July 1850). son, was married last week & is going to take his bride to the United States for their wedding trip! If they go to Washington I hope they will see you, as they will certainly try to.—I wish they could persuade you to accompany them back to England. I don't know whether I have written to you since Mrs. CroftsCrofts, Julia Griffiths

A native of London, Julia Griffiths (1811–95) was the oldest of seven children born to Thomas Griffiths, a onetime stationer turned publisher and bookseller, and his wife Charlotte Powis. She first met Douglass during the latter half of 1846 when he lectured in Newcastle-upon-Tyne, where she was visiting with friends. Her mother had been a friend of William Wilberforce, who had advocated for the abolition of slavery in England, and she herself was active in the British antislavery movement. Charmed by the American, Griffiths followed Douglass back to the United States with her younger sister, Eliza, in 1848. In 1850, Eliza married John Dick, one of Douglass’s printers for the North Star, and the couple moved to Toronto. Julia became a constant companion and partner to Douglass and a leading antislavery organizer in Rochester for the next five years. She contributed to the North Star as copy editor and journalist, and saved the paper from financial ruin by organizing its books and by aggressively pursuing subscribers and donations. She helped found the Western New York Anti-Slavery Society, acting as its secretary, and organized the Rochester Anti-Slavery Fair. Initially, she lived with the Douglass family, which led to tension in the household and to unsubstantiated rumors that Douglass and Griffiths shared more than a business relationship. In 1853, the vicious attacks upon her in abolitionist newspapers drove her from the Douglass home and finally forced her to return to England in 1855, ostensibly to raise funds for the North Star. In 1859 she married a Methodist minister from Halifax, Henry O. Crofts (1814–80), who acted as an agent for Frederick Douglass’ Paper. Through the Civil War, she continued to organize and revitalize ladies’ antislavery societies and to lecture against slavery. After the war and her husband’s death, she ran a boarding school and worked as a governess. Her friendship with Douglass continued in frequent correspondence, and she welcomed him and his second wife, Helen Pitts Douglass, when they visited England in 1886. British and Foreign Anti-Slavery Reporter, new ser., 5:82 (1 April 1857); 1871 England Census, Durham County, Gateshead, 41; London, England: Baptisms, Marriages and Burials, 1538–1812, Ancestry.com; Maria Diedrich, Love Across Color Lines: Ottilie Assing and Frederick Douglass (New York, 1999), 179–84; Waldo E. Martin, Jr., The Mind of Frederick Douglass (Chapel Hill, N.C., 1984), 40–41; Janet Douglas, “A Cherished Friendship: Julia Griffiths Crofts and Frederick Douglass,” Slavery and Abolition, 33:265–74 (June 2012); Erwin Palmer, “A Partnership in the Abolition Movement,” University of Rochester Library Bulletin, 26:1–17 (Autumn/Winter 1970–71). paid us a week or ten days' visit last summer, It was very pleasant to see her here, & she seemed to enjoy the quiet rest & our pretty neighbourhood. She will be very busy just now preparing for her move from Gateshead on Tyne to St. Neots in Huntingdonshire. She has long been wishing to leave the North of England, & to come to a milder climate I hope she will not be disappointed in the place she has chosen & the school she has taken. We shall meet occasionally I hope now that the distance is not so very great. You w^d think nothing of any possible distance from one part of England to another—but

you see we consider two or three hundred miles a very long journey. Miss Amé DrazAmé-Draz, Rosine

A Swiss national, Rosine Amé-Draz (c. 1816–?) first arrived in England on 11 July 1838, listing her profession as teacher. In 1841 she was teaching and living in the parish of Egg Buckland, Devonshire. After spending an undetermined length of time back in Switzerland, she returned to England in July 1848, this time listing her profession as governess. According to the 1861 English Census (where she was recorded as “Rosine Ann Davy,” a native of Neufchatel, Switzerland), she was staying in the home of Mrs. Elizabeth Read of Ecclesfield, Yorkshire. By 1871 she was serving as governess to the children of George S. Kemp, a wealthy Lancashire manufacturer. 1841 England Census, Devonshire, Egg Buckland, 11; 1861 England Census, Yorkshire, Ecclesfield, 56; 1871 England Census, Lancashire, Castleton, 1; “England, Alien Arrivals, 1810–1811, 1826–1869,” Ancestry.com. has been spending the winter in Switzerland with her nieces at Neuchatel she hopes to return to England for the summer.

The winter has been a very mild one with a great deal of rain —& generally considered unhealthy & unseasonable no proper Christmas weather with skating &c—but it has suited Mr. CarpenterCarpenter, Russell Lant

The Reverend Russell Lant Carpenter (1816-92), a Unitarian minister, spent his childhood in Bristol, England. He attended Bristol College in preparation for a life of ministry, continued his studies at Manchester and York Colleges and was one of the first to graduate from London University in 1840. Carpenter became intensely involved in the temperance movement and subsequently quit his pastorate at Bridgwater, England, since part of the church's endowment came from taverns selling liquors. In August 18-19 he journeyed to the United States, where he spent a full year preaching from Montreal to St. Louis to Boston. His father, Dr. Lant Carpenter, was a well-known teacher whose Unitarian writings were already known to the antislavery men of the day. Thus, Carpenter became acquainted with Garrison, Douglass, and others. Having returned to England, he married in 1853 and continued his ministerial work there until his death. His works include Memoirs of Lant Carpenter (1842), Discourses and Devotional Services (1849), A Monotessaron (1851), and a biography about his brother, Philip, Memoirs of the Life and Work of Philip Pearsall Carpenter (1880). Carpenter also contributed frequently to the Inquirer and to other periodicals. London Inquirer, 30 January 1892. much better than clear cold weather with keen winds—for the first time for many years he has had no illness—& I hope with care we may escape any.

With kindest regards I remain dear Mr Douglass

very sincerely yrs

Mary CarpenterCarpenter, Mary

Mary Carpenter (1807-77) was the daughter of British reformer and Unitarian minister Lant Carpenter, and with her brother Philip Lant Carpenter, was a social justice activist. She began operating a girls' school in Bristol in 1829 with the help of her mother, Anna Penn Carpenter. Finding the care of poor children her life's calling, in 1835 Mary formed the Working and Visiting Society and in 1852 opened her own reformatory for boys. In the 1850s and 1860s she lobbied for industrial schooling in Britain and opened two schools of her own. In her later years she traveled widely and lectured in Britain and India on education and penal reform. She was inspired to visit India as a result of her father’s friendship with Rammohun Roy, a Bengalese teacher and religious educator who established the Brahmo Samaj, a brotherhood made up of Christians, Muslims, and Hindus. Roy visited Mary’s father, Lant Carpenter, at the Lewis Mead Unitarian Church in Bristol, but died shortly afterward from meningitis in 1833. Mary visited India four times, where she established a school for Hindu girls and became active in social reform. Jo Manton, Mary Carpenter and the Children of the Streets (London, 1976), 18-30; Jennifer S. Uglow, ed., The International Dictionary of Womens Biography (New York, 1982), 94; Mary Carpenter, Six Months in India (London, 1868).ACAB, 1:531-32; DNB, 3:1068-70, 1071-72; DAB, 1:561.