Harlem, New York, January 12, 1852.

Mr. Editor:—I am far removed from the din and bustle of the city; the hum of busy life comes to me somewhat relieved and chastened from the noise and turmoil which pervades Gotham; yet can I, even here, partake, in part, (in spirit at least) of the cares and pleasures, enjoyments and vexations of the great city which lies spread like a map almost beneath my feet, without the confusion with which the denizens therein are surrounded.

Before going fully into epistleizing, let me give you a glance at my location. Harlem is a suburban village about ten miles from New York, almost as old as the city itself; but until the establishment of the Harlem railroad, its whereabouts was as indefinite and its existence as problematical as is "CommunipawSmith, James McCune

James McCune Smith (1813–65), a prominent black physician, abolitionist, and writer, was born in New York City to an enslaved father and a self-emancipated mother. He attended the New York African Free School, but was denied admission to Columbia University, Geneva Medical College, and the New York Academy of Medicine. He turned to the University of Glasgow in Scotland, where he received a B.A. (1835), M.A. (1836), and M.D. (1837). Upon returning to New York, he opened a pharmacy and medical practice that catered to both blacks and whites. He became involved in the abolitionist movement, serving as an associate editor of the Colored American in 1839, contributed regularly to the Anglo-African Magazine, and wrote correspondence for the North Star and Frederick Douglass’ Paper under the pseudonym “Communipaw.” Smith also wrote the introduction to Douglass’s second autobiography, My Bondage and My Freedom (1855). In 1861, Smith helped finance the revival of the Weekly Anglo-African to oppose black colonization and emigration, and he was a prominent member of the New York City Young Men’s Association, the American and Foreign Anti-Slavery Society, and the New York African Society for Mutual Relief. He was the sole attending physician of the Society for the Promotion of Education Among Colored Children, a member and vestryman of St. Philip’s Episcopal Church, and a trustee of the New York Society for the Promotion of Education Among Colored Children. In 1863 Wilberforce College appointed Smith professor of anthropology, but illness kept him from assuming his post. Lib., 1 June 1838; FDP, 18 May 1855; Douglass Papers, ser. 2:7–19; Miller, Search for a Black Nationality, 243; Pease and Pease, They Who Would Be Free, 90–92, 103, 110; Quarles, Black Abolitionists, 115, 134; Rhoda G. Freeman, “The Free Negro in New York City in the Era before the Civil War” (Ph.D. diss., Columbia University, 1966), 40–42, 177, 186, 195, 200, 247, 276, 286, 325, 353, 393; DAB, 27:288–89. " at this day. It has, however, about it that which the modern palaces of Merchant Princes, and the city like improvements which are extending themselves around us, cannot divest it. These, together with the quaint looking old buildings, some partly modernized, and some in a semi-ruinous state, the remnants of the unfinished Canal on one side, the Railroad on the other, and the Telegraphic wires through the centre of the villages representing the three epochs of progress, the past, present, and future—these I say make Harlem look like a dwarfish elder brother of New York, with high heel boots on to disguise his pigmy height, and paint, powder, wig, &c., to hide the wrinkles and decrepitude of age.

Our village is built on a Champlain country, about two hundred feet above the level of the city. East of us is seen that beautiful inland sea known as Long Island Sound, which, for warlike associations, romantic legends and Indian traditions, and true picturesque beauty, may well be called the Mediterranean of the Western World. North, stands the fertile county of West-Chester, diversified by undulating hill and dale; the famous neutral ground of the Revolutionary War, between which and Harlem looms majestially that

massive structure know as the High Bridge which conveys the water from Croton Lake to the city. West, we are bounded by rock, hill and forest, with an occasional glimpse of the Hudson, beyond which are seen the palisades of Jersey. South, lies New York. The space between us is intersected with spots of vegetation, houses, lawns, grottoes and gardens, with here and there a small spot of clustering trees, which resembles a miniature forest.

The Committee of Thirteen are creating considerable excitement, and occupy a large space in the public mind. Their visit to Kossuth, (at which, I see, Prof. Allen takes umbrage,) together with their other recent transactions, have elicited for them considerable notoriety. I hope their future public actions will be in accordance with their professions, and what is expected of them.

Yours, truly,

CosmopoliteBell, Philip A.

Philip A. Bell (1808-89) was educated at the New York City Free School and worked as an agent for the Liberator and at a variety of occupations in his youth. He was secretary of a January 1831 public meeting of New York blacks that protested against the colonization movement. In 1837 Bell helped found and edit the Weekly Advocate, later renamed the New York Colored American, which was an important forum for black opinion until its demise in 1842. In the 1850s he operated an employment agency for New York City blacks and was active in literary, temperance, and mutual relief societies as well as the antislavery movement. Bell attended many of the antebellum National Negro Conventions and lectured for equal suffrage for blacks. Moving to California in 1860, Bell briefly ran a real estate agency before returning to journalism, first as associate editor of the San Francisco Pacific Appeal, and later as owner and editor of the San Francisco Elevator. In the 1870s Bell was president of the Equal Rights League of California, a politically independent group that lobbied Republican politicians for better treatment of blacks. While still in New York, Bell wrote to the North Star under the pseudonym "Cosmopolite." New York Colored American, 8 December 1838; San Francisco Elevator, 12 June 1868, 11 January, 15 November 1873; William Lloyd Garrison, Thoughts on African Colonization: or; an Impartial Exhibition of the Doctrines, Principles and Purposes of the American Colonization Society (New York, 1832), 13- 17; Penn, Afro-American Press, 32-34, 94-98; Robert C. Dick, Black Protest: Issues and Tactics (Westport, Conn., 1974), 84, 173-77, 267; Quarles, Black Abolitionists, 20, 31, 95; Pease and Pease, They Who Would Be Free, 113-14, 175, 195, 210; James A. Fisher, "A History of the Political and Social Development of the Black Community in California, 1850-1950" (Ph.D. diss., State University of New York at Stony Brook, 1971), 72-75, 97-100, 140-46; Freeman, "Free Negro in New York City," 35, 46, 128, 175-76, 237, 299; "Black Elites and the Draft Riots," New York Times, July 13, 2013. Autobiography, My Life and Times, Part 2 .