Mr. Editor:—Justice to myself seems to require that I should notice the charge of falsehood made against me by Joseph Barker in a recent number of your paper.

Your paper from some cause, seldom comes to this office, and consequently I do not often see it. The last one received is the one containing Mr. Barker'sBarker, Joseph

Joseph Barker (1806–76), a British clergyman and abolitionist, was the editor of the Newcastle-upon-Tyne Christian, and he published an edition of Douglass’s Narrative during the latter’s first trip to Britain in 1846. A controversial figure, Barker was expelled from the Methodist New Connection in 1841, and he was arrested for advocating Chartism in 1848. From 1851 to 1860, he resided in the United States, where he actively participated in the abolition movement. Douglass Papers, ser. 2, 1:88–89; Joseph Barker, The Life of Joseph Barker, ed. John Thomas Barker (London, 1880); Betty Fladeland, “ ‘Our Cause Being One and the Same’: Abolitionists and Chartism,” in Slavery and British Society, 1776–1846, ed. James Walvin (Baton Rouge, La., 1982), 95; DNB, 1:1124–26. article in reference to my report of his speech in Leesville. Not wishing to occupy unnecessary space in your columns, I will be as concise as possible. It appears very singular, and equally strange, that the champion of infidelity--the man who proclaims his peculiar mission to be the overthrow of the influence of the Bible-- that he should be ashamed of his own offspring; yet such is the case. I very much doubt whether Mr. Barker can find one (out of all) his friends who were present, and heard him deliver the speech reported by me through your paper, who will endorse his charge of falsehood against me, however much they be disposed to accommodate and sustain him. The truth is, the cool, haughty manner, in which he makes the charges, is somewhat astonishing, coming even from Joseph Barker. I did not expect it, accustomed as I have been to notice the unscrupulous course pursued by infidels generally, and by those of his class in particular. Any of the readers of your paper, who may feel sufficient interest in the subject under controversy, to refer to a report of the same speech by Rev. A. Crooks, published in the True Wesleyan shortly after my report of it came out in your paper, will find the same sentiments, and the same style running through both reports, so much so, that if Mr. Barker did not make the speech as reported, neither Mr. Crooks, Mr. Barker's friends, (for even they have read my report and found no fault with it.) nor myself understood him correctly. I leave the subject in the hands of the readers of your paper perfectly satisfied that they are competent to decide between us.

A. R. DEMPSTERDempster, Anderson R.

Anderson R. Dempster (c. 1809–c. 1854) was active in the abolition movement in Carroll County, Ohio, and numerous other social causes of the day. Dempster was the mayor of Leesville/Leesburgh in the early 1850s. He admired Gerrit Smith, even naming one of his sons after that abolitionist. Dempster was a prohibitionist, petitioning the Ohio legislature in 1850 to deny anyone the right to sell alcohol. He also supported relief efforts for the Irish during the Potato Famine of the late 1840s. Dempster was prominent in the local church, once being described as “the leader of the Wesleyans at Leesburgh.” “Irish Relief Meeting,” Carroll (Ohio) Free Press, 19 March 1847; “Notes on the Lecturing Field,” Anti-Slavery Bugle, 3 November 1848; “An Ordinance,” Carroll (Ohio) Free Press, 21 July 1853; J. V. Smith, ed., Report of the Debates and Proceedings of the Convention, (Columbus, Ohio: S. Medary, 1851), 646; Find a Grave (online). .

LEESVILLE, O., Dec. 18, 1852.