Frederick Douglass Sarah Southam Cash, December 1860
FREDERICK DOUGLASS TO SARAH SOUTHAM CASH1Born in Buckinghamshire, Sarah Southam Cash (c. 1794–1879) was the daughter of John
Southam, a Quaker doctor who wrote of a well-regarded treatise on smallpox, and Anne Priest. In 1817 she married Joseph Cash (c. 1784–1870) of Coventry, a wealthy stuff (textile) merchant. Their children included the noted philanthropists and successful ribbon merchants John Cash (1822–80) and Joseph Cash (1826–80), whose company J. J. Cash manufactured the famous Cash’s name tapes (name tags). Sarah Southam Cash was active in the British female antislavery movement, serving as district treasurer for Coventry in the 1820s. She was also involved with the Peace Society. The Third Report of the Female Society for Birmingham, West Bromwich, Wednesbury, Walsall, and their Respective Neighbourhoods for the Relief of British Negro Slaves, Established April 8, 1825 (Birmingham, Eng., 1828), 8, 34, 54; Seventh Annual Report of the Committee of the Society for the Promotion of Permanent and Universal Peace for 1823 (London, 1823), 55; 1841 England Census, Warwickshire, Coventry, 15; 1871 England Census, Warwickshire, Coventry, 32; ODNB (online).
[Halifax, Eng.] [December 1860.]
MY DEAR FRIEND MRS|[.] CASH:
My good friend Julia2Julia Griffiths Crofts assures me that you would be pleased to have a line from me in company with hers. I have not at all forgotten that I was once the guest of your Dear home in Coventry, nor that you and your dear household have kindly stood by me in my anti slavery labors during the last dozen years. I do hope much to See you all at Shereburns House3Sherbourne House was the name of the Cash family home in Coventry. 1841 England Census, Warwickshire, Coventry, 15; 1861 England Census, Warwickshire, Coventry, 20. during my present tour in England. The Halifax Antislavery Society are do
ing all they can to bring me well before the Yorkshire people.4The Halifax Anti-Slavery Society helped Douglass arrange public addresses in northern England while he was a refugee after the Harpers Ferry raid. Douglass spoke under the group’s auspices at Mechanics’ Hall in that city on 7 and 28 December 1859 and again on 4 January 1860. Halifax Ladies’ Anti-Slavery Society, Third Annual Report, 1; Douglass Papers, ser. 1, 3:xxx–xxxi, 276–300, 613–14; Ripley, Black Abolitionist Papers, 1:31. I need not tell you that to this work my good friend Julia is giving her very best energies. A company of ministers and antislavery friends met me last night at the house of Dr Crofts5The Reverend Henry O. Crofts.—where I make my home—and all seemed to take an earnest interest in the Anti slavery question[.] I shall have much to tell you about the Anti slavery movements and its prospects when it Shall be my good privilege to see you.
Please, if you are seeing or writing to your Daughter Ellenor6Eleanor Cash Stone (1820–95) was the daughter of Joseph and Sarah Southam Cash. She was active in the British antislavery and women’s rights movements. In 1857 she married Henry Stone of Banbury, Oxfordshire. Stone was a successful bookseller, stationer, and furniture manufacturer. 1861 England Census, Oxfordshire, Banbury, 10; 1871 England Census, Oxfordshire, Banbury, 15; Gordon S. Haight, ed., The George Eliot Letters, 9 vols. (New Haven, Conn., 1954–78), 2:225, 301–02; Alan Crossley, et al., eds., A History of the County of Oxford, 17 vols. (London, 1939–2012), 10:66; England and Wales, National Probate Calendar: Index of Wills and Administrations, 1858–1966 (online).—remember me kindly to her—tell her I am as much like the picture she took of me as the wear and tear of thirteen years will permit me to be. Do not forget to remember me also to Dear Mary Ann7Mary Ann Cash (1819–1916) was another of Joseph and Sarah Southam Cash’s daughters. After seeing Douglass in 1847, she and several ladies from Coventry and Leamington sent goods to be sold at the Boston Anti-Slavery Fair in 1847. Mary Ann Cash to Maria Weston Chapman, 11 [November] 1847, Boston Public Library Anti-Slavery Collection, BPL; “Notes and Queries: The Southam Family,” Journal of the Friends Historical Society, 18:110–11 (1921). and your dear husband8Joseph Cash (c. 1784–1870) was a successful Quaker businessman. Like his wife and children, he was involved in a variety of reform movements, including the Peace Society and the Society for the Abolition of Human Sacrifices. In 1835, he built an infants’ school on the grounds of his home, Sherbourne House. He later allowed a group of Wesleyans to hold services there. Cash also served on the first Coventry and Warwickshire Hospital Committee. Sixth Annual Report of the Committee of the Society for the Promotion of Permanent and Universal Peace, 1822 (London, 1822), 58; “Meeting for the Abolition of the Burning of Widows in India,” Oriental Herald, and Journal of General Literature, 20:545 (March 1829); Rosemary Ashton, George Eliot: A Life (New York, 1996), 34; Peter Walters, The Story of Coventry (New York, 2013), 169.—indeed all your dear household—I love to remember you all—and Shall be most happy to see you all. I have hardly yet determined any thing as to when I Shall leave this vicinity but probably—not before January—then I expect to go North.
Very Truly yours
FREDK DOUGLASS—
ALS: Alfred W. Anthony Collection, NN.