MR.EDITOR:—I laughed heartily in read
ing the communication from your corres
pondent, Sister Charlotte K—; the name
as much as the matter was the cause of the
amusement. Do I know her ladyship? I
should. She is posted, and must have re
sided near the "drug-shop in the Fifth
Ward," spoken of by her; not only so, but
she has, in all probability, like Jafet, been
thro' the "rudiments." This impression gains
strength from the following fact: She was
an early advocate of Bloomerism; of this I
am certain, for there was no one present at
the debate alluded to by her, when she was
present, but those who were pantaloons;
hence she may have been through the "rud
iments;" for "woman's curiosity" sometimes
leads them into strange society.

I should think from her speech that she
had her origin in the "Jarseys," near Com
munipaw.

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. , EthiopWilson, William Joseph ("Ethiop")

William Joseph Wilson (1818–?), a free black man from New Jersey, operated a bootmaking shop in New York City as early as the 1830s. In the 1840s he became a secondary school teacher and later a principal of a black school in Brooklyn. He was an activist on behalf of black education, encouraging access and attendance, and even opened his own library. Wilson also campaigned to secure the franchise for New York African Americans. He served as a member of the Committee of Thirteen, organized by New York black leaders to stop enforcement of the Fugitive Slave Act. In the early 1850s Wilson’s letters appeared frequently in Frederick Douglass’ Paper, and Douglass referred to him as the newspaper’s “Brooklyn correspondent.” Wilson’s letters to the newspaper, published under the pseudonym “Ethiop,” were often part of an ongoing debate about the condition of blacks in New York and the United States. Wilson’s most frequent sparring partner in the war of letters was “Communipaw,” actually James McCune Smith, a prominent black physician in New York City. Carleton Mabee, Black Education in New York State: From Colonial to Modern Times (Syracuse, N.Y., 1979), 54, 63-67, 123, 129, 155, 158; Foner and Walker, Black State Conventions, 1:79-88; Quarles, Black Abolitionists, 87, 212, 229; Ripley, Black Abolitionist Papers, 4:144-45n. , and Philo, have, in
our turns, been through the rudiments.—Oh! you should have seen Communipaw, as
he was coming through. How pale he look
ed; if it were possible, even more so, than
he did a few days ago, when he grappled in
with a huge snapping turtle, while on a
speculating expedition to Fort Hamilton.

Philo still entertains a regard for Odd-Fel
lowship, as an institution whose principles
and legitmate tendencies are to unite, im
prove and benefit out people. It is true
that it has been much abused; that events
have been attributed to it; but are they a
necessary sequence? No. Those Monday,
Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday, Friday,
Saturday and Sunday engagements were
only the pleasure, the voluntary acts of par
ties, aside and independent of any obligation
to Odd-Fellowship. Those who were guilty
of the charge proferred by Sister Charlotte,
were soley responsible. Odd-Fellowship
should not be blamed.

The rule of the order was for each lodge
of the order to meet "once a fortnight." It
is true that Sister Charlotte's husband's
lodge broke through the rule, and met four
times a month, because they found it a pleas
ant school for order and oratory, independ
ent of the grand ends of the Society, viz: to
aid the brotherhood, to succor the sick and
dying, to see to the widows and orphans; but
the rule of the order was for each lodge to
meet twice a month, and to close at half-past
ten o'clock.

I must not be charged with a lack of char
ity. If I intimate that Sister Charlotte must
have been a jealous dame, and a selfish one
at last, if she would not cheerfully consent
to her husband's absenting himself from
home two nights a month for charitable pur
poses; and further, to his being subjected to
a semi-occasional call to administer at the
sick side of some one who might need the
sympathy or assistance of "a brother."

I think that there was some mistake about
Sister Charlotte's husband's Thursday night
engagements, for he was not a member of the
Council, although he may be a member of the
newly organized National Council, which had
its origin in the late Rochester Convention.
I appreciate the remark of my Sister about
flannels.

Did the reason of 710 execute the "en
graving" upon Sister Charlotte's memory?—Can Deacon White, of Swamp Regions, tell?
Was it Bris (k) toe (s) that run off with the
dispensation? A PHILO.

YORKVILLE, Oct.25.

N.B.— If you put this in your paper, I
will send further facts with perhaps a full
description of Communipaw returning from [missing text]