From our Brooklyn Correspondent.

DEAR DOUGLASS:—We are not so barren
for news in and about Gotham, as I lack op
portunity for catering it. Interesting month
ly meetings, for prayer for the enslaved, are
held in the Siloam P. Church—Rev. Mr.
Freeman's, Brooklyn. The one of last Sab
bath evening was heightened in the interest
by the presence of, and a speech from John
Scoble of England. He also gave a highly
important lecture on Wednesday evening, in
the African Methodist Church on High St.,
which, I hope, will be not only long remem
bered, but well digested by the needy audi
ence who heard it. He was accompanied by
the Rev. C. C. Foote of the Canada Mission.

The Black Swan has sung in Gotham—the
Metropolitan Hall was the place; but as
birds of the same plumage was not permit
ted to flock thither, Ethiop did not hear her.
She will repeat it, I understand, in a place
where black birds may come and listen, too;
so, my dear sir, you shall have the benefit of
my listenings, as I hope to look in.

Dr. Cox of Rusherban, near Brooklyn, has
written a book over which all Christendom is
laughing. It possesses all the peculiarities
and eccentricities of the Doctor—a mass of
confused order which every body will read
despite of their resibility. Far better busi
ness, however, for the Doctor this, than writ
ing Fugitive Slave Law sermons up at Rus
erban, near Brooklyn.

Wm. H. HarnedHarned, William

William Harned (1804–?) of Brooklyn, New York, published several antislavery tracts and served as an agent for the North Star and the American Missionary Association. NS, 1 May 1851; 1850 U.S. Census, New York, Kings County, Brooklyn, Fourth Ward, 318; William J. Hearne and James B. Webb, Brooklyn City Directory and Yearly Advertiser for 1847–1848 (Brooklyn, N.Y., 1847), 110; Henry R. Hearne and William J. Hearne, Brooklyn City Directory and Yearly Advertiser for 1848–1849 (Brooklyn, N.Y., 1848), 136; idem, Brooklyn City Directory and Yearly Advertiser for 1849–1850 (Brooklyn, N.Y., 1849), 149. , for many years one of the
Secretaries in the Anti-Slavery Office, has va
cated his place, and another young white
man has been installed in his stead. What
a pity it is that the black cannot occasionally
get a sup or two of the anti-slavery pap that
is laddled out in this city! Why is
this?—Is it incompetency on the
one part—prejudice
on the other, or what? Or is the hungry
white crowd so large that the black specks
pass unobserved by the chiefs in command?

It is a little curious to note that the Amer
ican and Foreign Anti-Slavery Society—the
same, I believe, that employed Mr.
Harned—was the source from which it was contem
plated to send a colored agent to Europe,
but has since withdrawn its resolve. I should
have stated that the Rev. Amos G. Beeman,
and not Rev. S. R. Ward, was the individual
selected, though Mr. Ward was spoken of in
the connection. The Rev. Mr. Beeman be
ing a minister of long standing, a scholar,
(being a graduate of Oneida,) and a man of
acknowledged abilities, as well as a gentle-

man of urbane manners, the selection was a
good one, and the mission
important—indispensible; hence I cannot see why this
throwing it aside—this giving it the go-by.
This is not the first instance, I think, in
which this and kindred associations, existing
for the benefit of the colored people, have
turned aside when the question of good sal
eries to competent colored men were on the
carpet, without regard to their peculiar fit
ness for the work.

Wippinumoc, a young Sacem, comes to the
rescue of poor old 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. , by taking
exception to my remark, "that now is the
time to begin to cultivate the arts and
sciences among us, before we become more
deeply immersed in the rougher affairs of
life," as we surely will be. In this small
paragraph, he thinks he sees a loop hole
through which to drag the bones of that poor
old chief from the snug little prison in which
I shut him last winter for his blunders; and
then turns round and begs "peace to his
ashes." It won't do, my boy. Now, listen
to me, and you will be more cautious, and
manage your case better in the future. I said
in my controversy with good old Communi
paw, that "wealth was of the highest import
ance to our elevation;" the old Sacem said,
and you reiterate the remark, that the pres
sent real can only—mark the expression—can
only be bettered by some ideal, and hinted
what that should be. Every body took the
hint, but refused to sanction. I now state
plainly, that the study of the arts and
sciences, &c., would be a great means for our
elevation. I also re-affirm that the acquisi
tion of wealth would be a greater means for
the attainment of the same end. Both are ne
cessary for our full success; yet the greater
always includes the lesser, my dear Wappin
umoc. Be assured, I make due allowance
for your youth and verdency—I, Ethiop,
possessed both once; still, be a little more
careful, my young sir, and don't let your long
finger stick out quite so far. I perceive, as
every body else must, who have glanced at
you, that you are a chip of the old block
Communipaw, or rather the old spirit resus
citated.

If the general reader desires a nearer ac
quaintance with you than the foregoing par
agraph has introduced him, I would advise
him, as my old Hebrew teacher, catching up
the book, used to advise me: Read you, my
young Wappinumoc, from right to left, and
they may understand you like a book; so
good bye for the present, my dear young Wap
pinumoc—the same to you, dear Fred.

Yours truly, 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. .

BROOKLYN HEIGHTS, April 2.

P. S.—The neat little card from Commun
ipaw, in your last number, startled me. I
had a horrid suspicion of the spirit rappers.
Has Dr. James McCune Smith any faith in
the spirit rappers? E.