S[amuel] D. Porter to Frederick Douglass, May 23, 1853
Chaplin Fund.
F. DOUGLASS, ESQ: DEAR SIR:—As Treas
urer of the Chaplin Bail Fund for this city,
I have received the following sum, viz:
| From | Bradford King, Rochester, | $4,00 |
| " | W. H. Child, Esq., Niagara Falls, | 5,00 |
| " | Loren Kellog, Champlain, | 14,00 |
| " | Robert S. Cook, Oneonta, | 4,00 |
| " | J. Plumb and others, Cattarangus, | 13,00 |
| " | Mr. Glenn, Agent, of sundry persons. | 150,00 |
| $190,00 |
| By which I paid to Mr. Glenn, | $15,00 |
| Amt. to W. R. Smith (and acknowledged by him in a recent number of your paper,) | 175,00 |
| $190,00 |
received from H. B. Gazlay, South Edmond
son, $3—remitted this day to W. R. Smith.
Respectfully,
S. D. PORTER.Porter, Samuel D.
Samuel D. Porter (1808-81), a prosperous land agent, moved to Rochester, New York, from Waldoborough, Maine, in 1835. His wife, Susan Farley Porter, founded and belonged to several reform organizations, and he served as the first president of the Western New York Anti-Slavery Society. The Porters aided fugitive slaves in crossing the border into Canada, and their barn was reputed to be a common hiding place. In the 1840s Samuel joined the Liberty party and supported the Free Soil party while attempting to mediate between Garrisonian abolitionists and those who, like himself. sought the end of slavery through political agitation. Additionally, he was a perennial candidate for mayor, running on an antislavery plat-form. Although he became a Republican in the late 1850s, he broke with that party in the 1870s, charging that it had abandoned reform and the plight of the freedmen. 1850 U.S. Census, New York, Monroe County, 92; Nancy A. Hewitt, Women's Activism and Social Change: Rochester, New York, 1822-1872 (Ithaca, N.Y., 1984), 60, 120, 149, 180, 206; Dexter Perkins, "Rochester One Hundred Years Ago," RH, 1:1-24 (July 1939).
ROCHESTER, May 23, 1853.