Tag: opportunity

Looking backward over a space of fifty years or more, I have in remembrance two travelers whose lives were ·real in their activity; two lives that have indelibly impressed themselves upon my memory; two lives whose energy and best ability was exerted to make my life what it should be, and who gave me a home where wisdom and in­dustry went  hand in hand;  where instruction was given that a cultivated brain and an industrious hand were the twin conditions that lead to a well balanced and useful life. These two lives were embodied in the personalities of Frederick Douglass and Anna Mur­ray his wife.

They met at the base of a mountain of wrong and oppression, victims of the slave power as it existed over sixty years ago, one smarting under the manifold hardships as a slave,  the  other  in many ways suffering from the effects of such a system.

The story of Frederick Douglass’ hopes and aspirations and longing desire for freedom has been told-you all know it.  It was a story made possible by the unswerving loyalty of Anna Murray, to whose memory this paper is written.

Anna Murray was born in Denton, Caroline County, Maryland, an adjoining county to that in which my  father was  born.  The exact date of her birth is not known. Her parents, Bambarra Murray and  Mary,  his· wife, were  slaves, their  family  consisting of twelve children, seven of whom were born in slavery and five born in freedom. My mother, the eighth child, escaped by the short period of one month, the fate of her older brothers and sisters, and was the first free child.

Remaining with  her  parents  until  she was  seventeen,  she  felt it time that she should be entirely  self-supporting  and  with  that idea she left her country home and went to Baltimore, sought em­ployment in a French family by the name of Montell whom she served two years. Doubtless  it was while with  them  she gained her first idea as to household management which served her so well in after years and which gained for her the reputation of a thorough and competent housekeeper.

On laving the Montells’, she served in  a family by  the name of Wells living on  S. Caroline Street.  Wells  was Post-master  at the time of my father’s escape from slavery. It interested me very much in one of my recent visits to Baltimore, to go to that house accompanied by an old friend of my parents of those early days, who as a free woman was enabled with others to make my father’s life easier while he was a slave in that city. This house is owned now by a colored man.  In going through  the house I endeavored to remember its appointments, so frequently spoken of by my mother, for she had lived with this family seven years and an attachment sprang up between her and the members of that household, the memory of which gave her pleasure to recall.

The free people of Baltimore had their own circles from which the slaves were excluded. The ruling of  them out of  their society resulted more from the desire of the slaveholder  than  from  any great wish of the free people themselves. If a slave would dare to hazard all danger and enter among the free people he  would be received. To such a little circle of free  people–a  circle  a little more exclusive than others, Frederick Baily was welcomed. Anna Murray, to whom he had given  his  heart,  sympathized  with  him and she devoted all her energies to assist him.  The three weeks prior to the escape were busy and anxious weeks for Anna Murray. She had lived with the Wells family so long and having been  able to save the greater part of her earnings was willing  to share with the man she loved that he might gain the freedom he yearned to possess. Her courage, her sympathy at the  start was  the  main­ spring that supported the career of Frederick Douglass. As is the condition of most wives her identity became so merged with that of her husband, that few of their earlier friends in the North really knew and appreciated the full value of the woman who presided over the Douglass home for forty-four years. When the escaped slave and future husband of Anna Murray had reached New York in safety, his first act was to write her of his arrival and as they had previously arranged she was to come on immediately.  Reaching New York a week later, they were married and immediately took their wedding trip to New Bedford. In ”My Bondage of Freedom,” by Frederick  Douglass,  a graphic  account of  that trip is given.

The little that they possessed was the outcome of the industrial and economical habits that were characteristic of my mother. She had brought with her sufficient goods and chattel to fit up com­fortably two rooms in her New Bedford home-a feather bed with pillows, bed linen, dishes, knives, forks, and spoons, besides a well filled trunk of wearing apparel for herself. A new plum  colored silk dress was her wedding gown. To my child eyes that dress was very fine.  She had previously sold one of her feather beds to assist in defraying the expenses of the flight from bondage.

The early days in New Bedford were spent in daily toil, the wife at the wash board, the husband with saw, buck and axe. I have fre­quently listened to the rehearsal of those early days of endeavor, looking around me at the well appointed home built up from the labor of the father and mother under so much difficulty, and found it hard to realize that it was a fact. After the day of toil they would seek their little home of two rooms and the meal of the day that was most enjoyable was the supper nicely prepared by mother. Father frequently spoke of the neatly set table with its snowy white cloth- coarse tho’ it was.

In 1890 I was taken by my father to these rooms on Elm Street, New Bedford, Mass., overlooking Buzzards  Bay.  This was  my birth place. Every detail  as to the early housekeeping was gone over, it was splendidly impressed upon my mind, even to the hang­ing of a towel on a particular nail. Many of the dishes used by my mother at that time were in our Rochester home and kept as souve­nirs of those first days of housekeeping. The fire that  destroyed that home in 1872, also destroyed them.

Three of the family had their birthplace in New Bedford. When after having written  his  first  narrative,  father  built  himself  a nice little cottage in Lynn, Mass., and moved his family there, previously to making his first trip to Europe.  He  was  absent during the years ’45 and ’46. It was then that mother with four children, the eldest in her sixth year, struggled to maintain  the family amid much that would dampen the courage of many a young woman of to-day. I had previously been taken to Albany by my father as a means of lightening  the  burden  for  mother.  Abigail and Lydia Mott, cousins of Lucretia Mott, desired to have the care of me.

During the absence of my father, mother sustained her little family by binding shoes. Mother had many friends in the anti­ slavery circle  of  Lynn  and  Boston  who  recognized  her  sterling qualities, and who encouraged her during the long absence of her husband. Those were days of anxious worry. The narrative of Frederick Douglass with its bold utterances of truth, with the names of the parties with whom he had been associated in slave life, so incensed the slaveholders that it was doubtful if ever he would re­ turn to this country and also there was danger for mother and those who had aided in his escape, being pursued. It was with hesitancy father consented to leave the country, and not until he was assured by the many friends that mother and the children would be care­ fully guarded, would he go.

There were among the Anti-Slavery people of Massachusetts a fratern l spirit born of the noble purpose near their  heart  that served as an uplift and encouraged the best  energies in each indi­ vidual, and mother from the contact with the great and noble workers grew and improved even more than ever before. She was a recognized co-worker in the A. S. Societies of Lynn and Boston, and no circle was felt to be complete without her presence. There was a weekly gathering of the women to prepare articles for the Annual A. S. Fair held in Faneuil Hall, Boston.  At  that  time mother would spend the week in attendance having charge, in com­ pany of a committee of ladies of which she was one, over the re­ freshments. The New England women were all workers and there was no shirking of responsibility-all worked.  It became the custom of the ladies of the Lynn society for each to take their turn in assisting mother in her household duties on the morning of the day that the sewing circle met so as to he sure of her meeting with them. It was mother’s custom to put aside the earnings from a certain number of shoes she had bound ,as her donation to the A. S. cause. Being frugal and economic she was able to put by a portion of her earnings for a rainy day.

I have often heard my father speak in admiration of mother’s executive ·ability. During his absence abroad, he sent, as he could, support .fur his family, and on his coming home he supposed there would be some bills to settle. One day while talking over their affairs, mother arose and quietly going to  the bureau drawer pro­duced a Bank book with the sums deposited just in the proportion father had sent, the book also containing deposits of her own earn­ings-and  not a debt had been contracted  during his  absence.

The greatest trial, perhaps, that mother was called upon to en­dure, after parting from her Baltimore  friends several years before, was the leaving her Massachusetts home for the Rochester home where father established the “North Star.” She never forgot her old friends and delighted to speak of them up to her last illness.

Wendell Phillips, Wm. Lloyd Garrison,  Sydney  Howard  Gay and many more  with  their  wives  were  particularly  kind  to  her. At one of the Anti-Slavery conventions held in Syracuse, father and mother were the guests of Rev. Samuel J. May, a Unitarian minister and an ardent Anti-Slavery  friend.  The  spacious  parlors  of  the May mansion were thrown open for a reception to their honor and where she could meet her old Boston friends. The refreshments were served on trays, one of which placed upon an improvised table made by the sitting close together of Wendell Phillips, Wm. Lloyd Garrison and Sydney Howard Gay, mother was invited to sit, the four making  an  interesting  tableaux.

Mother occasionally traveled with father on his short trips, but not as often as he would have liked as she was a housekeeper who felt that her presence was necessary in the home, as she was wont to say ”to keep things straight.” Her life in Rochester was not less active in the cause of the slave, if anything she was more self­ sacrificing, and it was a long time after her residence there that she was understood.

The atmosphere in which she was placed lacked the genial cordiality that greeted her in her Massachusetts home.  There were only the few that learned to know her, for, she drew around herself a certain reserve, after meeting her new acquaintances that forbade any very near approach to her. Prej­udice in the early 40’s in Rochester ran rampant and mother be­ came more distrustful.

There were a few loyal co-workers and she set herself assiduously to work.  In the home, with the aid of a laundress only, she managed her household.  She watched with a great deal of  interest and no little pride the growth  in public life of my father, and in every possible way that she was capable aided him by relieving him of all the management of the home as it increased in size and in its appointments. It was her pleasure to know that when he stood up before an audience that his linen was immaculate and that she had made it so, for, no matter how well the laundry was done for the family, she must with her own hands smooth the tucks in father’s linen and when he was on a long journey she would forward at a given point a fresh supply.

Being herself  one of  the first agents of the Underground  Rail­ road she was an  untiring  worker  along that  line.   To be  able to accommodate in a comfortable manner  the  fugitives  that  passed our way, father enlarged his home where  a suite of  rooms could be made ready for those fleeing to Canada. It was no unusual occurrence for mother to be called up at  all hours  of  the  night, cold or hot  as the  case may  be,  to prepare  supper  for  a hungry lot of fleeing humanity.

She was greatly interested in the publication of the “North Star” or Frederick Douglass’ paper as it was called later on, and publication day was always a day for extra rejoicing as each weekly paper was felt to be another arrow sent on its way to do the work of puncturing the veil that shrouded a whole race in gloom. Mother felt it her duty to have her table well supplied with extra provisions that day, a custom that we, childlike, fully’ appreciated. Our home was two miles from the center of the city, where our office was situated, and many times did we trudge through snow knee deep, as street cars were unknown.

During one of the summer vacations the question arose in father’s mind  as to how his sons should be employed, for them to run wild through the streets was out of the question. There was much hostile feeling against the colored boys and as he would be from home most of the time, he felt anxious about them. Mother came to the rescue with the suggestion that they be taken into the office and taught the case. They were little fellows and  the thought had not  occurred  to father.  He  acted  upon  the  sugges­tion and at the ages of eleven and nine they were perched upon blocks and given their first lesson in printer’s ink, besides being employed  to carry papers and mailing them.

Father was mother’s honored guest. He was  from  home  so often that his home comings were events that she thought worthy of extra notice, and caused  renewed  activity.  Every  thing  was done that could be to add to his comfort. She also found time to care for four other boys at different times. As they became mem­ bers of our home circle, the care of their clothing was as carefully seen to as her own children’s and they delighted in calling her Mother.

In her  early life she was a member  of  the Methodist  Church, as was father, but in our home there was no family alter. Our custom was to read a chapter in the Bible around the table, each reading a verse in turn until the chapter was completed. She was a person who strived to live a Christian life instead of talking it.

She was a woman strong in her likes and dislikes, and had a large discernment as to the character of those who came around her. Her gift in that direction being very fortunate in the protection of father’s interest especially in the early days of his public life, when there was great apprehension for his safety. She was a woman firm in her opposition to alcoholic drinks, a strict disci­ plinarian-her no meant no and yes, yes, but more frequently the no’s had it, especially when I was the petitioner. So far as I was concerned, I found my father more yielding than my  mother, altho’ both were rigid as to the matter of obedience.

There was a certain amount of grim humor about mother and perhaps such exhibitions as they occurred were a little startling to those who were unacquainted with her. The reserve in which she held herself made whatever she might attempt of a jocose na­ ture somewhat acrid. She could not be known all at once, she had to be studied.  She abhorred shames.  In the early 70’s she came to Washington and found a large number of people from whom the shackles had recently fallen. She fully realized their condi­ tion and  considered the gaieties that were then  indulged in as frivolous in the extreme.

On one occasion several young women called upon her and commenting on her spacious parlors and the approaching holiday season, thought it a favorable opportunity to suggest the keeping of an open house. Mother replied : ”I have been keeping open house for several weeks. I have it closed now and I expect to keep it closed.” The young women thinking mother’s understanding was at fault, endeavored to explain. They were assured, how­ ever, that they were fully understood. Father, who was present, laughingly pointed to the New Bay Window, which had been com­ pleted only a few days previous to their call.

Perhaps no other home received under its roof a more varied class of  people  than  did our home.  From the highest  dignitaries to the lowliest person, bond or free, white or black, were welcomed, and mother was equally gracious to all. There were a few who presumed on the hospitality of the home and officiously insinuated themselves and their advice in a manner that was particularly disagreeable to her. This unwelcome attention on the part of the visitor would be grievously repelled, in  a manner  more  forceful than the said party would deem her capable of, and from such a person  an  erroneous  impression  of  her  temper  and  qualifications would be given, and criticisms sharp and unjust would be made; so that altho she had her triumphs, they were trials, and only those who knew her intimately could fully understand and  ap­preciate the enduring patience of the wife and mother.

During her wedded life of forty-four years, whether in ad­versity or prosperity, she was the same faithful ally, guarding  as best she could every interest connected with my  father,  his  life­ work and  the home. Unfortunately an  opportunity  for a knowl­edge of books had been denied her, the lack of which she greatly deplored. Her increasing  family  and household  duties prevented any great advancement, altho’ she was able to read a little. By contact with people of culture and  education,  and they  were her real friends, her improvement was marked. She took  a  lively interest in every phase of the Anti-Slavery movement, an interest that father took full pains to foster and to keep her intelligently informed. I was instructed to read to  her.  She  was  a  good listener, making comments on passing events, which were  well worth consideration, altho’ the manner of the presentation of them might provoke a smile. Her value was fully appreciated by my father, and in one of his letters to Thomas Auld, (his  former master,) he says, “Instead of  finding my companion  a burden she is truly  a  helpmeet.”

In 1882, this remarkable woman, for in many ways she was re­ markable, was stricken with paralysis and for  four  weeks  was  a great sufferer. Altho’  perfectly  helpless,  she  insisted  from  her sick bed to direct her home affairs. The orders were given with precision and they were obeyed with alacrity. Her fortitude and patience up to within ten days of her death were very great. She helped us to bear her burden. Many  letters  of  condolence  from those who had met her and upon whom pleasant impressions had been made, were received. Hon.  J. M. Dalzell  of  Ohio,  wrote thus:

“You know I never met your good wife but once and then her

welcome was so warm and sincere and unaffected, her manner al­ together so motherly, and her goodby so full of genuine kindness and hospitality, as to impress me tenderly and fill my eyes with tears as I now recall it.”

Prof. Peter H. Clark of Cincinnati, Ohio, wrote: “The kind treatment given to us and our little one so many years ago won for her a place in our hearts from which no lapse of time could move her. To us she was ever kind  and good and our mourning because of  her death, is heartfelt.”

There is much room for reflection in the review in the life of such a woman as Anna  Murray  Douglass.  Unlettered  tho’  she was, there was a strength of  character  and  of  purpose  that  won for her the respect of the noblest and best. She was a woman who strove to inculcate in the minds of her children the highest princi­ples of morality and  virtue  both  by  precept  and  example.  She was not well versed in the polite etiquette  of  the  drawing  room, the rules for the same being  found in the many treatises  devoted to that branch of literature. She was possessed of a much broader culture, and with discernment born of intelligent observation, and wise discrimination she welcomed all with the hearty manner of a noble soul.

I have thus striven to give you a glimpse of my mother. In so doing I am conscious of having made frequent mention of my father. It is difficult to say any thing of mother without the men­ tion of father, her  life  was  so  enveloped  in  his.  Together  they rest side by side, and most befittingly, within sight of the dear old home of hallowed memories and from which the panting fugitive, the weary traveler, the lonely emigrant of  every  clime,  received food and  shelter.

~ Rosetta Douglass Spague, from Journal of Negro  History