Blackwell Family Henry B. Blackwell Papers Autobiographical Papers (transcribed by Alice Stone Blackwell)Autobiography of Henry B. Blackwell, May 4, 1825 to Sept. 1832. I was born (so I was told) in Wilson St., Bristol, England, May 4, 1825. I have a distinct remembrance of the house which stood on the corner of two streets, with a back garden, and across the street, facing the house was a front garden surrounded by a brick wall. The only thing I remember about these gardens is that in one grew a small tree with red apples, which we called "The American apple," and in the other a tree with small golden yellow apples which we called the "Siberian crab." I remember, too, my father and some other gentlemen clad in white flannel coming up to dinner from his "sugar house' on Counter Slip. As we moved from Wilson St. before I was three years old, I am surprized at being to recall these things. I also remember pouting over a plate containing roast beef and potatoes, whereupon my father took the plate to the side door and called to two chimney-sweeps, little fellows, begrimed with soot. He gave them my dinner which they ate voraciously, sitting on the door-step, while I looked on disconsolately, and saw my dinner disappear. It was an object lesson never to be forgotten. We removed thence to a large dwelling- house on Nelson St. adjourning a paved court- yard with an arched entrance from the streets. Opposite, a lion's head poured a stream of water into a stone basin. On the left was a side door of our residence. Beyond the door was the entrance to the refinery. On the right was the counting-house where my cousin Kenyon, the son of my father's elder brother, John Blackwell of Worcester, and others kept the 'books'. I remember well the house with its front parlor handsomely furnished, with its chairs carefully covered with brown holland, and its windows darkened by shades; the large dining-room with its great oblong table and buffet with decanters; beyond is the kitchen with its open fireplace and the revolving "Jack" on which the meat was roasted in front of the fire; the matches of curled shavings tipped with brimstone; the tinder-box with flint and steel; andold Margaret, our cook, who used to drive us youngsters out of the kitchen by threatening to pin a dish-cloth to our tail. I remember Mother's tea-caddy with its silver scoop, on one side black tea, on the other green tea. I remember learning to know my right hand from my left because I sat on the left hand side of my father who sat and carved at one end of the table, while mother presided at the other end, my brothers and sisters occupying the side seats. The dining-room looked out upon a small yard surrounded by the sugar-house buildings, and over the door grew a passion-flower vine whose blossoms contained a cross, an emblem of the crucifixion. Upstairs were many chambers and spacious halls. One chamber furnished in green, called the "green room"; one in blue called the "blue room." On the third floor was a large nursery with a wonderful swing, the seat of which was surrounded by cords and strips of wood making a sort of cage to prevent our falling out of it. This nursery was the childrens' living room, presided over by a nursemaid and governess. I remember our nurse-maid and her name, "Bessie Coates". We had as playthings building-blocks, marbles and balls. Heere we learned our lessons, and on [a] Sunday afternoons had loud reading of religious books and stories, of which our favorites were "The Lady of the Manor," "Simple Susan," "The Parents' Assistant," and a pathetic story "Anna Ross," over whose early decease we shed floods of tears. I remember my third birthday, May 4th, 1828. It occurred on a Sunday, and I was greatly grieved at being sent up for dinner to the nursery, in consequence of the unexpected presence of some distinguished clerical guests. I behaved very badly, and howled dismally at my wrongs, but was greatly cheered by a dinner in the nursery of cold, boiledsalmon with vinegar and pepper-corns. I was admonished: "What a foolish child to make such a to-do, where so nice a dinner awaited you," which remark struck conviction into my youthful soul. I remember the heavy, red curtains with gold edging, the handsome decorated china set, which was kept for great occasions, the damask flowered bed curtains and valances, the dizzy walk on the "leads" of the sugar-shouse looking down on the river, the delicious "pan-sugar" which crystalllized in the moulds, in which the loaves of refined sugar cooled and took shape. Sometimes, of an evening, it was considered a great treat to be allowed to chop a loaf of sugar into lumps for the table. I remember many pleasant walks taken with my brother and sisters with our governess, Miss Eliza Major - (now our Aunt Eliza by marriage, subsequently to our reaching America, with my mother's brother, "Uncle Charlie" (Major Lane of the British Army). One walk was past a deep mysterious mill-pond and mill, along a brook which fed the pond, through pleasant pastures crossed by a narrow bridge of a single plank; another to "Kingsdown" and "Mother Rigsley's Field", and on through "Redland" to solve nobleman's country-seat; another to Clifton Down and the Hot Walls and beyond to Lee Woods across the River on to Dedham Down, looking off to Cook's Folly. On the Down was a camera obscura which gave a reflected picture in a darkened room; another across Bridewell Bridge and past the statues of the Twelve Apostles, across St. James' Churchyard and through a narrow street to Stokes Croft; another to Brunswick Square, where Aunt Mary (one of father's sisters) kept a school; another to Queen's Square; another to Bristol Cathedral and its ancient cloisters, and beyond to Aunt Ann's school. I recollect these aunts and my favorite Aunt Barbara and Aunt Lucy, my father's four sisters, all unmarried women. At one time my brother Sam andmyself were pupils in Aunt Mary's school, where I first saw an ear of corn brought there as a curiosity by one of the boys, John or his brother Richard Hensby. I remember eating for the first time a raw oyster at a stand in Stokes Croft, and being assured by the nurse-girl, my companion, that there was blood in refined sugar, she citing as proof that if you put a lump into the flame of a candle, the blood would ooze out of it; also the reprimand the poor girl received from my parents when I announced this interesting piece of natural science. I remember the "book club" to which my father belonged, with the weekly arrival and departure of the volumes which were circulated among its members. I remember Bridge Street Chapel presided over by Rev. Dr. Liefchild, and the hymns given out, two lines at a time by the clerk or precentor, and then sung by the congregation. This clerk, Mr. Barber, died of pneumonia or some such disorder in consequence of exposure to a fog. I recall the clatter of pattens (which preceded rubbers and raised the feet of the wearers above the wet flag-stones, and the clogs made of cork, which were used for the same purpose, King William's coronation was celebrated by a procession which I witnessed, with the "trades" marching separately under their banners, and a knight in white "plate armor" and another knight in "chain armor". There was a bookstore kept by a Mr. Bulgire, and a handsome jeweller's store kept by my uncle and namesake Henry Browne, with its gorgeous array of silver plate and pearls and precious stones. He lived over his shop, as was customary, in handsome apartments. His wife, Aunt Browne, was a kind, old lady who shook with some nervous affection. Uncle Henry Browne won my life-time remembrance and affection by presenting me with a knife with 12 blades and other attachments, among which I remembera corkscrew, a file, a tool for shoeing horses, etc., etc. I recall a parliamentary election in which our family being zealous liberals or whigs, were greatly interested. The candidates elected were Prothero and Bailey. We wore their colors, purple I think, and saw them, "chaired", i.e. carried by men in chairs above the heads of the crowds of rejoicing supporters. There was a illumination over the passage of the Reform Bill in 1832 which it was considered saved England from revolution and bloodshed. I remember also, a mob which burned and sacked houses and committed serious depredations. I saw this mob for a moment coming up Nelson St. We children were going out with our governess, Miss Major, for a walk. We had opened the door and stepped out upon the side-walk when I heard shouts and saw a dense mass of men pointing toward us. Turning as pale as ashes, Miss Major hastily drew us back and closed the door. Hardly had she done so, when the crowd swept past with a rush and a roar like an angry torrent. As a sequel of the riot there were many arrests following the dispersal of the mob. Some of the rioters I think were hung and others transported for life to Botany Bay, now New South Wales. During the four years of our life in Nelson St., we spent our summer's successively in Weston "super mare", Clevedon at a a picturesque point called Salt House Point, projecting into the British Channel, and Olveston an inland village 7 miles from Bristol, at Rose Cottage. Of Weston I remember the long sandy beach, bordered with summer cottages, the shrimps, the bathing machines, the beautiful walk over the high rolling commons to the "300 steps" leading down to Kewstock Bay, the picnic teas we used to have at a cottage on the commons where lived an ancient dame who served us with fruit and bread and butter in an arbor. There was aplace where the tide rushed in with great force and suddenness, sometimes drowning careless loiterers. Here we were "dipped" by a bathing-woman, Mrs. Mugglesworth, to our great terror. There were also "plantations" of young trees set out on a hill overlooking the sea by some wealthy land-owners. Father used to come out from the city and was a fine swimmer, crossing the bay to a distant headland. We went to Weston (or Clevedon, I am not sure which) in a large carriage, stopping to dine at a country-seat once occupied by some of our relatives, in a lovely region. Of Clevedon my chief recollections are paddling with my elder brother and sisters on boards as the tide came in forming "islands" on the submerged meadows, and having our hair combed with a "small tooth comb" by my mother, on a rocky point approached by a winding path on the edge of a cliff, while she sang in a sweet, clear voice, "Ye gentlemen of England who live at home at ease, Ah, little do ye think upon the dangers of the seas, Where the stormy winds do blow, blow, blow. Where the stormy winds do blow!" At the foot of the cliff facing the channel was a deep well, or cavern, in the rock which all believed to be "without any bottom". It was our delight to drop in stones and hear them strike the rocky sides, with sounds fainter and fainter, till they became inaudible. Beyond the point was a landing with an old church and some buildings and small coasting vessels which we saw from the distance, but never visited. Opposite were two distant islands called the Steep Holm and the Flat Holm, and beyond them the distant hills of the Welsh coast. A mile or two off was a boarding-school which my elder sisters attended. We also visited a farm-house where we were regaled with cream cheese and curds and whey. At Salt House I had a narrowescape. Running hastily round the path to the Point, I fell over the cliff and should have been dashed to pieces, had I not lodged half-way down in a bed of brambles and stinging nettles. Rescued, howling, by my affectionate relatives, I was promptly bathed in vinegar, which smarted so unconscionably that I considered the remedy worse than the disease. One of my childish memories was of entering a vast religious edifice and hearing distant chanting followed by a glorious burst of organ music. I always supposed this to have been St. Mary Redcliff; but on revisiting Bristol 50 years later, I could not identify it as in any way connected with that impressive remembrance. but when I entered Bristol Cathedral it all came back to me. Again I heard distant chanting, and again came another glorious burst of organ music just as I had heard it when a child. Once in our walks in Mother Pugsley Field, at Kingsdown, I saw a black man going to the spring to draw a pail of water. It was the first negro we had ever seen and we fled before him in terror. My recollections of Rose Cottage, Olveston, where we spent the summer of 1831 are altogether charming. I had been to the village before as the guest of my mother's elder brother, Rev. Mr. Lane, and his daughter Elizabeth. He was a grave, morose man, and his daughter, a woman grown, was of a quick and hasty temper. For some offence I was locked up by her in an upper room, and in a fit of rage I deliberately spat upon the furniture. when she discovered it, she compelled me to wipe up every spot, so that my revenge proved singularly unsuccessful and incomplete. During the summer passed in Olveston we greatly enjoyed the fine garden intersected with a stream crossed by a rustic bridge. There were every variety of fruit in their season, rhubarb, currants, gooseberries, raspberries, blackberries, peaches, apricots, beautiful apples called "ladies' fingers" and pears styled "bishop's thumbs". Grapes were trained on the walls. This wealth of fruit was the work of an elderly Quaker lady, Lydia Gregory, who, until her death, had supported herself by raising fruits and vegetables. By a road which climbed a hill past Uncle Cone's house we reached a Common commanding a noble view of the surrounding country, and of a distant town; and the Channel, and the far-off Welsh mountains, and the fertile valley of the Severns. Here father and mother and the children walked after the migration to Americas had been decided upon. It was a lovely sunset and we all knew, as we watched the dying colors in the sky, that it was the last time we should ever see that glorious view. As the shadows began to creep over the landscape a sensation of inexpressible sadness came over me, and I felt for the first time that sense of homesickness which is the most sorrowful that ever oppresses the human soul. The idea that we were going to leave our native land forever came over me, and I felt that I was about to enter a new and strange world of which I knew nothing. Among the many pleasant excursions of my early childhood was one to a place called "Frenchbay" where we had strawberries and cream, and another into Wales to Chepstow, Piercefield and Tinturn Abbey, beautiful Welsh scenery. It was a family party, father, mother, brothers and sisters. We had a charming walk through a beautiful woodland looking down into the valley of a winding river. I remember also, Sunday walks with our servants, Harriet and Jane Bryan, to their brother's home at a suburb on the banks of the Avon, where rafts of lumber floating in the river gave us boys great delight in jumping from log to log. In this neighborhood was a largecharity school connected with some evangelistic mission by Muller and Craig, - a sort of precursor of Moodey and Sankey half a century later. How well I remember the embarcation from Bristol on the good ship "Cosmos" with Captain Gillespie; the crowd of on-lookers; the swarm of passengers; the relations and friends gathered to wish us good-by. Our party consisted of father, mother, father's sisters Barbara, Lucy and Mary - eight brothers and sisters, Anna, Marian, Elizabeth, Samuel, Henry, Emily, Ellen and Howard, ranging in age from 22 to one year old, Miss Eliza Major our governess, two house servants Harriet and Jane Bryan. Passing down the winding river past Leigh Woods and Clifton Down, the ship had on board some 200 passengers, mostly in steerage, half a dozen in the second cabin. The cabin passengers comprized a family named Blandy, who settled in Zanesville, Ohio, where they became people of note, - the eldest daughter Isabella, for whom my brother Sam (aged 9) formed a romantic attachment. The eldest son, Henry, a bright intellectual, young man who later shocked us all by becoming a "Deist." Frederick, the second brother and others whom I cannot recall. There was a young man named Joyner, and a disagreeable, elderly Welshman named Probyn; &c. He had a cow on board, but the poor creature soon died and there was no more milk. The water was poor and brackish; we lived on salt beef and pork and crackers. Next morning we were off Lundy Island, a grand rock rising precipitously from the stormy ocean. We put into Milford Haven for water after passing the picturesque hills of Ilfracoomb. Of course we were all more or less sea-sick. I remember how my nausea was cured by some hot arrowroot jelly with a spoonful of brandy. How good it tasted! While at Milford Haven we went ashore and visited some gentleman's beautifulcountry-seat where, for the first time, I saw a "hot-house" with ripe oranges and lemons on the trees. Our voyage lasted between 7 and 8 weeks. I remember the banks of Newfoundland, with great green waves, a driving fog, and sailors casting the lead and calling the number of fathoms of water, then the Land Islands coast with houses above the sandy beach, then the Jersey Highlands and Sandy Hook, and the Narrows and Staten Island, and the Fort on Governor's Island, and the Battery. It was a beautiful day and a lovely scene. It was night when we reached our pier on the East river, too late to leave the vessel. But father took me with him to a bake-shop where we bought some loaves of bread which were extremely welcome after our long diet of hard tack and salt beef. Among the steerage passengers was a bricklayer from Bath, a Methodist lay preacher, Dennis Harris and his wife. Father was pleased with his resolute, aggressive methodism asserted among a crowd of godless passengers. Our cabin-boy named Tom, overflowing with reckless jollity, greatly annoyed my little sister Ellen, aged 4, with his demonstrations of regards, and she amused by her scornful "Get along you gustion creetur." I developed a boil on my side, and by accident, poor Mr. Joyner came in contact with it, whereat I flew at him in an ebullition of wrath and pain which led to my suppression in disgrace. Next morning we secured rooms at two respectable boarding-houses on Pearl St. side by side, kept by two ladies, Miss Corse and Miss Day. We rented a house on Thompson St. (then respectable private houses) and moved our furniture brought from Bristol, into it. Father meeting Mr. Harris on the street, asked him if he had found employment and Mr. Harris replying in the negative, Father engaged himto move our furniture into our house, and subsequently made him foreman in a sugar-house which he rented on Gold St. When we moved to Cincinnati in 1838, Mr. Harris continued my father's business of making molasses sugar, and later became a wealthy sugar refiner. For two years we lived in Thompson St. We children studied at home. During the first of these years my youngest brother, George Washington Blackwell was born. Mother's nurse, a Mrs. Christopher, amused us by her blunt American ways. One cold, winter day father took the whole family for a sleigh- ride. We were not aware of the necessity of bundling up and came back almost frozen. We drove up what is now Broadway (then called Bloomingdale Road) lined with country-seats and villas. We used to go sliding on ponds where now is Washington Square, (then called Washington Parade Grounds.) We got our drinking-water from a wooden pump at the corner of Houston St. It must have been largely filter sewerage, but there was then no other city water-supply. Our landlord, an old gentleman named Jennings, used to visit us and told us wonderful stories of the numerous rattlesnakes on his lands in Pennsylvania. My sister Anna, hearing much said of the excellence of pumpkin pie, filled a deep pie-dish with square blocks of pumpkin, added water and brown sugar, and baked it as if it had been fruit. We were all greatly disappointed and pronounced it uneatable. On the Saturday evening after our arrival, I took a walk with my father to Spring St. Market. We passed through stalls filled with meats, fruits and vegetables with no one in sight to guard them, apparently no policeman and no thieves. The tomatoes green and red, were objects of curiosity to us, also the peppers. My parents at oncejoined a Presbyterian congregation which met on Straight St. Rev. Samuel Hanson Cox was its pastor. Mr. William A. Booth (one of the firm of Tomlinson & Booth, wholesale grocers) was my Sunday School teacher. Rev. Dr. Cox was at first intensely pro-slavery, and when taking tea with us used to have warm discussions with my father, who in England was a liberal in politics and a "Clarkson abolitionist." Soon afterwards, Rev. Dr. Cox visited England to attend a World's Evangelical Conference. He found abolitionism popular there, and being a man who loved popularity, on his return, he preached anti-slavery sermons. In one of these he combated the race-prejudice then prevalent everywhere by reminding his hearers that Christ was of Semite and not of Caucasian race. The Courier and Inquirer, then the leading commercial paper, edited by James Watson Webb, a duelist and apologist for slavery, wishing to arouse prejudice, announced editorially that Dr. Cox, in his Sunday sermon, had denied that the Savior was a white man. At once it was reported that Cox had said that "Jesus Christ was a nigger". The roughs of the city were inflamed with righteous wrath at the supposed blasphemy. They attacked and gutted the houses of Rev. Dr. Sam. Cox, and of his brother Dr. Abrams L. Cox, and several other active abolitionists, the inmates fleeing for their lives. This was in the summer of 1835, I think. We had recently moved from the Thompson St. house into the country and rented a fine, old frame house in an extensive garden full of fruit and bordered by a fine row of cherry trees in full bearing, with a barn and carriage-house, an orchard, and one or two clover fields and pastures. Unfortunately, beside the garden was a marsh and the place was extremely malarious. My father, who was extremely sensitive to malaria, here came very near dying of bilious fever, from the effects of which I think he never fully recovered. Tofounded a Presbyterian congregation which met on Straight St. Rev. Samuel Hanson Cox was its pastor. Mr. William A. Booth, (one of the firm of Tomlinson & Booth, wholesale grocers) was my Sunday school teacher. Rev. Dr. Cox was at first intensely pro-slavery, and when taking tea with us used to have warm discussions with my father, who in England was a liberal in politics and a "Clarkson abolitionist." Soon afterwards, Rev. Dr. Cox visited England to attend a World's Evangelical Conference. He found abolitionism popular there, and being a man who loved popularity, on his return, he preached anti-slavery sermons. In one of these he combated the race-prejudice then prevalent everywhere by reminding his hearers that Christ was of Semite and not of Caucasian race. The Courier and Inquirer, then the leading commercial paper, edited by James Watson Webb, a duelist and apologist for slavery, wishing to arouse prejudice, announced editorially that Dr. Cox, in his Sunday sermon, had denied that the Savior was a white man. At once it was reported that Cox had said that "Jesus Christ was a nigger." The roughs of the city were inflamed with righteous wrath at the supposed blasphemy. They attacked and gutted the houses of Rev. Dr. Sam. Cox, and of his brother Dr. Abram L. Cox, and several other active abolitionist, the inmates fleeing for their lives. This was in the summer of 1835, I think. We had recently moved from the Thompson St. house into the country and rented a fine old frame house in an extensive garden full of fruit and bordered by a fine row of cherry trees in full bearing, with a barn and carriage-house, an orchard, and one or two clover fields and pastures. Unfortunately, beside the garden was a marsh and the place was extremely malarious. My father, who was extremely sensitive to malaria, here came very near dying of bilious fever, from the effects of which I think he never fully recovered. Tothis country house the brothers Cox (minister and physician) came for hiding and remained with us for ten days until the excitement subsided. The temper of the two men was strikingly shown in their demeanor. The parson walked disconsolately about, sighing deeply and overwhelmed with terror and despair. He was an intensely worldly man, and felt that he had made the mistake of his life in making his anti-slavery escapade. Accordingly, on his return to New York he hastened to take the backtrack and was never afterwards heard of as a reformer. Dr. Abraham L. Cox was our family physician and a man of different mould. Brave, irascible and opinionated, he spent his enforced vacation in practicing pistol shooting behind our barn, announcing his intentions to sell his life dearly if the mob pursued him. Our old family carriage was indented with the marks of the bullets ever afterwards. To return to Thompson St, the year before. The mutterings of the pro-slavery storm had been heard some time before it broke. The occasion of this was the advent of George Thompson, of England, who came over as a delegate from the British Anti-Slavery Society. He was a man of great eloquence but of a belligerent tempter, who denounced slavery as a crime and slave-holders as robbers and murderers. This would have been quite enough to arouse popular passion, but the fact was that Thompson was a "British emissary" was unbearable. The rampant Americanism which had not yet had time to die out since the War of 1812 was stirred, and Thompson soon found himself practically silenced and proscribed. During 1834 I was present, with others of my father's family, at a meeting just below us in a stone church, at the corner of Thompson and Broone Sts. where Thompson spoke to a crowded audience, denouncing Cox and Heobey[?] - two English delegates whothe two months voyage one or two of our steerage passengers had died of it. We were fortunate in our prolonged voyage. But on Broadway opposite the City Hall, we saw grass growing among the cobblestones which were then the pavements of the streets, - a sight which will probably not recur for centuries, possibly milleniums to come in that locality. The two leading physicians who divided fashionable practice between them were Dr. Cox and Dr. Cheeseman, the residence of the latter being on Broadway near Bleeker St. The principal daily papers were the Courier and Inquirer, the Journals of Commerce, and the Commercial Advertiser. James Gordon Bennett had begun the publication of a blackmailing penny paper which made news a specialty and soon began to distance its conservative competitors in circulation. The steamboats had already begun to run to Albany, and soon a railroad was projected to Newark and another one to Paterson. had gone South and been hospitably entertained there. Seeing the pleasant side of the patriarchal institution, they had written home whitewashing the institution. For this, Thompson denounced them in scathing terms. One of them, it seemed, was in the gallery and rose to protest and justify himself. All was at fever-heat, when a mob which had gathered outside began to pelt the windows with stones. Amid the crash of falling glass and the howls of the mob, the frightened audience dispensed, Thompson escaping in the midst of the tumult. New York at this period - 1832 to 1838 - was a comparatively small city concentrated south of Bond St. and what is now Fourth St. and Washington Square. Railroads were not yet completed. The Erie Canal had begun to give New York its metropolitan air, but the fashionable quarter was still around the Battery. When we landed in the fall of 1832 the cholera was just subsiding. DuringDuring our residence on Long Island, some 3 miles from Williamsburg, between Newtown and Flushing, we often drove to the city, and my sister Anna used to drive up Broadway without any difficulty. Sometimes we came in by way of Brooklyn, then a single street (now Fulton Avenue) of scattered houses. We used to go that way because at a little bakery there we found especially nice plum buns, - a sweetened cake with raisins and currants in it. On the fields which are now the lower part of Brooklyn we saw the numbered stakes of hundreds of lots marked for sale, not yet in demand. While living on Long Island my mother and sisters took part in an Anti-Slavery Fair at Niblo's Gardens. Gerritt Smith attended it one evening,- the finest, most majestic looking man I had ever seen. A weekly paper called "The Emancipator" was published in New York by Joshua Leavitt, less radical and denunciatory than the "Liberator" recently started in Boston by William Lloyd Garrison. My father was greatly disappointed in his experience of the New York business man in their complicity with the system of slavery. The Cuban planters from whom he bought sugar said frankly that they made no effort to raise slaves, finding it more profitable to work them out in seven years and supply their places with negroes from Africa. We were very enthusiastic abolitionists. I remember being enlisted by my energetic sister Anna to write mottoes for sugar kisses for sale at the Fair, - one of which ran as follows: "Hurrah for the banner of Stars! Hurrah for the banner of Stripes! Get up you black niggers all covered with scars Hurrah for the banner of Stripes!" While we were living on Long Island, my mother's younger brother Charles, an half-pay officer in the British Armymade us a visit, fell in love with our governess, Miss Major, and married her. Although I was only about 9 or 10 years old, I felt pangs of jealousy which made me miserable at the wedding. My sisters got up a school for some black children living near us in shanties on the banks of Newtown Creek. We christened one of our horses "William Lloyd Garrison" and a mare "Prudence Crandall" (whose colored school in Connecticut was broken up by a mob of her fellow townsmen. On Sunday afternoons we used to take long carriage drives to Rockaway Beach, to Jamaica, and to Flushing. In Newtown Creek I leaned to swim. Our playmates were three boys whom I well remember - Tommy Armstrong, John Hawkshurst, and Davy Miller. I remember my brother Sam being persuaded by our companions to invest two cents, his week's pocket money, in raisins at the grocery store at the toll-gate on the Jamaica turnpike, they assuring him that for that two cents he could get "quite a fill". Looking disconsolately at the very small quantity received, which when divided by five gave only two or three raisins apiece, poor Sam said scornfully "So they call this a fill!" During the hot, unhealthy summer I became bilious and an emetic was prescribed. My sister Anna, who after Miss Major's marriage, had been constituted our governess and ruled us with a rod of iron, offered me as an inducement to take the dose, the privilege of reading during its operation, Scott's novel entitled "The Pirate". There was a standing prohibition of "novels", and Anna evidently imagined that while undergoing an emetic I should not be able to read it. But I became so absorbed in the story that I read it and have never forgotten the characters and incidents. Evidently the days of teetotalism had not yet arrived, for I remember one afternoon that our cow wasbrought beneath the shadow of a large catalpa tree near the back door and there, quietly chewing her cud while she was being milked through a strainer into a large tin pail containing sugar, lemons, spice and spirits, into a delectable foamy compound entitled "Syllabub." Those were pleasant days to the children who had the freedom of orchards, field and out-buildings after study hours were over, making apple-wine in a figured china pitcher. Father's brother James and his branch office in Ireland, bad debts, dissipation and mismanagement; losses thus incurred discourage father, and led to his migration to America. This was probably a mistake as he had achieved a solid reputation and was so highly esteemed that a meeting of leading merchants and bankers tendered him all the capital he would need at 2% as an inducement to remain. His friend and pastor Dr. Liefchild added his entreaties, "Life will have lost its gilding in that rough new society," said Dr. Liefchild. "Ah, Doctor," replied my father, "a wife and eight children cannot live on gilding." Yet had he made but the one move and remained in New York, it might have been a wise change. For he reached New York as it began to take its phenomenal growth into metropolitan primacy. More than that, it was already and continued to be the principal port of entry for raw sugars and the centre of the sugar refining of the country. The generation of sugar refiners he found there had not yet learned the modern process of sugar refining - the vacuum pan and the bone-black filters had not been introduced into this country. Father had used both in his refinery in Bristol. So when in 1835 or 36 he entered into partnership with a branch of the eminent London firm of Gower, Guppy & Co. they put up in their Congress Sugar Refinery, No 144 Duane St., the first vacuum pans ever erected in America. Mr. Guppy came over in person, but soon returned toEngland, leaving as the representative of the English partners, Mr. Stephen Gower, one of the most aimable and lovable of men. Guppy was a brilliant man, but immoral and unscrupulous, quite incompatible with father's stern puritan ideas. For instance, Guppy wanted to work the factory on Sundays. Mr. Harris, a zealous Methodist, refused to act as foreman on that day and came to father to protest. "Mr. Harris," said father, "have I ever asked you to work on the Sabbath?" "No, sir," said Mr. Harris. "I never shall," said my father. Guppy drank, gambled, kept a mistress, was generally loose in his ways, and it was felt as a relief when he took himself back to Europe. Yet, we are told that he afterwards established a wonderfully successful sugar refinery in Calcutta, besides converting father's old refinery in Bristol into a starch factory. The business went on for a year successfully. There was a margin of 7 cents a pound between raw and refined sugar; every year with such a margin a fortune might have been realized. Father's New York competitors were boiling sugar over an open fire in a bascule pan, and deodorizing with clay and syrup. But as bad luck would have it the Congress Refinery was destroyed by fire, with insufficient insurance. The panic of 1837 prostrated business. The London firm, probably influenced by the disaffected Guppy, declined to rebuild and insisted on winding up the business in New York, which was done by my father. (There are missing pages that may be discovered later. I.P.B. ) almost every available dollar. We have always supposed that he had had assurances of remittances from Eastern creditors or a loan from Mr. Samuel Browne, a distant relative living in Cincinnati. Of course it was an anxious time. My father's sister, Aunt Mary, died in our house a few weeks later. The school opened in the house by my mother and sisters was a success, and for several years the financial prospects were encouraging. My mother was a member of the orthodox Congregational denomination and connected herself with the congregation of Rev. Thornton K. Mills. My three elder sisters, influenced by Anna, joined the Episcopalian congregation of Rev. Mr. Johns. But when, a few years later, William Henry Channing became pastor of a Unitarian congregation, my sisters became greatly attracted and joined his congregation. This gave great offence to the fashionable and conservative society of the city, Unitarianism being regarded as infidelity, and as such intensely unpopular. The school dwindled in consequence. My sister Anna was induced by a good salary to take a situation as music-teacher in Dayton, Ohio. About 1843 my sister Elizabeth made up her mind to study medicine, and in order to do so, took situation as music-teacher in a celebrated school kept by Rev. Dr. Dickson at Asheville, N.C. which was transferred during the winter months to Charleston, S.C. During the six years from the spring of 1838 to 1844 we moved four times, - two years in Symmes St. was followed by two years in Fourth St. near by, then two years on Eighth St. near Main then one year on Eighth St. near Vine. Thence we moved about 1844 to Walnut Hills where we rented a pleasant residence, with large garden and shade at the corner of what were then known as the Montgomery and Madison roads, belonging to Rev. Mr. Vail, an agent of the Tract Society, resident in Florida. There my sister Marian took some scholars, and Emily and Ellen later became teachers of music and drawing, and Mother took boardersMy brother Samuel soon after father's death had been employed by Major Gano in the City Registry Office in the County Court House. I had first a situation with Mr. Bouner in an "exchange" office, a business of buying and selling bank-notes which at that time were issued by private bankers acting under State charters, or, in a few cases by state banks having numerous branches. these banks were of various degrees of responsibility and their notes sold at various rates of discount. The buying and selling "currency" and "bankable money" was a distinct business connected more or less with private banking, receiving deposits on interest and making short-time loans varying from one to two per cent a month. A few months later I left Mr. Bouner and was employed for a few weeks by the leading dry-goods firm of Shellits and Pullan. this was not to my taste and I then was employed by Mr. Rowland Ellis as his sole clerk and assistant. I swept out the office, and opened it, counted money, received deposits, paid checks, drew Mexican dollars, thru our basis of currency from banks, & c. ---- In 1839 Mr. Silas Axtell Crane moved from Burlington, Vt. to St. Louis to accept the presidency of Kemper College and with his wife and her sister and the children, spent several weeks with us as our guests on their way thither. They reciprocated our hospitality by inviting me to become an inmate of their family, and a member of the Freshman class of Kemper College. Thither I went, a boy of 14, in a new suit of clothes, which I insisted on wearing against the wishes of my family, by steamer in the summer of 1839. Before I left home the "Tippecanoe and Tyler too" Presidential campaign had got fairly under way. A young man who boarded with us, afterwards an eminent financier, Mr. C.W. West, drove us to Dayton one night, 52 miles in a carriage - he and I and two of my sisters to a great barbecue or May Convention, attended by thousands of people, who slept on floors upon straw, being entertained by the hospitable people of the city. The waning prosperity of the school made my recall to Cincinnati necessary and I regained my position with Mr. Ellis, now Ellis and Vallette. There I remained for six years. About 1845, the year preceding the Irish famine, Mr. Ellis associated with him, Mr. Norton who left the Ohio Life Insurance and Trust Co's employ as a paying teller. I was engaged to take his place, but a misunderstanding as to salary, with Mr. Fosdick one of the directors, led me to decline the position. through the influence of my friend, Mr. West, I formed a connection as partner with Atkins and Blair, these the owners of two flour mills and a linseed - oil mill. It was a pretty responsible position for a young man not yet 21. During the year we had an exciting business. wheat ran up from 40 cents a bushel to $1.25. Flour from $2.25 to $9.00 a barrel. A demand for kiln-dried corn having sprung up for the famishing Irish people, we promptly converted one of our mills, and for a short time ran it at an enormous profit. In four months we had cleared $45,000, an immense sum for those dates. But the Irish refused to eat corn-meal; they preferred to starve on rotten potatoes. It became unsaleable; our large stock of wheat and corn and flax-seed tumbled in value, and when we wound up our year's business only $14,000 profit remained, of which my one-fifth was only some $3000. But with that we bought in my mother's name a little brick house and lot adjoining Lane Seminary grounds in Walnut Hills, which became the family residence until we moved East, in 1856. At the close of my business year with Atkins and Blair, I was attracted back to New York by an invitation from Mr. Dennis Harris to learn the sugar refining business in which he had succeeded my father in 1838 and had greatly prospered. So I spent the year 1846-7 with him, but did not find the connection pleasant, and was induced to bring some of Mr. Harris' old machinery to Cincinnati and start a sugar refinery there. Of course it was not a success. The best sugar one could make with the machinery at our disposal (blow pans) was what was known as "coffee crushed" sugar, which was greatly in demand in New York, but not yet used in the West. I should soon have failed, finding this syle of sugar unsaleable, but one night I was wakened from sleep in my room at Lane Seminary by being informed that my refinery was on fire, and on going down I found it a total loss. Fortunately my insurance policies enabled me to pay my creditors and I returned again to Mr. Harris in New York and took charge of his books. But again I found the position unsatisfactory. Mr. Harris was a narrow, Methodist (Wesleyan) preacher. I was an ardent believer in Fourierism. My sister Anna, who was residing in New York, was a great admirer and personal friend of Albert Brisbane the translator of Fourier's works into English, - an erratic and untrustworthy, though brilliant man. At this time I was boarding on Walker Street, in the same house as Oswald Macdaniel then recently married to Margaret, sister of Charles A. Dana formerly of Brook Farm, then assistant editor of the New York Tribune. It was the year of the discovery of gold in California. Macdaniel persuaded me to invest a few hundred dollars, about all my capital, in the manufacture of some patent "cradles", or rockers, designed to separate the grains of gold from the gravel by washing. I had made up my mind to join the goldseekers in California, and should probably have done so had not a new incident occurred which changed the whole course of my after life. When my father left Bristol in 1838 his eldest brother was living in Worcester in very moderate circumstances. Afterwards he engaged in iron-manufacture and his two talented and energetic sons, Kenyon and Samuel, became extensive and successful iron manufacturers. Retiring with a competence, Kenyon who had been employed as a book-keeper in my father's refinery at Nelson St., and had there formed a romantic attachment to my sister Marian came over to investigate the possibilities of iron manufacturing in America, and incidentally to visit our family and renew his acquaintance with Marian. He was staying at our home on Walnut Hills when my letter came announcing my intended departure for California. The family took alarm and persuaded Kenyon to come to New York to dissuade me from going to California. As an inducement to remain he proposed to loan my brother Sam and myself $5000 to enable us to unite with two other young men - James G. Coombs and James W. Ryland - in buying out an old firm, Christian Donaldson & Co., who were carrying on a wholesale hardware business at No. 18 Main St. Cincinnati. I was reluctant to do this believing that the business could not support four partners, and I wrote to my brother not to close the purchase unless it could be accomplished with one other partner - not over three in all. But he disregarded my conditions and when I reached Cincinnati I found myself one of the firm of Coombs, Ryland & Blackwell, the owners of a large stock of hardware much of it no longer saleable. It was a poor purchase as the (Here the autobiography ends abruptly. I.P-B.)[* (written by HBB in 1901) *] Autobiographical sketch by Hen. Br. Blackwell In 1848 I became a partner in the firm of Coombs, Ryland & Blackwell, hardware merchants in Cincinnati, O. I had been thinking of going to California. I was then living in New York, having been keeping books for Mr. Dennis Harris, sugar refiner. My cousin Kenyon a wealthy, retired iron-master of Dudley, Eng. being on a visit to our family, then resident on Walnut Hills, came on at their request to dissuade me from doing so, and loaned my brother Sam and myself [pounds] 1000 to enable us to buy out Christian Donaldson & Co., an old firm. I became travelling partner and salesman of the concern. It was, I think, in 1849 or 1850, that a young middle aged woman called at our store with a small draft on Mr. Christian Donaldson as treasurer of the Ohio Anti-Slavery Society, drawn by Samuel Brooks of Cleveland for services rendered by Miss Lucy Stone as a lecturer for the Society. Her sweet voice, bright smile, pleasant manner and simplicity of dress and character struck me so pleasantly that I advised my brother Sam to make her acquaintance and as Mr. Donaldson was not at the store, I agreed to send her the amount of the check next morning to the house of a neighbor on Walnut Hills, Mr. Guild, with whose family she was visiting. Miss Stone was then of a slender figure, and her face showed that she was recovering from a severe illness. She had come West to visit her brother Luther, then a country merchant living at a small town, Hutsonville, Ills. in the Wabash Valley. While there her brother died of cholera after only a week's illness. Lucy nursed him, aided his wife Phebe in disposing of his property, and the two women started East together. At a smalltown, Plainfield, Indiana, on the National Road Lucy was prostrated by typhoid fever, the result of heat, fatigue, grief, and bad food, and lay for some weeks at the point of death. fortunately she was cared for by a worthy old couple and on convalescing resumed her journey with Phebe, and called to collect the small sum due her. Next morning my brother Sam called at the Guilds and paid her the check, but did not feel specially attracted to her, and I saw no more of her. In 1850 my sisters, Marian and Ellen were making a visit in New England. As we were subscribers of the Liberator, and strongly interested in "Association" and in Brook Farm - they were present at the first National Woman's Rights Convention in Worcester in May 1850 and there met Lucy Stone, who was really the active promoter and manager of it. They were greatly pleased and interested in her and wrote about her in their letters, thus keeping her in my memory. The Liberator, the Anti-slavery Standard, and Fred Douglas' Paper, were parts of our Sunday reading at Walnut Hills. In these the name of Miss Stone often appeared, and kept her in remembrance. In May 1853 I went East to attend the Anti-Slavery Anniversary meetings. That of New York was held at the Chinese Museum on Broadway. At that meeting I heard Miss Stone, who by this time had attained a high reputation as a speaker, make a thrilling address in the course of which she described a slave-mother with her baby on her shoulder fleeing from her pursuers, when a shot struck the baby's head, scattering its brains upon the poor mother's face and neck as she ran. The incident, which was of recent occurrence was so graphically described that the whole audience was moved to tears. A few weeks later, in Boston, June, 1853, I attended a hearing given in Representatives Hall to the petition of Abby May Alcott, Abby Kelley Foster, Lucy Stone, and others, addressed by Lucy Stone, Theodore Parker, Wendell Phillips and T.W. Higginson. It was during a session of the Constitutional Convention. Hon. Amasa Walker was chairman of the Committee. He was a man highly and deservedly esteemed and a warm personal friend of Lucy who had been for some time in his family at North Brookfield as governess of his children. Two of these children afterwards became influential people. One was President Walker of the [N.E.] Mass Institute of Technology; the other, Mrs. Alfred Batcheller - Probably owing to this fact the Committee gave the speakers a respectful and interested hearing. The hall was well filled, many of the "Garrisonian Abolitionists" and Mr. Garrison himself were present. The beauty, charm and eloquence of Miss Stone captured her hearers and greatly impressed me. I remember that Charles C. Burleigh stood behind her as she spoke, and the affectionate regard he manifested for her. Then and there I made up my mind to pay my addresses to her. I spoke to Mr. Garrison on the subject at his office on Cornhill. Before this, I had had a pleasant personal acquaintance with him and other anti-slavery speakers, as one of the small body of Cincinnati abolitionists who were headed by Mrs. Sara Otis Ernst (mother of George A. O. Ernst) whose husband had a beautiful estate on the hills above Cumminsville a suburb of Cincinnati. Mr. Garrison very willingly gave me a letter of introduction to Miss Stone and also one to Deacon Josiah Henshaw, of West Brookfield, the leading abolitionist of that town. But he said he did not think I was likely to succeed in changing Miss Stone's determination not to marry. She was so devoted to her work for anti-slavery andwoman's rights and so absorbed in her career as a lecturer that she had declined several other suitors. Miss Stone was living with her father and mother at the hold homestead on Coy's Hill, three miles from the railway station. The parents and Lucy occupied one half of the farm-house. Lucy's brother, William B. Stone, his wife and three children the other half. Mr. William B. Stone had bought the farm from his father and was carrying on quite an extensive milk business upon several hundred acres of rocky upland pastures surrounding the house. So I took the railroad on a beautiful June morning and walked out to Deacon Hershaw's. I found him plowing in a field near his house. He read the letter asking him to let me know whether Miss Stone was at home and there was a twinkle in his eye which seemed to show that he suspected the nature of my visit. He told me that Miss Stone was away lecturing, but was expected home during the afternoon and invited me to dine. At the house I met his wife, son and two daughters, Miss Jane and Miss Abby (afterwards Mrs. Joseph A. Howland). After dinner I walked across to a promontory which projects in the Lake Quabog and amused myself with Emerson's Essays and enjoyed the glorious sunshine and rippling water. Walking up to Coy's Hill in the afternoon, I found Lucy mounted on a table in a short dress whitewashing the ceiling of her parents living room. She greeted me very cordially, knowing my sister Elizabeth's history as a medical student and pioneer physician. Dismounting from her table she introduced me to her father and mother, quaint old-fashioned New England farming people - the father prompt, decisive, peremptory, a man of few words - the mother gentle, quiet, industrious, orderly and kind; to her sister-in-law Phebe, her brother Luther's wife who had accompanied her toCincinnati and back to Massachusetts on her homeward journey three years before; to her brother Bowman and his wife and three children; Frank a noble boy, Edward, a cripple; and Phebe (now Mrs. Beeman). Then to Aunt Martha, Bowman's wife's sister who was practically the house-keeper and nurse of her sister. These, and two or three hired men composed the family. Lucy and I walked together on this and subsequent occasions to the summit of the hill which commands a superb view through the rocky pastures to the "Rock House" a mass of castellated crags with trees growing in and around it. We talked of anti-slavery, and woman's rights, and I urged her to come West and lecture, offering myself to engage the halls and have the advertisements made. At this time Lucy was absorbed in her reform work and regarded lecturing as a profession. She had graduated at Oberlin in the class of 1847, having previously spent a year at Mt. Holyoke with Mary Lyon, and also studied at Warren, and Wilbraham academies, and taught school in her own town, and I think, at Brainfield [*tree?*]; also as a private teacher of Mr. Amasa Walker's children at "Brimstone Hill", his country seat at North Brookfield. She had her room in the old home at West Brookfield, and came and went on her lecturing tours, aiding her mother when at home with her simple house-work and taking her meals with her father and mother. She also had a second home at the house of her sister Sarah in Gardner, who was married to Deacon Henry Laurence and had I think, then one daughter Emma (who afterwards married my brother George.) During our long walk I disclosed my feelings and wishes and Lucy told me frankly that she had consecrated herself to work forwoman's equality and had resolved never to marry. She treated me in a friendly way and I tried to make her see that together we might do more and better work than she could do alone. Then began a correspondence which lasted two years. --- According to my suggestion, she came West in 1853 and I arranged some very successful series of lectures for her in Cincinnati, Pittsburg, Wheeling, Columbus, Sandusky, Toledo, Louisville, St. Louis, Madison, Indianapolis, Terre Haute, Lafayette, etc. Her addresses and subjects took the public by storm. No halls would hold her audiences. In each place she gave three lectures. 1st The Social and Industrial Disabilities of Women. 2nd The Legal and Political Disabilities of Women. 3rd The Moral and Religious Disabilities of Women. Until recently she had spoken gratuitously, supported by a small salary from the Anti- Slavery society, and lecturing on Anti-Slavery; speaking also on women's rights for herself. But finding that a lecture fee did not limit her audience, she issued tickets at 25 cents each. the result of these lectures was a profit of several thousand dollars over her expenses. When in Cincinnati she made her stay with my mother and her family in our little household on Walnut Hills, consisting of Mother, sisters Marian and Ellen, and brothers Samuel, George and myself. the graciousness and amiability of my mother, who took to Lucy at once as a daughter, and the cheerful, kindly atmosphere of our Walnut Hills home no doubt helped to win Lucy's regard. It so happened that I was able by my acquaintance to give Lucy important aid in coming before the public, and making the profound impression which her earnestness and ability created. About the same time Lucy's sister Sarah and her husband, Henry Laurence, came from Gardner, Mass. to Cincinnati, where Mr. Laurence became instructor in the House of Refuge at Cumminsville, a suburb of Cincinnati. this was another attraction which drew Lucy thither. Of course my activity in organizing Lucy's lectures and my personal presence and participation in her meetings in Cincinnati, and elsewhere, made much talk and gossip among my Cincinnati friends. We were known as part of a little circle of abolitionists, composed of Mr. and Mrs. Ernst, Edwin Harwood, the Burnets, Livi Coffin, the Donaldsons, Heatons, Pullanes, etc. - all of whom were in sympathy with women's rights. About this time, in the Spring of 1853 a great woman's convention was held in Cleveland, O., in which Wm Lloyd Garrison, Stephen and Abby Kelly Foster, Charles C. Burleigh and other noted Eastern abolitionists participated. There too, came Rev. Antoinette Brown, a friend of Lucy's and like herself an Oberlin graduate. (Rev. Antoinette L. Brown afterwards married my brother Sam.) Mrs. Frances D. Gage (Aunt Fanny) presided. Mrs. Caroline M. Severance, of Cleveland, was the active, local promoter, and her husband, cashier of a Cleveland bank, gave his aid. I attended this convention, and on my way thither, boarded the train at Sandusky, on which Lucy and her dear friends James and Lucretia Mott of Philadelphia were going thither on their way from a visit to Richard Mott's family in Toledo. As I entered the car I found Lucy standing in the aisle, beside the old Quaker couple, reading aloud the news from the morning paper just obtained, and commenting on it as she read. The fresh, cheerful, intellectual life of the little circle was exceedingly striking. On account of this convention, and of my first woman's rights address is given in Miss Anthony's History. I was considered to have made a fine address, and certainly had everyinducement to do my best in the presence of the woman I hoped to marry. On the afternoon, between the afternoon and evening sessions, Lucy and I walked to the bluff overlooking grime which now blocks and vulgarizes everything there). We saw the sun set over beautiful Lake Erie and all was affectionate and serene. Next morning, by appointment, Stephen Foster and I took a plunge in the Lake before breakfast. A fresh northwest wind brought in quite a smell and the water and air were cold enough to give Mr. Foster the combative sense which he so greatly enjoyed. At this meeting Mr. Garrison was personally assailed on the platform by a Rev. Mr. Nevin, who afterwards apologized to the convention for his misconduct. It was a lively meeting lasting two or more days as was then the custom. During the summer of 1853 or 4 an occurrence took place which Lucy used to say fully decided her to marry me. Yet it was quite accidental and unintended. An anti-slavery Convention was held in Salem, O. the only place in the West where the so-called "Garrisonian" or Disunion abolitionists had a society strong enough to support an abolition paper, "The Anti-Slavery Bugle", edited by Marius Robinson. At that time a wide distinction existed between this school of Anti-Slavery reformers and the more moderate and "political" abolitionists or "Liberty" men. The latter rallied around James G. Birney, Samuel Lewis, Salmon P. Chase, Rev. Dr. Boynton, and others. The "Garrisonians" were radical on social and religious lines, repudiated political action as a compromise with sin, and openly urged separation from the slave holding states. The political abolitionists rallied aroundBailey, James G. Birney, the Beechers, etc. I was in sympathy with both. I had written a poem for the occasion at Salem and was in the act of reciting it, when a telegram informed us that a young slaveholder and his wife had just left Pittsburg by rail en route from Baltimore to Memphis, Tenn. with a little colored girl, a gift from the wife's mother in Baltimore, acting as nurse to the baby. It had been a great grievance to abolitionists that slaveholders were permitted to carry their slaves across free soil; it being our contention that a slave brought voluntarily by his owner into a Free State became thereby entitled to emancipation. This was considered a good time to make a test case. At once the convention adjourned to the depot to seize the negro girl - I, of course, with the rest. As the train would only stop for a few moments, every car was boarded simultaneously on the moment of arrival. It so happened that I was one of those who entered the right car and I think I was one of the first to lay hold of the child who was instantly hustled out and spirited away amid a general hullabaloo from the startled and indignant passengers. On this car happened to be "Dick Keyes", an excitable young Kentuckian, and other conservative acquaintances. They rushed out upon the platform and denounced me in unmeasured terms as the one participant whom they recognized. so, when I reached Cincinnati next day, I found the city buzzing like a hornet's nest. I was at once indicted for "kidnapping". But the case, as it happened, was placed by the owners in the hands of the eminent law firm of Taft & Mallon (Taft was the father of the chairman of the present Philippine civil Commission. Judge Mallon was an intimate personal friend of mine,and a fellow member of the Cincinnati Literary Club.) They sent for me soon after and privately informed me that they were satisfied that slaves could not be held upon free soil, when brought with consent of owners, and that they had so advised their Memphis clients. So no suit was ever brought against me. But for months I was the object of curiosity, and men came from Kentucky and other border states to see me, for the purpose, if I was ever found south of the Ohio River, of lynching me. It was generally supposed that this would ruin our business as many of our customers in Indiana and Illinois were southern men. But to their credit be it said, I lost very few of them - the only two I remember were French men, not Southerners. this little incident endeared me to Lucy and if it really was the turning-point in her decision, no happy accident was ever so richly rewarded. So on May 1, 1855, I was married to Lucy at the old farm-house, on the rocky hillside above West Brookfield. Rev. T.W. Higginson, then pastor of a free religious society in Worcester, and his wife came up the day before. No member of my own family was present. We had with us Lucy's brother Bowman, his wife and three children; Lucy's father and mother; and the widow of Cyrus Robinson (a sister-in-law of Bowman Stone) and his two daughters Emily and Mary. I read on the occasion a protest prepared by Lucy and myself, and signed on the occasion declaring our dissent from the unjust laws which then, and in part now, oppressed the wife, and affirming our own conception of marriage as a "partnership of equals, with reciprocal rights and duties." We pledgedourselves not to appeal to these unjust laws in case of a disagreement, but to refer such disagreements to arbitration. And so began a congenial and happy marriage of thirty-eight years, ending at Lucy's decease Oct. 19, 1893. We left West Brookfield that afternoon reaching New York the same evening and spent the night at the house of my sister Elizabeth on West 15th St., where quite a party of friends and relatives gathered to welcome us. Poor Lucy was almost prostrated by a severe headache which caused me much anxiety. But she was better next day, and we started for Cincinnati by Erie railway, stopping at Corning on our route. We reached Cincinnati after a toilsome ride, on a warm oppressive afternoon. We were glad to get back to the quiet and repose of our home on Walnut Hills. That summer was unusually warm. By business carried me much from home. During my usual summer's round through western Ohio and Wabash Valley, word reached me of the tragic episode of poor Margaret Garner, - a fugitive with her husband and children who was pursued and brought before a U.S. Commission in Cincinnati, and of the fiery speech Lucy made at the Commissioner's office in which she justified Margaret's action in having killed her child rather than allow it to be carried back to slavery. The details were extremely dramatic, and created a profound sensation. But the effort to save the family was all in vain. They were remanded into slavery and carried back. Months afterwards Lucy received a letter from the husband and father, telling her that an accident occurred to the steamboat, and Margaret, refusing to be saved, allowed herself to be drowned, in order thereby to escape from her captors. During the summer of 1855, Lucy and I did some lecturing in and near Cincinnati, but in the early fall went East and resumed her public work in New England and elsewhere during the winter of 1855-56. Her letters having been destroyed as we suppose in a fire which occurred in 1970, I am not able to give particulars of her winter engagements. Meanwhile, feeling convinced that the climate and society of Cincinnati would be uncongenial to her, my brother and I sold out our interest in the hardware business, and our successor accompanied me on my winter round of collection and soliciting orders. By agreement I was to meet my wife in Chicago in the spring of 1856. I did so, but unexpected business complications called me away, and during my absence, my wife, with our horse and buggy, boarded a few miles from Chicago on a farm, where I fear she found the surroundings far from attractive. Later, we resumed our journey, driving from Chicago to Madison, Wis. and thence to Viroquia, the county seat of Bad Axe (now Vernon Co., near where I owned some 6000 acres of land bought by me a few years before from the State on credit. Our drive had several memorable incidents. as we had decided to live in the East where these lands would be only available for sale or exchange, my first step was to have them surveyed and an accurate description of soil and surface attached to each 40-acre certified. This work occupied almost the entire summer of 1856 during which time we lived at the "White Star" hotel for a time, and then finding the diet was unsatisfactory, we rented a room, hired furniture, and kept house, my wife doing her own work as no hired help was obtainable. It was a new and hard experience for a woman already 38, and accustomed for years to literary andintellectual pursuits. But with the cheery courage and unselfishness peculiar to her heroic nature she did not murmur or complain, and I hope found in the extraordinary romantic charm of the region some compensation for her privations. On Fourth of July a celebration was held and by invitation my wife and I made addresses. During my daily land-surveying she was left much alone, but sometimes accompanied me, visiting the humble homes of the Norwegian farmers on Coon Prairie, or the shanties of the backwoodsmen on the forest- covered ridges of the table-land as it sloped down to the Mississippi River to the westward, a thousand feet below, or to the Kickapoo River on the east. During the summer we selected a beautiful quarter-section on Coon Prairie and had the sod broken in preparation for sewing wheat and oats the following summer. In the center of this beautiful undulating prairie was an isolated pile of sandstone rocks in which grew side by side two graceful white birch trees which we christened Harry and Lucy. I have often wondered whether those two trees still exist. In the early fall we removed our residence to Lacrosse, where I owned several tracts of land and opposite to which my brother George had bought a mill-site and laid out the town of La Crescent, (on the western bank of the Mississippi), in company with some Kentucky capitalists. There we boarded for some months, and made several excursions to the majestic bluffs back of La Crescent. I remember the keen delight Lucy took when on one occasion we started a deer who sped away across the slopes like the wind. The freedom of the creature's life, the swiftness of its movement, and the panorama of unoccupied virgin landscape exhilarated Lucy, and I hope repaid her in part for much that was prosaic and tedious.we had employed a force of Norwegians under a foreman named Thron Hoverson to mow a great tract of marsh meadow-land at Le Crescent, in addition to breaking the sod of our quarter-section on Coon Prairie, hoping to sell the hay at a profit. But a number of them contracted malarial fever and the result was disappointing. In the fall of 1856 we returned East, and during the winter and spring made our abode with my sister Dr. Elizabeth Blackwell, on 15th St., New York. My brother Samuel, meanwhile having married Rev. Antoinette Brown, had disposed of the little home on Walnut Hills, and come East with our Mother and sisters Ellen and Marian. We were a somewhat crowded and impecunious household. My brother and myself had gone into business seven years before on capital borrowed from a cousin in England and in selling out had been obliged to take in payment a prairie farm near Chicago. Before our marriage my wife had generously loaned our firm the proceeds of her western lectures. About all we had after selling out my interest in the hardware firm, was a quantity of western land upon which, every year about $1000 interest and taxes had to be paid. Our first object therefore was to find me a business position, and our second, a home. While looking for the latter, Lucy and I made various excursions to neighborhoods of New York. On the Hudson River we visited Pleasantville, Dobbs Ferry and Peekskill. We explore the valley of the Bronx, the hills around White Plains, and the north shore of Long Island. But a all we had to offer in exchange was western lands, our searches were unsuccessful. At length we found a cottage on Cone St., Orange, N.J. whose owner, Franklin Woods wished to move west. It was valuedat $5000. We had in exchange $500 cash, (loaned Lucy by her old friend Mehitable Haskells of West Gloucester Mass.) 240 acres of Vernon Co. Wisconsin land valued at $10 per acre and our bond and mortgage for $2100. the property of course, was bought in my wife's name, and was the first of a series of similar real estate transactions in Orange and Montclair, which resulted ten years later in a moderate competence. An old Ohio friend of mine, Augustus Moore, had married an eastern lady, Miss Greene, daughter of William Green, Jr. (the founder of the New York Tabernacle in the 30s). Mr. Moore had engaged in the publication of Agricultural books with Mr. C.M. Saxton of Orange. Through Mr. Moore's influence I bought 1/3 interest from Mr. Saxton in the firm of C.M. Saxton & Co., paying for it in western land. But soon after joining the firm, on looking over the books, I became convinced that the value of the stock on hand had been greatly over-rated, and that the business was not paying expenses. I therefore insisted on withdrawing from the firm and took a situation as bookkeeper with Joseph Torrance, son-in-law of Commodore Vanderbilt and agent of his 3 ocean steamers, - the Ariel, the Vanderbilt, etc. My friend, Mr. Moore, however, feeling dissatisfied bought out Mr. Saxton and urged me to return to him, which I did a few weeks later. in order to create a market for his agricultural publications, Mr. Moore opened negotiations, through Thurlow Weed, with the New York Legislature to put them into the School District libraries of that state and engaged me to make similar efforts for him in Ohio, Indiana, and Illinois. It was arranged that I should visit the West and try to make contracts through State Legislatures for the establishment of School district Farmer's Libraries, to consist in part of our own publications. So Lucy and I had hardly bought our scanty furniture, and moved into our cottage, when I had to leave her and spend months in the West. Soon after came our little daughter Alice. I was at home at the time. My sister, Dr. Emily came over from New York to attend my wife in her confinement. We had a young Irish girl and a nurse. soon afterwards I had to go West again, and my wife went privately to a daguerreotypist and had a picture taken of herself and the baby, which she wrapped in my nightgown as a surprise to me. I was so busy and preoccupied that I did not unroll the nightgown for several weeks, and consequently made no acknowledgement of the precious picture, which made Lucy feel hurt and surprised, though she never alluded to the matter. At length I discovered it and made prompt, though tardy acknowledgement. During my travels I spent some days in Columbus O., where I had received some encouragement to hope for favorable legislation. My old friend, Mr. Salmon P. Chase was then governor. He took a cordial interest in my effort, but warned me not to make any trade or bargain with officials or members of the Legislature. He invited me to tea with him at his residence. There I was introduced to his daughter Kate, a tall, beautiful girl, who presided over the table, her father being a widower. She afterwards married Senator Sprague of Rhode Island. I succeeded in completing an agreement soon after with Mr. Powell, superintendent of public instruction, and Prof. Simeon Wright of Illinois schools to introduce into that State a School District Library, or rather a series oflibraries, costing $50 cash. As there were 10,000 such school districts, and it was optional with the three school directors of each, to order one or more of these libraries and to assess a special tax on the district for payment, this involved the employment of county canvassers, and I became stationed at Chicago as headquarters. There I made my office with Mr. George Sherwood in that city, and in the Spring of 1858, my wife with her 6 months old baby accompanied me thither. It was a toilsome journey. I remember our crossing the Detroit River on a ferry-boat at midnight and the baby wonder and surprise with which the child peered out at the unaccustomed surroundings. At first we boarded in Chicago with a woman who kept a fashionable and very comfortable house. Then we made the acquaintance of Mr. Stephen Higginson and his wife, connections of Lucy's old friend T.W. Higginson, who had lately returned from a residence in Santo Cruz and among other interesting people. Thence we removed to a less stylish and comfortable boarding house. We had a nursemaid named Lena, a careless girl, who on one occasion when Lucy had accepted an invitation to lecture, took out the child without proper protection against cold. My wife, returning unexpectedly, dismissed the girl and announced her intention of giving up lecturing altogether until the child was older, a resolution which practically resulted in several years withdrawal from the lecture field, and in fact, she never afterwards made lecturing her profession. soon after we went to board with a family named Bryce in Evanston. There my wife had a miscarriage which deprived our little Alice of a brother. then we went to live with(From the Wisconsin Citizen, [Brodhed?], Feb. 1898) Historic Reminiscences In February, 1894, Mr. Henry B. Blackwell was requested by Dr. C. V. Porter, secretary of the Vernon County, Wis., Pioneer Association, to contribute a paper to be read before that Association. He writes: In January 1852, at my hardware store in Cincinnati, a friend called my attention to the fact that the State of Wisconsin, desiring to use for educational purposes, the magnificent grant of wild lands made by the U.S. Government was offering them in lots of 40 acres each on thirty years' credit, at $1.25 per acre, and its sixteenth section lands on ten years' credit, and he suggested that I should go out and select a few thousand acres for him and myself. Having plenty of youthful energy and very little money, I accepted his suggestion and in a single forenoon enlisted a number of other merchants, my friends, in an arrangement to locate fifty thousand acres of these school lands, receiving ten per cent of the certificates as my compensation for selecting them. An advance payment of ten cents per acre was required in gold, and the next question was how to get this gold safely to Madison, the capital of the State and the seat of the land department. There were no railroads running through the state then; Beloit was the "jumping-off" place. I procured a strong old-fashioned hair trunk, filled it with layers of cotton batting, distributed my $6500 gold coin between the layers, locked it, and put the key in my pocket, and surrounded the trunk with a complication of strong cords with knots not easily untied. The weight of the trunk thus packed was not unusual, the light cotton and heavy coin averaging each other. Taking stage at Beloit, I saw my trunk strapped up behind the stage, and on arrival at Madison it was piled up withfifty others in the entry of the hotel, where it remained for more than three weeks, while I was away prospecting. After consultation with the state land office clerks, I decided to locate most of my lands in Bad Axe, Pierce and St. Croix counties. I resolved to visit Bad Axe county, so named from the river on whose banks, some years before, the Indian chief Blackhawk, had been defeated by the Illinois back-woodsmen, among whom was a certain Abraham Lincoln, not yet known beyond the banks of the Sangamon. It was the winter of 1852, the snow was deep, and the air was bleak and frosty. But I started out from Madison on horse-back with a pocket compass in my saddle-bags, and made my way down the Black Earth Valley to the Wisconsin River and thence to Vinqua, through an unbroken forest. At Richland Center, I found a single log cabin belonging to Ira Haseltine, where I spent the night. From there to the Kickapoo River there was no road. I made my way by my pocket compass through the majestic forests of Richland County. The only sign of human presence I came across was a deer hanging by his hind legs from a hickory sapling, having been shot and swung up by some hunter who took this method of preserving his meat from the wolves. At length I reached the village of Springville, consisting of half a dozen log and frame houses and a saw and grist mill driven by a wonderful spring of crystal clear water which flowed out of the ground a full fledged river. From there I found a road to Vinqua, at that time about the size of Springville. I was charmed with the beauty of the country. Bad Axe, now Vernon County, in a state of nature was the most picturesque region imaginable. It was a long, elevated central ridge or plateau, of gently undulating prairies, divided and interspersed with groves of timber, extending for thirty miles, more or less parallel with the Mississippi river on the west and the Kickapooon the east, with lateral ridges running off in both directions, clothed with fine oak openings, backed on the east with the heavy primeval forest of Richland County, and on the west by the great Mississippi valley hundreds of feet below. Rising from the uplands were occasional rocky mounds, adorned by pine trees, and crowned with shafts of sandstone, standing like watch towers in weird solemnity - relics of overlying strata swept away ages ago by some primeval deluge. Prairie valleys or coulees as they were called, sloped down from the uplands, rich in natural grass, and watered by beautiful streams fed by springs, and full of speckled trout. A lovelier and more diversified landscape than this country in 1852 never charmed the eye. The news of my errand speedily spread and one afternoon on my return from prospecting, I heard an indignation meeting of the inhabitants of the County was called to meet at the shanty, which served as a court-house with the intention of putting a summary stop to my proceedings. I attended it, much to the surprise of some who had called it, and asked for a hearing. I explained to the crowd that these lands when sold, became at once subject to state and local taxation for roads, schoolhouses, etc. that they could only be made profitable to the buyers by re-selling them, thus bringing in population and capital - in short, instead of a grasping speculator and greedy monopolist, I was a public benefactor. In this view I was supported by Mr. C. McMichael the county clerk. My arguments prevailed, a revulsion of feeling took place, a resolution of approval was adopted, and the meeting design to expel me, adjourned in entirely good humor. I will add that so far as my entries turned out, I never was able to sell more than a few quarter sections, and found it necessary to trade off my certificates in the East, for heavily mortgaged properties, out of which after the Civil War, I made a satisfactory profit. Several years later, my wife Lucy Stoneand myself, then recently married, met in Chicago in the spring of 1856, and drove across northern Illinois and southwestern Wisconsin, to Vinqua. We had decided to make our home near New York and I wished to secure written descriptions of the quality and surface of each of my tracts of land, with a view to selling or exchanging them for eastern property. We spent the summer in Vinqua; first boarding, then keeping house. The conditions were extremely primitive, but the people were intelligent and neighborly. On the Fourth of July, 1856, at a celebration, my wife made by invitation, an anti-slavery and woman's right address. During her speech a portion of the platform broke down but no one was seriously hurt, but my wife took advantage of the incident to say, "So will this country fall unless slavery is abolished." I do not recall many of our neighbors by name. There was a thriving settlement of Norwegian farmers on Coon Prairie, with whom we ate bread and milk from wooden bowls, with carved wooden spoons 100 years old. Some of these families were in the habit of changing their surnames in each generation. For instance, Carl Hover might have a son Thron, surnamed Haverson; Thron's son Eric would be named Eric Thronson; his son Peter would be Peter Erickson and so on. The daughters had only their Christian name and their father's surname until their marriage. During the summer we hired teams to break the son on a quarter section of land on Coon Prairie at $3.00 per acre. We fenced it and hired it out on shares to a young Norwegian, Next year the crop was over 5000 bushels of wheat and oats. But after paying for harvesting, teaming, and commissions, our "halves" netted us less than $300. When summer ended we drove back to Chicago and thence to Cincinnati. I remember in our drives across Wisconsin "Queen Ann's Prairie" with clover three feet high, in bloom; "Heumanity's Barn", a huge frame building some fifty miles from Chicago, erected bya philanthropic socialist, who invited the whole human race to share his hospitality; a family of Prince Edward Island on the slope of Black Earth Valley; Dr. Brisbane, a South Carolina abolitionist, who had freed his slaves and come north, and had laid out (on paper) a town on the Wisconsin River called "Anna"; Hiram Heath, a surveyor near the Kickapoo River, whose wife did her housework wearing the bloomer costume; Herman Greve, who kept a store in Vinqua and bought of me a quarter section of land on Round Prairie; Mr. Stevenson, who owned a farm adjoining my land in the 16th section, a few miles south of Vinqua, etc; also a family of Pennsylvania "Drunkards" with whom we spent a night amid the Richland County forest, who had raised a fine crop of wheat amid the girdled trees, from seed harrowed in with a brush of boughs, upon the rick black soil that had never been ploughed. I remember one day while stopping in the woods to gather gooseberries, the sight of my wife's home-made sunbonnet attracted a neighboring settler's wife, who eagerly inquired "if that was the latest city fashion?" I have never seen Vernon County again. the whole incident of that summer's laborious sequestered life is associated with the memory of my wife and seems to me like a lovely dream. The cares and privations are forgotten, the beautiful scenery and the sweet, pure air of those romantic highlands will forever linger in my memory. Henry B. Blackwell Dorchester 1894Extract of letter of H.B.B. to A.S.B. July 4, 1900 "My business life began at 14. I was in charge of three mills at 20 - buying wheat and corn and flaxseed, and selling flour and meal and oil on a great scale for the firm of two illiterate men who relied almost wholly on me. Well, that was 55 years ago. Several things have happened since then."