CORNER OF CONGRESS AND WATER STREETS. room of a great cause. A copy of the Liberator had found its way to Robert Y. Hayne, then United States senator from South Carolina. He did not throw it aside as of no consequence. On the contrary he was so evidently impressed that he wrote to his friend, Mr. Otis, then mayor of Boston, for information respecting the paper and its editor. Mr. Otis thereupon exerted himself and sent an officer to ferret out the man whose composing stick had be gun to trouble the waters in a distant state. The officer went and saw, but the word which he brought back was not calculated to disturb the serenity of so great a man as Our Boston mayor; for he wrote the Carolina senator: "His [Garrison's] office was an obscure hole, his only visible auxiliary a negro boy, and his supporters a very few insignificant persons of all colors." Bearing its obvious limitations in mind, this was a perfectly accurate description of the paper and its editor. What the Whig leader saw he depicted with bold and telling touches; but he did not see all. The masterful soul and idea were beyond his ken. It required a poet's vision to detect these and read them aright. This the genius of Lowell did in the noble verses beginning, "In a small chamber, friendless and unseen, Toiled o'er his types one poor unlearned young man. The place was dark, unfurnitured and mean, Yet there the freedom of a race began." and ending: "O small beginnings, ye are great and strong, Based on a faithful heart and weariless brain, Ye build the future fair, ye conquer wrong, Ye earn the crown, and wear it not in vain." It was in this small, dark chamber that Garrison, brave as Luther, wrote those Joy Street Church. broadly, the localities and landmarks thus consecrated, and the associations connected with them, is the main purpose of this paper. THE LIBERATOR. Dur Country is the World, our Countrymen are all Mankind. Anti-Slavery Boston had its origin in Garrison and the Liberator. The time was the winter of 1831. In 1829 the young reformer had unfurled the banner of immediate and universal emancipation, in the slave city of Baltimore. The slave power had manifested its resentment by REDUCED FAC-SIMILE OF THE HEADING OF "THE LIBERATOR." flinging the prophet into prison. complete. Merchants' Hall in 1831. CORNER OF CONGRESS AND WATER STREETS. room of a great cause. A copy of the Liberator had found its way to Robert Y. Hayne, then United States senator from South Carolina. He did not throw it aside as of no consequence. On the contrary he was so evidently impressed that he wrote to his friend, Mr. Otis, then mayor of Boston, for information respecting the paper and its editor. Mr. Otis thereupon exerted himself and sent an officer to ferret out the man whose composing stick had begun to trouble the waters in a distant state. The officer went and saw, but the word which he brought back was not calculated to disturb the serenity of so great a man as Our Boston mayor; for he wrote the Carolina senator: "His [Garrison's] office was an obscure hole, his only visible auxiliary a negro boy, and his supporters a very few insignificant persons of all colors." Bearing its obvious limitations in mind, this was a The place was dark, unfurnitured and mean, Yet there the freedom of a race began." and ending: "O small beginnings, ye are great and strong, Based on a faithful heart and weariless brain, Ye build the future fair, ye conquer wrong, Ye earn the crown, and wear it not in vain." It was in this small, dark chamber that Garrison, brave as Luther, wrote those Joy Street Church. immortal words: "I am in earnest; I will not equivocate: I will not excuse; I will not retreat a single inch; and I WILL BE HEARD." Next in point of time and perhaps importance is the building where was formed the first Anti-Slavery Society of the period. The scene of this momentous event was laid in still humbler and obscurer quarters. It was in the schoolroom for colored children (Boston did not then tolerate mixed schools), on the first floor of the African Baptist Church on Smith Court, off Belknap (now Joy) Street. This was the despised negro section of the city, known in the Pro-Slavery slang of the day as "Nigger Hill." The building still stands there, a small two-story brick meeting-house. In the auditorium in the second story, the oppressed black man had the gospel preached to him every Sunday: while in the big dim room underneath, his children, on week davs. had imparted to them the mystery of reading, writing, and arithmetic. In this room gathered on the evening of January 6, 1832, fifteen brave and earnest souls. Their names it is well to repeat: They are William Lloyd Garrison, Oliver Johnson, Robert B. Hall, Arnold Buffum, William J. Snelling, John E. Fuller, Moses Thacher, Joshua Coffin, Stillman B. Newcomb, Benjamin C. Bacon, Isaac Knapp, Henry K.Stockton, David Lee Child, Samuel E. Sewall, Ellis Gray Loring. Twelve, the apostolic number, went away from that meeting, the New England Anti-Slavery Society. Just as the little company was about to separate at midnight, the spirit of prophecy fell on Garrison, who said to his followers: "We have met to-night in this obscure schoolhouse; our numbers are few and our influence limited; but, mark my predictions, Tre Oid State House at the time of the Eroadcloth Mob " |