USA > Massachusetts > Suffolk County > Boston > Walks & talks about historic Boston > Part 27
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THE RECEPTION
He stood in the City Hall in New York, and all who could come, pressed from all quarters to do him reverence. The great cities sent their delegates in haste, and a sight was witnessed in that Hall, such as was never before seen in the history of nations. All the passage ways were thronged,
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and when Lafayette appeaed on the balcony. he looked upon an ocean of faces, and into eyes dimmed with tears of love, pride and sympathy.
HIS TRIUMPHAL PROGRESS.
In a few days the guest of the nation left New York on a tour through the country. He went to Connecticut, Rhode Island, Boston, and as far east as Portsmouth, New Hampshire. and everywhere the great masses of the people, came forth to greet him, while from forts and arsenals, great guns thundered the glad salute, which was due to his supreme rank in the American army. On his return to New York, the city gave him a grand fete at Castle Garden. Wherever he went, his journey was one grand triumphal march. He returned to Washington. Congress was in ses- sion and voted him a sum of money, $200,000, and a town- ship of land, which he located in Florida. He went on to North Carolina, South Carolina, Mississippi, and Louisi- ana. He came back through Kentucky, Ohio, Pennsylvania and New York, and thence to Boston, where he arrived in time to participate in the imposing ceremonies of laying the cornerstone of Bunker Hill Monument. Lafayette was careful to remember all his old friends.
"Colonel Neville was Lafayette's aid when he served in our army ; and when Lafayette sent to France for arms and equipments, Neville, who was then a rich Virginia planter, raised money and sent for the equipment of a whole regi- ment. He was on very friendly terms with Lafayette, who knew his wife and family. On his visit to America he in- quired them out, and visited them in Cincinnati. He asked Mrs. Neville if her husband had been reimbursed for his outlays. She told him no, and that there was still a mort- gage of many thousand dollars on their property. After La- fayette had left Cincinnati, she found all her mortgages had been paid off, but he never spoke of it or alluded to it. The widow's property, however, was clear and unencumbered."
"When he was in his carriage on the day of the parade in honor of the laying of the cornerstone of the monument, he asked one of the gentlemen in the carriage with him where Mrs. Hancock was, and ascertained that she was re- siding in a not particularly fashionable quarter, she having moved from her home on Beacon Hill after the death of
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Governor Hancock. She was at the time of Lafayette's visit, Mrs. Scott, having married again. Lafayette was in- formed, that she would probably witness the parade, from the window of a house on Tremont Street, opposite the Common, the home of a friend. He begged they would be on the lookout for her and let him know if she was there. and if so, stop the carriage at that point. The surmise proved to be correct, and Mrs. Scott was there watching for the approach of Lafayette, and she was pointed out to him. Motioning the driver to stop, he rose from his seat, removed his chapeau, and placing his hand on his heart, made a profound bow, afterwards kissing his hand to her. She was delighted and thought it wonderful that he should have recognized her, and bursting into tears, said, "I have lived long enough."
Another pleasing incident of that same parade, is told. His carriage stopped in front of the site of the Old Liberty Tree, on the corner of Wshington and Essex Streets. A young girl, with a red, white and blue sash across her shoul- ders, came down the steps of the Lafayette Hotel, opposite, bearing on a silver salver, two goblets and a bottle of old wine from France. Lafayette drank the wine she gave him, with great gallantry. Later, in speaking of the Liberty Tree, he said, "The world should never forget where once stood the Liberty Tree, so famous in your annals."
On his return to Washington, one of his last acts was to bend his steps to Mount Vernon, where he gave the tribute of his tears to the Man of all ages. In Lossing's Home of Washington, we have a very touching account of this visit of the General to Mount Vernon, the home of his dear friend. "For more than 25 years, the mortal remains of that friend had been lying in the tomb, yet the memory of his love was as fresh in the heart of the Marquis, as when on November, 1784, they parted, to see each other no more on earth. On this occasion Lafayette was presented with a most touching memorial of the man he delighted to call father. The adopted son of that father, the late Mr. Custis, with many others, accompanied the Marquis to the tomb of Washington, where the tears of the venerable French- man flowed freely. While standing there, Mr. Custis, after appropriate remarks, presented to Lafayette, a massive gold ring containing a lock of Washington's hair. It was a most grateful gift, and those who were present, have spoken
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of the occurrence as one of the most interesting and touch- ing they had ever experienced. Lafayette was so overcome by the reception which the Congress of the United States extended to him, by public enactment, as well as by volun- tary adoration, that he could no longer sustain the pressure of his heart and feelings. On the day of his
DEPARTURE FROM AMERICA
"The authorities of Washington, Georgetown and Alex- andria, the principal officers of the National Government, civil, military and naval, members of Congress and many distinguished strangers, assembled at the White House, the President's Home, to take their final leave of the illus- trious guest." He entered the spacious reception room, in silence, leaning on the arm of the Marshal of the District, and on the arm of one of the sons of the President. The President of the United States, John Quincy Adams, ad- vanced with simple and courtly dignity to meet Lafayette, and with deep emotion addressed him. It was a most elo- quent and touching oration, worthy of the occasion, and of all who were participants. Among other things Mr. Adams said: "The ship is now prepared for your reception and equipped for sea. From the moment of her departure, the prayers of millions will ascend to heaven, that her passage may be prosperous, and the return to the bosom of your family, as propitious to your happiness, as this visit to the scene of your youthful glory has been to that of the Ameri- can people. Go, then, our beloved friend, return to the land of brilliant genius, of generous sentiment, of heroic valor, to that beautiful France, the nursing mother of the Twelfth Louis, and the Fourth Henry, to the native soil of Bayard and Coligni, and Turenne, and Calerat, and D'Agu- esseau. In that illustrious list of names which she claims, as of her children, and, with honest pride, holds up to the admiration of other nations, the name of Lafayette has al- ready, for centuries, been enrolled. You are ours by that unshaken sentiment of gratitude for your services, which is a precious portion of our inheritance. Ours, by that tie of love, stronger than death, which has linked your name, for the endless ages of time, with the name of Washington. Speaking in the name of the whole people of the United States, and at loss, only for language to give utterance to that feeling of attachment with which the heart of the na-
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tion beats, as the heart of one man, I bid you a reluctant and affectionate farewell!"
General Lafayette made the following reply: "Amidst all my obligations to the general Government, and particu- larly to you, sir, its respected chief magistrate, I have most thankfully to acknowledge the opportunity given me, at this solemn and painful moment, to present the people of the United States with a parting tribute of profound, in- expressible gratitude. To have been, in the infant and criti- cal days of these States, adopted by them as a favorite son : to have participated in the toils and perils of our unspotted struggle for independence, freedom and equal rights; and in the foundation of the American era, of a new social or- der, which has already pervaded this, and must, for the dignity and happiness of mankind, successively pervade every part of the other hemisphere: to have received at every stage of the Revolution, and during forty years after that period, from the people of the United States, and their representatives at home and abroad, continued marks of their confidence and kindness, has been the pride, the en- couragement, the support of a long and eventful life. In the rapid prosperity and in the insured security of the people; in the practice of good order, the appendage of true freedom, and a national good sense, the final arbiter of all difficulties, I have proudly to recognize a result of the republican principles, for which we have fought, and a glor- ious demonstration to the most timid and unprejudiced minds, of the superiority over degrading aristocracy or des- potism, of popular institutions founded on the plain rights of man, and where the local rights of every section are pre- served under a constitutional bond of union. I cordially confirm every one of the sentiments which I have had daily opportunities publicly to utter, from the time when your venerable predecessor, my old brother in arms and friend, transmitted to me the honorable invitation of Congress, to this day, when you, my dear sir, whose friend- ly connections with me dates from your earliest youth, are going to consign me to the protection, across the Atlantic, of the heroic national flag, on board the splendid ship, the name of which has not been the least flattering and kind among the numberless favors conferred upon me. God bless you, sir, and all who surround us. God bless the American people, each of the States and the Federal Gov-
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ernment. Accept this patriotic farewell of an overflowing heart : such will be its last throb when it ceases to beat."
Says one of the annalists of the times: "As the last sen- tence was pronounced, the General advanced, and while the tears poured down his venerable cheeks again took the Presi- dent in his arms. He retired a few paces, but overcome by his feelings, again returned, and uttering in broken accents, "God bless you !" fell once more on the neck of Mr. Adams. It was a scene at once, solemn and moving, as the sighs and stealing tears of many who witnessed bore testimony. Hav- ing recovered his self-possession, the General stretched out his hands, and was in a momnt surrounded by the greetings of the whole assembly, who pressed upon him, each eager to seize, perhaps for the last time, that beloved hand, which was opened so freely for our aid, when aid was so precious, and which grasped, with firm and undeviating hold, the steel which so bravely helped to achieve our deliverance. The expression which now beamed from the face of this exalted man was of the finest and most touching kind. The hero was lost in the father and the friend; dignity melted into subdued affection, and the friend of Washington, seemed to linger with a mournful delight among the sons of his adopted country. On reaching the bank of the Potomac, near where the Mount Vernon steam vessel was in waiting, all the carriages in the procession, except the General's, wheeled off, and the citizens in them assembled on foot around that of the General. The whole military body then passed him in review, as he stood in the barouche of the President, attended by the Secretaries of State, of the Treasury and of the Navy. After the reunion, the General proceeded to the steam vessel under a salute of artillery, surrounded by as many citizens, all eager to catch the last look, as could press on the large wharf, and at four o'clock this great, and good, and extraordinary man trod for the last time the soil of America, followed by the blessings of every patriotic heart that lived on it. Lafayette sailed for France on the United States Frigate Brandywine, a new vessel whose name commemorated a celebrated battle of the Revolution, in which Lafayette bore a distinguished part.
Lafayette died in Paris, May 20th, 1834, at the age of 77. His end came naturally and beautifully in the quiet of his home, surrounded by a company of loving friends.
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THE DEPARTURE OF LAFAYETTE FROM AMERICA.
O, may yon heavenly star conduct vou To that dear land which gave thee birth ; And may the soft and surging billows Safe land thee on thy parent Earth.
'Tis now he leaves the shores of freemen, And bids a long and sad farewell. The "Brandywine" so proud shall bear him The tale of freemen's glory tell.
O, may he reap the just reward Which we, as freemen can bestow,
And hearts like ours shall ne'er regret All honors done to Lafayette.
Now he has gone and left behind A name which we shall ne'er forget. The crown which we to him resign No thorns or thistles shall beset.
And now we take the cordial hand, Bid him farewell, and with regret. In yonder world we hope to meet, Our Washington and Lafayette.
The above verses were written by the late Nehemiah P. Mann of Boston, when only twenty-one years of age. He had the pleasure of seeing Lafayette when he visited America in 1825, and being of Revolutionary descent, Mr. Mann was thoroughly patriotic and joined in the great enthusiasm ac- corded the distinguished Frenchman.
The Anti-Slavery Struggle and the Abolition Leaders in Massachusetts
A generation before the Civil War. a young New England journalist. William Lloyd Garrison, accepted a position in Baltimore. That city was one of the centres of the domestic slave trade. The scenes which he witnessed there surprised and shocked him and he publicly protested against such a great wrong. For this he was cast into prison, and on the walls of his cell he wrote, with his pencil, the following lines :
"A martyr's crown is richer than a King's. Think it an honor with thy Lord to bleed. And glory midst intensest sufferings : Though beat, imprisoned, put to open shame, Time shall embalm and glorify thy name!"
In the course of years this prophecy was literally fulfilled in his case. In 1831 Garrison commenced the publication of a paper called the "Liberator," at his printing office on the cor- ner of Congress and Water Streets. A tablet on Hornblower & Weeks' Building marks the spot. While engaged in this work he lodged for a time in the house of Rev. William Col- lier, No. 30 Federal Street. In a Memorial Poem, James Rus- sell Lowell, thus alludes to this period in Garrison's life :--
"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."
But Garrison was not entirely friendless at that time. John G. Whittier, the poet, who at that time was editing "The Manufacturer," was a fellow lodger at Mr. Collier's, and he became a devoted and life long friend of Garrison. Whittier was present at Park Street Church in 1829 when Garrison
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delivered his first Anti-Slavery address. While Whittier was serving in the Legislature in 1835, he witnessed the breaking up of the meeting of the Female Anti-Slavery Society by a mob, and the riot at the office of the Liberator. Theodore Ly- man was Mayor at that time and when he heard of the riot he went at once to Garrison's office with officers, and standing
William Lloyd Garrison
on the staircase, held it and kept the mob back. He then went up stairs and persuaded Garrison to escape by the rear passage of the building. Garrison got out of the rear window, and on to a shed hoping to get into Wilson's Lane (now new Devon- shire Street). The crowd discovered him, dragged him to a window with the intention of throwing him to the ground,
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but they decided not to kill him outright, so a few of the lead- ers tied a rope around his body and lowered him down a lad- der into the hands of the angry mob. They then put the rope around his neck and dragged him in shirt sleeves into State Street in the rear of the Old State House.
The crowd intended to give him a "ducking" in the Frog Pond, and perhaps would have maltreated him more seriously, but at this point he was rescued by the few officers and some of his friends and taken into the rooms of the City in the Old State House. Mayor Lyman then addressed the crowd and told them that the law must be maintained, and if it was neces- sary he would lay down his life, then and there, to preserve order. Then by order of Mayor Lyman, Sheriff Parkinson took Garrison to Leverett Street Jail in a carriage. The rioters followed the carriage, trying to hold the horses and hung on to the wheels, and tried to pull Garrison out of the window. But the driver had a good pair of horses and ap- plied his long whip vigorously, without partiality on horses and crowd, and distanced his opponents. Meanwhile the Mayor had run ahead on foot and arrived at the jail just be- fore the carriage. The crowd meant mischief, for they had erected a gallows in front of Garrison's door.
It should be stated in this connection that at that time Boston had no organized police force, only a few officers, watchmen or constables, as they were called. It is said that the action of the rioters was witnessed by Wendell Phillips, a young man of high moral character, and of unusual endowments, who then resolved to devote his energies, and his life, if need be, to the abolition of African Slavery in the United States.
In a poem, given at a celebration of Emancipation, Whit- tier writes of the early days, when he and Garrison were co- workers in the Anti-Slavery Crusade :-
"Thenceforth our life, a fight became, The air we breathed was hot with flame, We bore, as Freedom's hope forlorn. The private hate. the public scorn."
In the early colonial days, slavery existed in the Province of Massachusetts. Slaves were bought and sold here in 1767. In 1779 there were 2,000 slaves owned and living in Boston. but by the Bill of Rights, passed by the Legislature. October 25, 1781, all slaves in the State were freed and the institution
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abolished. William Lloyd Garrison was the founder of the American Anti-Slavery Society in 1832 and its President from 1843 to 1865. The first Anti-Slavery Society in America was formed in Boston, January 6, 1832, in a schoolhouse under the African Baptist Church. Persecution, added to Garrison's strong personality, made him a great moral power and Anti- Slavery Societies multiplied all over the North.
"William Lloyd Garrison hated War no less than Slavery, yet the words, 'I will not equivocate I will not excuse, I will not retreat a single inch and I will be heard,' did not arise from the throat of a cowardly Sentimentalist. He was as- sailed for his lack of religious orthodoxy ; he was dragged through the streets by a mob of gentlemen of standing, but he lived to see the cause he championed stir a nation to its very depths and to see the triumph of moral force."-Uncle Dudley in the Boston Globe.
In 1868 Garrison was presented with a generous sum of money as a national tribute to his great efforts in the abolition of slavery. He died in Boston May 24, 1879, in his 75th year. His funeral services which took place on the 28th of May were most impressive and were held in the church at Eliot Square, Roxbury. An eloquent address, commemorative of his life and services, was given by his life-long friend and co-worker, Wendell Phillips, and there were other addresses by Lucy Stone, Theodore P. Weld and the Reverends Samuel May and Samuel Johnson. Appropriate music was furnished by a quartette of colored people.
The decision of Chief Justice Shaw in the case of George Latimer, a fugitive slave, that the Statutes of the United States authorized the owner of the fugitive to arrest him in any State to which he might have fled, roused the Spirit of the Revolution all over the North. The result was the grow- ing sense of the wrong of the Institution of Slavery, and some of the most eloquent and brilliant young men of Boston joined the ranks of the Abolitionists. Foremost among these. were Wendell Phillips, Theodore Parker, Dr. Samuel G. Howe, John G. Whittier, Charles Sumner and Richard H. Dana, Jr.
WENDELL PHILLIPS
was the son of John Phillips, the first Mayor of Boston, and was born November 10, 1811, in the house on the corner of Walnut and Beacon Streets, and the house is still standing.
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The house which John Phillips built in 1804 at the corner of Beacon and Walnut Streets, was the first one built on Beacon Street under the Copley title, Mr. Phillips having acquired his land from Jeremiah Mason. Mason was one of the Mt. Vernon Proprietors, and had improved a large por-
Wendell Phillips
tion of Beacon Hill at the beginning of the nineteenth cen- tury. Mr. Phillips occupied the house until his death in 1823, and it was here that his distinguished son, Wendell Phillips, was born in 1811. After Mr. Phillips's death the estate was sold in 1825 by his heirs to Thomas Lindall Win-
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throp, Lieutenant-Governor of Massachusetts from 1826 to 1832. About 1861 the Phillips mansion was purchased by Robert M. Mason, who occupied it until his death in 1879. It is now in the possession of his family.
One can form some idea of the size of Boston, in the early years of the nineteenth century, when we state that Mayor Phillips incurred considerable ridicule and chaffing from some
Birthplace of Wendell Phillips, Corner of Beacon and Walnut Streets
of his friends for building his home in so remote a spot, it being generally regarded as quite out of town." His near neighbor was Dr. John Joy, who built a house on the corner of Joy and Beacon Streets. "He was an apothecary, who had his store on the corner of Spring Lane and Washington Street. He was advised by his family physician to take his invalid wife into the country and from the contaminating air of the city, so he removed to Beacon Hill. As a boy, Wendell Phillips saw many a load of hay cut on the Joy estate. It is a "far cry" from the days when that location was out of town,
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to the present when business men come daily to Boston from homes as far distant as Worcester, Haverhill and Newbury- port."-Boston Post.
Wendell Phillips's attention was early attracted to the In- stitution of Slavery. "At a public meeting in Faneuil Hall, he was present when Hon. James T. Austin, a former Attorney General of Massachusetts, and a bitter opponent of the Abo- litionists, likened slaves to animals, and extolled the mob which killed Owen Lovejoy, the Illinois Abolitionist. Wen- dell Phillips, a youth of only 18, was present and rose to re- ply. He had never before spoken in public in Boston, but no one who heard him that day will ever forget the scene or his wonderful speech. It was full of fiery eloquence and of un-
Wendell Phillips' House, Essex Street
answerable logic. From an unknown youth he suddenly sprang into fame as a most gifted orator. He stood in the front rank and at a time when such men as Webster, Choate and Everett were in the zenith of their fame." Phillips was the great and matchless orator of the Anti-Slavery cause. When he became interested in it, he abandoned his chosen profession of the law, as he could not conscientiously sub- scribe to the Constitution of the United States which then countenanced the Institution of Slavery. In acting as the
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champion of the slave, he made a sacrifice of social position and ambitious prospects such as few young men have ever made in any country.
"The averted glances of former friends and their refined cruelty were borne with high hearted cheerfulness." As one has said: "With Phillips, the Abolition Movement was a re- ligion, and no half and half measures were to be tolerated. He opposed every proposal that savored of compromise." He said : "We do not play politics ; anti-slavery is no half-way jest with us; it is a terrible earnest struggle with life and death, worse than life or death on the issue." He considered agita- tion one of the best methods of effecting political reforms. He declared that he had taken Daniel O'Connell as his model in his own work of agitation. He was a great admirer of O'Connell, whom he met when on a visit to England.
"Wendell Phillips was the orator of all others, by the charm of a powerful logic, a wit that played about his theme with the purity and power of the sunbeam, and a command of the English language that showed him familiar with the works of every master. It may be doubted whether America has ever produced his equal as an orator. Only those who had the good fotune to hear him in the decade preceding the Civil War can realize what a power he was in arousing the slumbering conscience of the North, and in forming and moulding public opinion as to the hideous wrong of slavery. He was often hissed and hooted at, and was sometimes when on the platform the target for missiles, but he faced the howling mob with dauntless courage, and with a firmness and a dignity worthy a noble Roman. Thousands of young men flocked to hear him. Some of them came to "scoff," but they were swept away by his logic and his eloquence, and they enrolled themselves under the "Free Soil Banner." He had a most winsome presence and a serene, undisturbed manner which added to the atractiveness of his words, en- abling him to speak before great audiences of his enemies. He was president of the American Anti-Slavery Society from 1865 to its dissolution in 1870. He lived to see African slav- ery abolished in the United States. After his marriage he lived for forty years on the corner of Essex and a narrow thoroughfare since widened by the Extension of Harrison Avenue.
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