[393] companion, Miss Putnam. She has been laboring with great1 success in Detroit and other places, and will probably be induced to remain in the State a short time longer.
W. L. Garrison to his Wife.Battle Creek, October 15, 1853.2 On Tuesday last, I spent the day (with Mr. Robinson of the3 Bugle, Sallie Holley, and Caroline Putnam) at Thomas Chandler's. . . . I spent an hour alone at the grave of Elizabeth (the remains of her aunt lying beside those of her own), and pencilled a sonnet on the post of the railing erected around the4 deceased, expressive of my estimate of her virtues, and the feelings of my heart. Sallie Holley had previously paid a brief tribute with her pencil to the exalted worth of the departed. There was nothing else to identify the persons whose remains were lying beneath the sod. They are buried on a rising elevation in a large wheat field, which is seen conspicuously at a considerable distance—half a dozen young and thrifty oak trees standing in a row on one side of the enclosure. To me it was hallowed ground, and, while standing there, I renewed my pledge of fidelity to the cause of the enslaved while life continues. Thomas reminds me somewhat of dear brother George. His heart was well-nigh buried in Elizabeth's grave,5 and his reverence for her memory carries an air of solemnity about it, as though she had been an angelic visitant from another sphere. . . . This afternoon I leave for Detroit, where I am to speak to-morrow afternoon and evening. There is a good deal of excitement in that place, caused by the recent meetings held there by S. S. and Abby K. Foster. The Detroit papers are full of pro-slavery slang, especially the Free Soil paper, which6 has assailed our friends after the style of Bennett's Herald.7 I expect to be slandered, caricatured, and assailed, in the worst8 manner; but no matter. One of the Detroit papers exults that my nose was pulled at Cleveland!
This text is part of:
W. L. Garrison to his Wife.
6 Free Democrat.
7 On November 9, 1853, Mrs. Foster wrote from Plymouth, Mich., to Samuel May, Jr. (Ms.): ‘We are doing over again, in Michigan, what we did nearly fifteen years ago in New England, and eight years ago in Ohio— fighting ‘New Organization,’ here under the cover of Free Democracy. We little dreamed, when we came here, what we should have to encounter. It never occurred to us that, as a matter of course, this conflict must be passed [through] everywhere before genuine anti-slavery could get a substantial footing. When we went to Detroit, we did not even know that the Free Soil paper was edited by two priests. Indeed, we knew almost nothing about it, though, since, we have learned that it has always been thrusting a stab at Garrison when it could find opportunity. But since Garrison and ourselves were there, it has kept a constant stream running from its vials of wrath, mainly on Garrison. St. Clair, the veritable Alanson, of New Organization memory, is lecturing for the party and obtaining subscribers for the paper. . . .’
The Century Company. , 1885-1889.
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