Francis Jackson Garrison, William Lloyd Garrison, 1805-1879; the story of his life told by his children: volume 1

In truth, if any seal was needed on the match between Miss Benson and Mr. Garrison, it was to be found in the character and history of her father.¹ A retired merchant, whose moderate fortune had been earned in Providence, George Benson could look back on more than half a century of personal and associated opposition to slavery. He had a hand in founding and incorporating (1790) the third of those interesting abolition societies of the first² years of the Republic, of which the Pennsylvania Society, with Franklin at its head, was the earliest and the longest-lived.³ Of the Providence Society he was latterly made the Secretary; of the Pennsylvania Society promptly an honorary member (October, 1792). The fugitive slave had in him a friend at all hazards; and ‘it deserves to be recorded that while so many worthy persons were beguiled by the cunningly devised scheme of the American Colonization Society, Mr. Benson clearly comprehended its spirit and tendency, and wrote a long and an elaborate document in opposition to it even before the Liberator made its appearance.’ Lundy had been his guest on his lecturing tour in New England in 1828⁴ In May, 1833, against his gentle protest, Mr. Benson was chosen President of the New England Anti-Slavery Society, to fill the vacancy caused by the death of John Kenrick, and in February, 1834, was unanimously reelected to the same office. His health was now very feeble, but his sympathy with the cause was undiminished, as with that other cause of which Abolition was but a part—the cause of Peace. He was one