The weekly Anglo-African., 1859-10-15

| mems OF ELruScdn art w lllldIn 1aI1l1lOL,
who, four years afterwards, during the New
York riots, when met in the street, loaded
down with iron missiles, and asked where
he was going, replied, 'to die on my
threshold |" Watkins, of Baltimore, Fred
erick Hinton, with his polished eloquence,
James Forten, the merchant prince, =
William Whipper, just essaying his youth
full powers, Lewis Woodson and John
Peck, of Pittsburgh, Austin Steward, then
of Rochester, Samuel E. Cornish, who had
the distinguished honor of reasoning Ger
rit Smith out of colonizationism, and of
telling Henry Clay that he would never be
president If anything higher than the
American Colonization Society, Philip A.
Bell, the born Sa6reur, who never feared
the face of clay, and hundred others, were
the worthily leading spirits among the col
ored people.
And yet the idea of the first colored
Convention did not originate with any of
these distinguished men: it came from a
young man of Baltimore, then, and still,
unknown to fame Born in that city in
1901, he was in 1917 apprenticed to man
some two hundred miles off in the South
east. Arriving at his field of labor, he
worked hard nearly week and received
poor fare in return. One day while at
work near the house, the mistress came out
and gave him furious scolding, so furious,
indeed, that her husband mildly interfered;
she drove the latter away, and threatened
to take the Baltimore out of the lad with
cow-hide, &C., &c. at this moment, to use
his own expression, the lad became convert
| ed, that is, he determined to be his own
master as long as he lived. Early night
fall found him on his way to Baltimore,
which he reached after a severe journey
which tested his energy and ingenuity to
the utmost. At the age of twenty-three
he was engaged in the summer time in sup.
plying Baltimore with ice from his cart,
and in winter in cutting up pork for Ellicots'
etabnsnmenL. 1emusJ nave 49, {,
swift with knife and cleaver, for in one
day he cut up and dressed some four hun
dred and fifteen porkers.T
In 1924, our young friend fell in with
Benjamin Lundy,t and in 1929, with
VIM. Lloyd Garrison, editors and publish
ers of the Genius of Universal Emancipa-
ton; :" a radical anti-slavery paper-whose
boldness would put the " National Era" to
shame-printed and published in the slave
State of Maryland. In 1880, the col
ored people of the free States were much
excited on the subject of emigration: there
had been an emigration to Hayti, and al
so to Canada, and some had been driven to
Liberia by the severe laws and brutal con
duct of the fermenters of colonization in
Virginia and Maryland. In some districts
of these States, the disguised whites would
enter the houses of free colored men at
night, and take them out and give them
from thirty to fifty lashes, to get them to
consent to go to Liberia.
1t was in the spring of 1880, that the
young man we have sketched, HEzEK1AH
GR1CE, conceived the plan of calling to-
gether meeting or convention of colored
men. in some place north of the Potomac,
for the purpose of comparing views and
Of adopting harmonious movement either
of emigration, or of determination to re-
main in the United States; convinced OF
the hopelessneSs of contending against the
expressions in the United States, living in
the very depth of that oppression and
wrong, his own views looked to Canada;
but he held them subject to the decision OF
st is profitable comparison of ls3Owith 1859,
to remember that up to 1S34-5 Mr.. James Forten,
of Philadelphia, was held up as an extraordinary
instance of coored mans ability, and because he
had amasssd 1000 at his business.
I In the year of grace 1855, professional duties
threw the writer of this into acquaintance with
Rutherford, lineal descendant of the Rutherford
of the Scotch Reformation he was engaged at a
thousand dollars year in ca cutting up for pork
establishment in New York city: he was SPLEEN
did fellow physically of Internationally, and
magnificent Greek scholar it was strange en-
chantment, tost in the airy loft overlooking the
Hudson, and hear him, ceaver in hand, recite and
criticize the glowing lines of Homer Pirdar and
Anacreon
tMr. Goodell, in his Slavery and Anti-Slavery
in the United States" page 3S5, states that Ben
jamin Lundy started his first anti-slavery papel
/ in Baltimore. This is not correct Shortly ate
the discussion the Missouri Compromise
a Mr.. Lambert, residing in Tennessee published thu
" EMANcIPAToR," in that State, thorough goin.
anti-slavery journal, which gave the best accOun
extant of the instruction in Charleston in 1926
Mr.. Lundy was, at that time, saddler, working a
his bench, in the same place where this paper wa
nnbl;shad. he became deeply interested IN tn