Wood County reporter. [volume] (Grand Rapids [i.e. Wisconsin Rapids], Wis.) 1857-1923, 1904-08-19
SHERMAN NJ. BOOTH DEAD,
Noted Abolitionist Identified with
Early Wisconsin History.
ANTI-SLAVERY EDITOR.
Body TO Be Brought to Milwaukee fol
Eurial-Survived by Widow
and Six Children.

Sherman NJ Booth, one of the last of
the abolitionists whose activities were
identified with the history of a half cent
qIry ago, died at his home in Chicago
Wednesday, August 10, at the age of "
years.
He came to Wisconsin in 1S40, ten
days before the admission of the state
20 the Union, and took charge OF the
Wisconsin Freeman, in whose columns
he exploited his anti-slavery views. He
was among the most cordially hated of
the abolition party.
Sherman NJ. Booth, one Of the last of
the great abolitionists, and contem-
p0rary Of William Lloyd Garrison,
Charles Sumner and other men of pro-
.s1ounced views during the ante-bellum
days, is dead. News of his passing, at
the age of 90 years, at his home. 81
North Campbell avenue, Chicago, was
received in Milwaukee last Wednesday
might. The body Of Mr.. Booth was
brought to Milwaukee on Friday for
burial.
The venerable abolitionist, editor and
speaker tainted away while sitting in
his yard in Chicago, and the end came
soon after he was removed to his house.
lie IS survived by his wife, Augusta NJ
booth, and six children, Mary Ella
Booth, Mrs. Robert Stanley, Mrs Ches-
Icy Il. Perry, Sherman M. Booth, Jr,
r. Blanche and Laura V. Booth.
Mr- Booth was q native OF New York.
where he early partook of those strong
lessons in our early national life which
paved the way for one of his pronounced
character to take the subsequent promi-
nent stand as an intense hater of slavery
which he did take and which placed him
alongside of such men as Garrison and
Sumner in the intensity of his feelings
against that which Lincoln declared to
be, %the greatest curse of our national
existence"
AS he grew up his feelings became
more and more pronounced, until his
writings and speeches did much to fire
the northern heart, as did his historic
ride through the streets of Milwaukee,
in March, 1854, when he learned of the
imprisonment in the Jail here of the fu-
.gltive slave, Glover, who had been ar
rested and brought here by United States
officers under the fugitive slave law.
AS he rode. through the streets calling to
freemen to turn out to the public meet
dng, the very soul Of peaceful Milwau-
kee was stirred to it's depths by his deep
.earneStneSs and the result of the attitude
upon that occasion of Sherman M. Booth
was, perhaps, more than to any other
direct incident, the forcible liberation
and carrying off of the slave, who was
passed by the underground railroad" to
Waukesha and thence escaped to Can
ada.
Mr.. Booth came to Milwaukee ON May
80, 1S4S, or, as he himself stated in his
address before the Editorial association
at Madison in 1897, just ten days before
Wisconsin was admitted as q state of the
Union. He came for the purpose Of edit
ing the American Freeman, owned at the
Inv .Il had 1raY
gnoved here from WaukeSha. He bought
q half interest in the paper and changed
Ats name to the Wisconsin Freeman. His
single purpose, he declared, was to aid to
the fullest extent of his powers in max
'3ng this a free country to all people, black
and white: His whole heart was in the
effort, and II any man ever stood firm
Cor the brotherhood of man, that advo-
cate was Sherman NJ Booth. Every
i1Iber Of his intense being was afre in
che cause. To this he added a strong
intellectual being and a good deal of OBJ
SeTvation. He had but one set of prn-
cIples, and he always wrote just what
he himself believed, not what some one
else told him.
OF the great questions preceding the
war he said in a famous speech forty
years ago:
There was something deeper in the
struggle in which | was engaged than
questions of technical law There was
something higher than decisions of courts
ON the constitutionality or unconstitu-
dionality of the fugitive slave act. 1t
was the old battle-not yet ended-be,
tween freedom and slavery: between the
rights of the tOling many and the spe-
cial privileges of the aristocratic few. 1t
WAS outlawed right against despotic pow
CT; It was divine mercy against internal
cruelty; it was the reforming spirit of
humanity against the boldest robbery of
national freedom and honor and per-
.sQual liberty ever digniied by the name
Ct law IN the annals of modern times
At was Magma Charta against unmtigat-
ed deSpotiSm.'
When Mr.. Booth assumed editorial
duty in Wisconsin there were twenty
1--WE acting editors located in the various
towns of the STATE, of whom, he said in
his Madison address QS90, 'there are
out five now living, William E. Cramer,
VI. \. Tenney, Beriah Brown, II. w
Gunnison and Sam Ryan"
Incidents of the Glover Rescue.
Since for his activity in the Glover
rescue Mr. Booth became prisoner of
thc United States, and his case was
dragged in weary lengths through the
conrts, incidents of his part in that his
Tcric Milwaukee episode form perh a ps
she most interesting event with which he
was actively identified. OF that event
,hc himself declared:
an riding through the streets of Mil
waukee to call a public meeting, [ did
got cry, as was reported and sworn to,
~Freemen to the rescue. A forcible res
cue was never my purpose. I aimed
simply to secure for Glover a fair trial
and competent counsel. And in calling
the meeting | used but two forms of
speech. viz, All freemcn. or All free
citizens who are opposed to being made
slaves or slave-catchers turn out to a
meeting in the courthouse square at .
O'clock the only variation being that |