The Dawson news. (Dawson, Ga.) 1889-current, 1917-01-23
Fred Douglass Second Wife.
From the Montgomery Advertiser.

|
From the Montgomery Advertiser.
! Everybody knows about Fred Douglass
and his white wife. 1t created much ma
tional gossip at the time of the marriage.
She was Helen Pitts, and her father was
| Gideon Pitts, of Honeoye, Ontario county,
| New York, man who owned large FARMS
and his family the cream Of Ontario aristoc-
racy. The Plttses were the blue bloods of
Honeoye
Gideon Pitts and his people were quite
cultivated, and were extreme abolitionists
of pronounced type before the war of the
sixties. They were the disciples of Henry
Ward Beecher and Cady Stanton and Mrs
Harriet Beecher Stowe. After the war they
were bitter against the South, being in line
with Thad Stevens Reconstruction policy.
Pitts was Republican and a politician
and a member of congress, and there he
met Douglass. He grew attached to him and
the negro cause, and had Douglass to visit
him at his home in HoneOye.
Pitts son-in-law, Mr. Short, deemed it
great and unusual honor to go nine miles
to the depot station Livonia, to meet the
honorable Douglass on his visits and take
him to the home of his father-in-law. Short
enjoyed his political talks en- route on the
wrongs OF the negro race, and declared for
"uplift' and equality and justice. He al
ways fingered to take tea with Douglass at
the Pitts residence.
1lle Idole Gdlh was on the wrongs OF the
negro. Douglass was an educated negro
and the conversation made a deep impress
on Miss Helen Pitts, enlisting her sympath-
les Tor the negro race, and creating a de-
sire within her for negro uplift." So Doug
lass became a frequent visitor
But when he asked for the hand of Miss
Helen, old man Pitts grew furious, said it
was an outrage on his hospitality.
To this Douglass replied that he was al
ways an invited guest, that he was received
as an equal, recognized as such, and as such
had won the affections of Miss Pitts Miss
Helen was woman thirty-five years of age,
and she asserted her rights and married
Douglass, under half religio-political sense
of ''uplift" duty.
Pitts never became reconciled. Nor did
son-ln-law Short, who thought it such an
honor to go to the station and escort Doug
less to the home of Pitts. Indeed, the whole
family, this aristocracy of the town and of
Ontario county, cut the acquaintance of Hell
en- and her mulatto husband. Pitts disinher-
tied her, and left to Mrs. Pitts the portion
intended for Helen. But the mother later
gave it to her daughter
After the death of Gideon Pitts, who was
survived by Douglass, Mrs. Pitts went to
Washington and lived with her daughter
and died there. When her body was brought
home accompanied by her daughter Helen,
Short, the sOn-in-law was still unreconciled
ed equality, but refused to practice what he
preached
Helen Pitts was the second wife of Fred
Douglass. His first wife was negro wom-
an, genuine African blood, and was buried in
Rochester N. Y, and when Douglass died,
his wife Helen and the sons of the negro
wife accompanied the remains from Wash
ington to Rochester, where Douglass was
buried by the side of his first wife, the negro
sons who were dark, and Helen riding to The
cemetery in the same carriage.
Rochester erected in honor of Douglass
a monument, which stands in the little park
near the railroad station, but son-in-Iaw
Short and none of the aristocratic Pittses
would subscribe to the fund. Douglass and
Helen had no children. Helen became the
sacrifice for her fathers teachings, but when
she put into practice his equality theories he
rebelled and never forgave her.
So with Thad Stevens. He taught social
equality, expressed his anguish on his death
bed that his clause for miscegenation was
stricken by Congress from his reconstruc-
| ton measure. But when Lynch, the negro
! lieutenant governor of South Carolina, de-
manded his daughter in marriage, he rose up
| IN violent anger, just as did Pitts.