Gateway to Freedom: The Hidden History of the Underground Railroad (39 page)

43.
Liberator
, May 24, 1844;
Liberty Almanac for 1849
(New York, 1848), 38;
NS
, May 18, July 13, October 12, 1849;
Circular of the New-York State Vigilance Committee
[ca. 1850], NYHS; Johnson,
Liberty Party
, 356;
Autobiography of the Rev. Luther Lee
(New York, 1882); Calarco,
People of the Underground Railroad
, 134–35, 211–12;
BS
, May 12, 1848.

44.
Circular of the New-York State Vigilance Committee
[ca. 1850];
NYE
, May 24, 1849; George E. Walker,
The Afro-American in New York City, 1827–1860
(New York, 1993), 101;
NYTrib
, May 10, 1848;
Independent
, May 10, 1849;
NYE
, May 24, 1849, May 16, 1850;
BAP
, 2: 118; Manuscript Circular, 1849, New York State Vigilance Committee, Haverford College;
Doggett’s New-York City Directory, for . . . 1848/1849
(New York, 1848), 24; appendix, 13; Still,
Underground Railroad
, 676.

45.
Circular Letter of the New York State Vigilance Committee
, 1850, Miscellaneous Manuscripts, Library of Congress; Manuscript Circular Letter, 1849, New York State Vigilance Committee, Onondaga Historical Association; Gerrit Smith to William Harned, Charles B. Ray and Andrew Lester, March 14, 1849, SP; Seth Barton,
The Randolph Epistles
(Washington, D.C., 1850), 3–4.

46.
NYTrib
, May 10, 1849; MB, November 1, 1848; Manuscript Circular Letter, 1849.

47.
Special Report of the Bristol and Clifton Ladies’ Anti-slavery Society: During Eighteen Months, from January 1851 to June, 1852
(London, 1852), 29.

4. A Patchwork System

1.
There is no published biography of Gay. See Raimund E. Goerler, “Family, Self and Anti-Slavery: Sydney Howard Gay and the Abolitionist Commitment” (Ph.D. diss., Case Western Reserve University, 1975), 1–78.

2.
Goerler, “Family, Self and Anti-Slavery,” 105–54, 199–206; Sydney Howard Gay to Thomas Wentworth Higginson, October 28, 1882, Gay to Elizabeth J. Neall, August 26, 1844, Gay to Edmund Quincy, June 28, 1846, Sydney Howard Gay Diary, February 20–March 4, [1844], GP;
BAP
, 3: 416–19;
Liberator
, September 1, 1843, January 26, March 15, April 26, 1844.

3.
Goerler, “Family, Self and Anti-Slavery,” 210; Christopher Densmore, “The Tarring and Feathering of Daniel Neall at Smyrna, February 29, 1840,” paper delivered at Delaware Underground Railroad Coalition, October 26, 2009; “The Tarring and Feathering of Daniel Neall,” manuscript, GP; Mary Otis Gay Wilcox, “A Gay Life,” typescript, GP; Elizabeth J. Neall to ?, n.d., 1840, GP; Dorothy Sterling,
Ahead of Her Time: Abby Kelley and the Politics of Antislavery
(New York, 1991), 166.

4.
NAS
, April 10, 1845;
Liberator
, May 17, 1850; Steven M. Raffo,
A Biography of Oliver Johnson, Abolitionist and Reformer, 1809–1889
(Lewiston, N.Y., 2002), 79; Gay to Richard D. Webb, July 17, 1844, GP.

5.
Annie H. Abel and Frank J. Klingberg,
A Side-Light on Anglo-American Relations, 1839–1858
(New York, 1927), 174; Minute Book of the Vigilant Committee of Philadelphia, May 31, 1839, HSPa;
Life and Adventures of James Williams, a Fugitive Slave, with a Full Description of the Underground Railroad
(San Francisco, 1873), 98–99; Benjamin Quarles,
Black Abolitionists
(New York, 1969), 72; Margaret Hope Bacon,
But One Race: The Life of Robert Purvis
(Albany, 2007), 105; Jean Soderlund,
Quakers and Slavery: A Divided Spirit
(Princeton, 1985), 185–87;
MOL
, August 1838.

6.
Sarah H. Emerson, ed.,
Life of Abby Hopper Gibbons Told Chiefly through Her Correspondence
(2 vols.; New York, 1897), 1: 91, 99, 114–15; 2: 351; Charles L. Blockson, “The Underground Railroad: The Quaker Connection,” in Eliza Cope Harrison, ed.,
For Emancipation and Education: Some Black and Quaker Efforts, 1680–1900
(Philadelphia, 1997), 40; Minute Book, New York Association of Friends for the Relief of Those Held in Slavery and the Improvement of the Free People of Color, September 14, December 12, 1840, May 26, November 11, 1841, January 3, 1842, FHL; Circular, 1843, Massachusetts Anti-Slavery Society Records, NYHS; Kathryn Grover,
The Fugitive’s Gibraltar: Escaping Slaves and Abolitionism in New Bedford, Massachusetts
(Amherst, Mass., 2001), 32.

7.
NAS
, June 11, 1840, June 9, 1842, May 4, 1843; Carolyn L. Karcher,
The First Woman in the Republic: A Cultural Biography of Lydia Maria Child
(Durham, N.C., 1994), 273–76; Milton Meltzer and Patricia G. Holland, eds.,
Lydia Maria Child: Selected Letters, 1817–1880
(Amherst, Mass., 1982), 139, 186; Deborah P. Clifford,
Crusader for Freedom: A Life of Lydia Maria Child
(Boston, 1992), 162; Sydney Howard Gay to James Miller McKim, February 10, 1846, MAC.

8.
NAS
, September 16, 30, December 30, 1841, June 9, 1842; Karcher,
First Woman
, 264, 273–76, 291–93; Meltzer and Holland, eds.,
Lydia Maria Child
, 157, 174, 186–90, 193; James B. Stewart,
Wendell Phillips: Liberty’s Hero
(Baton Rouge, 1986), 127; Sydney Howard Gay to Caroline Weston, September 23, 1847 [misdated 1843], GP; James S. Gibbons to Richard D. Webb, February 25, 1844, AC.

9.
Sydney Howard Gay to Wendell Phillips, January 19, 1848, Gay to Francis Jackson, February 22, 1849, PP; Gay to Edmund Quincy, July 2, 1844, Gay to Maria Weston Chapman, September 3, 1844, Gay to Quincy, October 15, 1844, GP.

10.
Sydney Howard Gay to Wendell Phillips, July 10, 1846, August 26, 1846, April 2, 1847, PP; Phillips to Gay, May 26, August 26, 1846, April 5, 1847, Phillips to W. Chapman, June 21, 1846 (copy), GP; Stewart,
Wendell Phillips
, 130–31.

11.
NAS
, May 30, June 6, 1844;
Liberator
, May 31, 1844; Sydney Howard Gay to Richard D. Webb, July 17, 1844, GP; Gay to Wendell Phillips, July 9, 1848, August 28, 1849, PP; Anne Warren Weston to Maria Weston Chapman, August 22, 1848, AC; Gay to James Miller McKim, February 10, 1846, MAC.

12.
Sydney Howard Gay to Thomas Wentworth Higginson, October 28, 1882, GP; Abel and Klingberg,
Side-Light
, 121, 211–12, 220; Donald Yacovone,
Samuel Joseph May and the Dilemmas of the Liberal Persuasion, 1797–1871
(Philadelphia, 1991), 134–36;
NAS
, November 8, 22, 29, 1849, January 10, 24, 1850.

13.
NAS
, March 7, 21, December 26, 1844.

14.
NAS
, December 26, 1844; Sydney Howard Gay to “Friend Woodworth,” March 18, n.y., GP; Wilcox, “Gay Life” GP;
NYT
, October 12, 1875;
NYTrib
, March 30, 1881;
New York Sun
, March 31, 1881;
Pacific Appeal
(San Francisco), May 30, 1863. The 1850, 1860, and 1870 Manuscript U.S. Censuses (all available at AncestryLibrary.com), Napoleon’s marriage record from 1855, and his death certificate from 1881 (the latter two at the New York City Municipal Archives) all list New York City as Napoleon’s birthplace. The marriage record gives his year of birth as 1803; the death certificate, 1800. For Napoleon’s occupations and residences, see the 1850 Manuscript U.S. Census; John Doggett,
The New York City Directory for 1842 and 1843
(New York, 1842), 240;
Doggett’s New York City Directory for 1850–1851
(New York, 1850), 370; Henry Wilson,
Trow’s New York City Directory for the Year Ending May 1, 1860
(New York, 1859).

15.
NAS
, October 9, 1845.

16.
William Still,
The Underground Railroad
(rev. ed.: Philadelphia, 1878), 675–76; Manuscript Circular, 1849, New York State Vigilance Committee, Haverford College; Lewis Tappan to Sydney Howard Gay, September 3, 1849, GP.

17.
Florence T. Ray and H. C. Ray,
Sketch of the Life of Rev. Charles B. Ray
(New York, 1887), 73; Reinhard O. Johnson,
The Liberty Party, 1840–1848: Antislavery Third-Party Politics in the United States
(Baton Rouge, 2009), 293; R. J. M. Blackett,
Building an Antislavery Wall: Black Americans in the Atlantic Abolitionist Movement, 1830–1860
(Baton Rouge, 1983), 42–43, 110–11; Clare Taylor, ed.,
British and American Abolitionists: An Episode in Transatlantic Understanding
(Edinburgh, 1974), 277;
NYTrib
, May 10, 1849.

18.
R. C. Smedley,
History of the Underground Railroad in Chester and the Neighboring Counties of Pennsylvania
(Lancaster, Pa., 1883);
NYTrib
, June 17, 1841.

19.
Bacon,
But One Race
, 41–42, 48, 84; Smedley,
History of the Underground Railroad
, 353–55; Julie Winch,
Philadelphia’s Black Elite: Activism, Accommodation, and the Struggle for Autonomy, 1787–1848
(Philadelphia, 1988), 70, 84–89; Matthew Pinsker, “Vigilance in Pennsylvania: Underground Railroad Activities in the Keystone State, 1837–1861,” report presented at Pennsylvania Historical and Museum Commission Annual Conference on Black History, Harrisburg, 2000, 64; Joseph A. Boromé, “The Vigilant Committee of Philadelphia,”
Pennsylvania Magazine of History and Biography
, 92 (July 1968), 331–351; William Parker, “The Freedman’s Story,”
Atlantic Monthly
, 17 (March 1866), 295; Minute Book, Vigilant Committee of Philadelphia, December 27, 1843, March 11, 1844.

20.
[Harriet A. Jacobs],
Incidents in the Life of a Slave Girl, Written by Herself
, ed. L. Maria Child (Boston, 1861); Jean Fagan Yellin, ed.,
The Harriet Jacobs Family Papers
(2 vols.; Chapel Hill, 2008), 1: 55.

21.
John S. Jacobs to Sydney Howard Gay, September 7, June 4, 1845, Robert Purvis to Gay, September 13, 1858, GP; Account Book, May 16, 1854, Sydney Howard Gay Papers, NYPL.

22.
Calvin Schermerhorn,
Money over Mastery: Family over Freedom: Slavery in the Antebellum Upper South
(Baltimore, 2011), 160; Jeffrey Ruggles,
The Unboxing of Henry Brown
(Richmond, Va., 2003), 22–27;
Commemoration of the Fiftieth Anniversary of the Organization of the American Anti-Slavery Society
(Philadelphia, 1884), 40; Anna D. Hallowell,
James and Lucretia Mott: Life and Letters
(Boston, 1884), 310–11; James Miller McKim to “Dear Friend,” March 28, 1849, MAC; Joseph Ricketson Jr. to Sydney Howard Gay, March 30, 1849, McKim to Gay, March 26, 1849, GP.

23.
James Miller McKim to Sydney Howard Gay, March 26, April 3, 1849, Joseph Ricketson Jr. to Gay, March 30, 1849, GP; McKim to Samuel Rhoads, March 29, 1849, MC; Grover,
Fugitive’s Gibraltar
, 138, 229; Ricketson to Deborah Weston, April 29, 1849, AC.

24.
James Miller McKim to Sydney Howard Gay, March 26, 1849, GP;
NYTrib
, April 17, 24, 1849;
Liberty Almanac for 1851
(New York, 1850), 15; Schermerhorn,
Money over Mastery
, 160; Ruggles,
Unboxing
, 47–110;
Narrative of Henry Box Brown . . .
(Boston, 1849), 64; Richard D. Webb to Maria Weston Chapman, November 12, 1850, AC. In the British edition of his autobiography, Brown did mention briefly having passed through New York City.
Narrative of the Life of Henry Box Brown, Written by Himself
(Manchester, 1851), 59.

25.
Liberator
, July 24, 1857;
PF
, February 7, 1857; Richard M. Blackett,
Making Freedom: The Underground Railroad and the Politics of Slavery
(Chapel Hill, 2013), 68; Still,
Underground Railroad
, 75–76.

26.
Laura E. Richards, ed.,
Letters and Journal of Samuel Gridley Howe
(2 vols.; Boston, 1909), 2: 239–46; W. P. Garrison to Wilbur H. Siebert, October 30, 1893, SC; Irving H. Bartlett, “Abolitionists, Fugitives, and Impostors in Boston, 1846–1847,”
New England Quarterly
, 55 (March 1982), 97.

27.
Liberator
, November 12, 1847; Bartlett, “Abolitionists,” 100–104; John W. Browne to Sydney Howard Gay, December 3, 1846, Gay to Browne, December 15, 1846, January 3, 1847, GP; Elias Smith to John Jay II, December 11, 1846, JFP.

28.
Bartlett, “Abolitionists,” 105–9; John W. Browne to Sydney Howard Gay, March 27, 1847, Gay to Caroline Weston, July 30, 1846, Gay to Browne, January 3, 1847, GP.

29.
National Era
, July 15, 22, September 23, 1847;
NYTrib
, August 5, 6, 1847;
Elevator
(San Francisco), December 19, 1874; Henry Wilson,
History of the Rise and Fall of the Slave Power in America
(3 vols., Boston, 1874), 2: 53–54;
NYE
, August 23, 1847.

30.
H. Robert Baker,
Prigg v. Pennsylvania: Slavery, the Supreme Court, and the Ambivalent Constitution
(Lawrence, Kans., 2012), 14–17, 129–44; H. Robert Baker, “The Fugitive Slave Clause and the Antebellum Constitution,”
Law and History Review
, 30 (November 2012), 1157–58; William M. Wiecek, “Slavery and Abolition before the United States Supreme Court, 1820–1860,”
Journal of American History
, 65 (June 1978), 44–46; Don E. Fehrenbacher,
The Slaveholding Republic: An Account of the United States Government’s Relations to Slavery
(New York, 2001), 219–21; Paul Finkelman, “
Prigg v. Pennsylvania
and Northern State Courts: Anti-Slavery Use of a Pro-Slavery Decision,”
Civil War History
, 25 (March 1979), 9–13.