Q-S: Quincy through Swisshelm

See below for annotated biographies of Liberty Party leaders and members. Source: Scribner’s Dictionary of American Biography; Appletons’ Cyclopaedia of American Biography.

QUINCY, Edmund, 1808-1877, Dedham, Massachusetts, author, anti-slavery writer, abolitionist leader. Member, U.S. House of Representatives. Mayor of Boston. After the murder of abolitionist newspaper editor Elijah P. Lovejoy, he became a Garrisonian abolitionist. Member, 1838, Vice President, 1853, 1856-1859, of the American Anti-Slavery Society (AASS). Served as a Manager, 1838-1840, 1840-1842, member of the Executive Committee, 1843-1864, Vice President, 1848-1864, and Corresponding Secretary, 1853-1856, of the American and Foreign Anti-Slavery Society (AFASS). Vice President, Massachusetts Anti-Slavery Society, 1849-1860. Quincy was also active as a member of the Non-Resistance Society, which was founded in 1839. This organization was devoted to non-violent actions. It supported a break between the North and the South. Quincy was active with both William Lloyd Garrison and Maria Weston Chapman in conducting the organization’s newsletter, the Non-Resistant, from 1839-1842. He was appointed editor of the Abolitionist, the newspaper of the Massachusetts Anti-Slavery Society, in 1839. Between 1839 and 1856, he was a major contributor of articles to the Bell. Quincy became editor of the Anti-Slavery Standard, the newspaper of the American Anti-Slavery Society. He was also in charge of the Liberator when Garrison was on leave. He also contributed anti-slavery articles to Horace Greeley’s New York Tribune.

(Mabee, Carleton. Black Freedom: The Nonviolent Abolitionists from 1830 Through the Civil War. London: Macmillan, 1970, pp. 70, 72, 73, 75, 77, 80, 200, 224, 248, 250, 255, 256, 257, 260, 262, 297, 313; Appletons’ Cyclopaedia of American Biography, 1888, Volume V, p. 153; Dictionary of American Biography, Charles Scribner’s Sons, New York, 1936, Volume 8, Pt. 1, p. 306).

Dictionary of American Biography, Charles Scribner’s Sons, New York, 1936, Volume 8, Pt. 1, p. 306:

QUINCY, EDMUND (February 1, 1808-May 17, 1877), reformer and author, was born in Boston, Massachusetts, the second son of Josiah Quincy, 1772- 1864 [q.v.], member of Congress, mayor of Boston (1823-28), and president of Harvard, and of Eliza Susan (Morton) Quincy. After preparation for college at Phillips Academy, Andover, Massachusetts, 1817-23, he entered Harvard College, graduating with high honors in 1827 and receiving a master's degree in 1830. On October 14, 1833, he married Lucilla P. Parker.

Stirred by the murder of the abolitionist Elijah P. Lovejoy [q.v.], by a proslavery mob in Alton, Illinois, in 1837, Quincy shocked the aristocratic, lettered class to which he belonged by becoming an active Garrisonian abolitionist. In 1837 he became a member of the Massachusetts Anti-Slavery Society, of which he was corresponding secretary from 1844 to 1853; and in 1838 he joined the American Anti-Slavery Society, of which he was vice-president in 1853 and 185&- 59. A prominent member of the Non-Resistance Society, formed in 1839, he abjured all recourse to force in resisting evil, renounced all allegiance to human government, and, in the interests of abolition, agitated disunion between the North and the South. He was associated with William Lloyd Garrison and Maria Wes ton Chapman [qq.v.] in conducting the Non-Resistant, a paper which gave expression to these doctrines from 1839 to 1842. In 1839 he also became an editor of the Abolitionist, an organ of the Massachusetts Anti-Slavery Society, and from 1839 to 1856 was a chief contributor to the Liberty Bell, edited by Mrs. Chapman for the annual Boston anti-slavery fairs. In 1844 he became an editor of the Anti-Slavery Standard, the journal of the American Anti-Slavery Society. He also frequently conducted the Liberator, as in 1843, 1846, and 1847, when its editor, Garrison, was absent. In addition to his work for these journals he contributed to the New York Tribune, the Albany Transcript, the Independent, and others, and his trenchant writings on slavery, called by Lowell "gems of Flemish art" (J. P. Quincy, post, p. 414), if collected, would make many volumes and furnish a valuable contribution to the history of the anti-slavery struggle. Apart from his activities as an abolitionist, Quincy was also well known among literary people as a writer of fiction and biography. His Wensley, a Story without a Moral (1854; reprinted in Wensley and Other Stories, 1885), a sympathetic study of early American society, reveals a cultivated mind, a genial humor, and a graceful style, and was called by Whittier "the most readable book of the kind since Hawthorne's Blithedale Romance" (Proceedings of the Massachusetts Historical Society, 1 series XV, 283). In The Haunted Adjutant and Other Stories (1885) are collected some of his best short stories. With the help of his sister, Eliza Susan Quincy, he wrote an excellent biography of his father, Life of Josiah Quincy (1867), and edited Speeches Delivered in the Congress of the United States: by Josiah Quincy (1874). He was also a fellow of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences, recording secretary of the Massachusetts Historical Society, a member of the American Philosophical Society, and a member of the Board of Overseers of Harvard College. In spite of the strenuous participation in active life which his devotion to the abolitionist cause entailed, he remained to the end the old-fashioned scholar and gentleman, his exalted and uncompromising idealism being tempered by wit and humor, friendliness and simplicity, cultivation and refinement.

[Henry Wilson, History of the Rise and Fall of the Slave Power in America (3 volumes, 1872-77); J.P. Quincy, "Edmund Quincy," Proceedings Massachusetts Historical Society, 2 series XVIII (1905); W. P. and F. J. Garrison, William Lloyd Garrison (4 volumes, 1885-89); Later Years of the Saturday Club (1927), ed. by M.A. DeWolfe Howe; J. L. Chamberlain, Universities and Their Sons: Harvard University (1900); Proceedings Massachusetts Historical Society, 1 ser. XV (1878); New-England Historical and Genealogical Register, January 1857; Nation (New York), May 24, 31, 1877; E. E. Salisbury, Family Memorials (1885), volume I; Boston Transcript, May 18, 1877.]

A. R. B.

Appleton’s Cyclopaedia of American Biography, 1888, Volume V, pp. 153:

QUINCY, Edmund, author, born in Boston, 1 February, 1808; died in Dedham, 17 May, 1877, was graduated at Harvard in 1827. He deserves especial mention for the excellent biography of his father, above mentioned. His novel “Wensley” (Boston, 1854) was said by Whittier to be the best book of the kind since the “Blithedale Romance.” His contributions to the anti-slavery press for many years were able and valuable. Appleton’s Cyclopaedia of American Biography, 1888, Volume V, pp. 153.



RAY, Charles Bennett, 1807-1886, New York, African American, journalist, educator, clergyman, abolitionist leader. American Missionary Association (AMA). Newspaper owner and editor, The Colored American. African American. Executive Committee, American and Foreign Anti-Slavery Society (AFAAS), 1847-1851, 1853-1855, Recording Secretary, 1849-1855. Member of the anti-slavery Liberty Party. One of the first African Americans to participate in abolitionist party on a national level. Member and activist with the Underground Railroad. Co-founder and director, New York Vigilance Committee, which aided and protected fugitive slaves. Member of the American Anti-Slavery Society.

(Blue, Frederick J. No Taint of Compromise: Crusaders in Antislavery Politics. Baton Rouge: Louisiana State University Press, 2005, p. 98; Dumond, Dwight Lowell, Antislavery: The Crusade for Freedom in America, University of Michigan Press, 1961, pp. 268, 330, 333; Mabee, Carleton. Black Freedom: The Nonviolent Abolitionists from 1830 Through the Civil War. London: Macmillan, 1970, pp. 58, 59, 62, 95-97, 111, 134, 146, 181, 338, 339, 415n14; Rodriguez, Junius P., Slavery in the United States: A Social, Political, and Historical Encyclopedia, ABC-CLIO, 2007, pp. 48, 166; Sernett, Milton C. North Star Country: Upstate New York and the Crusade for African American Freedom. Syracuse, NY: Syracuse University Press, 2002, pp. 64, 116, 132, 199, 201; Sorin, Gerald. The New York Abolitionists: A Case Study of Political Radicalism. Westport, CT: Greenwood Publishing Corporation, 1971, pp. 93-94; Dictionary of American Biography, Charles Scribner’s Sons, New York, 1936, Volume 8, Pt. 1, pp. 403-404; Annals of Congress; American National Biography, Oxford University Press, New York, 2002, Volume 18, p. 201; Gates, Henry Louis, Jr., & Evelyn Brooks Higginbotham, eds. African American National Biography. Oxford University Press, 2013, Volume 9, p. 353).

Dictionary of American Biography, Charles Scribner’s Sons, New York, 1936, Volume 8, Pt. 1, pp. 403-404:

RAY, Charles Bennett (December 25, 1807- August 15, 1886), negro journalist and clergyman, was born at Falmouth, Massachusetts. It was his boast that the blood of the aboriginal Indians, of the English white settlers, and of the first negroes brought to New England mingled in his veins. His parents were Joseph Aspinwall and Annis (Harrington) Ray. His mother was a great reader and very religious, while his father was for twenty-eight years mail carrier between Falmouth and Martha's Vineyard. The eldest of seven children, Ray was educated at the schools and academies of his native town.

His schooling completed, he worked for the next five years on his grandfather's farm at Westerly, Rhode Island. He next learned the shoemaker's trade at Vineyard Haven but in a short while made up his mind to prepare himself for the ministry. He studied at Wesleyan Seminary, Wilbraham, Massachusetts, and later attended Wesleyan University, Middletown, Connecticut. After leaving there in 183i, he went to New York and opened a boot and shoe store. In 1833 he joined the American Anti-Slavery Society and through his connection with the Underground Railroad actively furthered the escape of runaway slaves with means furnished by Lewis Tappan [q.v.] and others. In 1843, after the formation of the committee of vigilance for the protection of those fleeing from bondage, he became its corresponding secretary; in 1850 he was made a member of the executive committee of the New York state vigilance committee.

In the meantime, 1837, he had been ordained as a Methodist minister. The same year he was appointed general agent of the Colored American, a recently established negro weekly and the second one of its kind to be published in the United States. He traveled extensively in the interest of this journal, lectured on its behalf in Eastern and Western cities, and contributed to its columns. In 1838 he became part, and subsequently sole, owner of this paper, and was its only editor from 1839 on. Although he conducted the publication ably and proved himself a terse and vigorous writer, it suspended publication in April 1842 after a checkered career. It served, however, as a prototype for later negro journals. In 1846 he was installed as pastor of the Bethesda Congregational Church, New York, and continued as such until 1868. From 1846 until his death he held the position of city missionary. He was also keenly interested in educational subjects, and in 1847-48 helped organize a number of temperance societies. He was married in 1834 to Henrietta, the daughter of Green Regulus; she died in 1836 as did the infant girl born of this union. In 1840 he married Charlotte Augusta, the daughter of Gustavus J. and Pacella (Cuthbert) Burroughs of Savannah, Georgia; she bore him seven children, of whom only three daughters were living at the time of his death. He was light in color, of small stature and wiry frame, and polished in manners. He had a gentle disposition, was modest in demeanor, and fair-minded and effective as a speaker.

[F. T. Ray, Sketch of the Life of Charles B. Ray (1887); I. G. Penn, The Afro-American Press (1891); Congregational Year Book, 1887.]

H. G. V.



ROBERTS, E., Ohio, Business Committee, Liberty party, Buffalo convention, June 1848

(Minutes, Convention of the Liberty Party, June 14, 15, 1848, Buffalo, New York)



RODGERS, Nathaniel, Liberty party candidate for alderman in Boston.

(Minutes, Convention of the Liberty Party, June 14, 15, 1848, Buffalo, New York)



SAMPSON, Amos A., abolitionist, Liberty party
(Minutes, Convention of the Liberty Party, June 14, 15, 1848, Buffalo, New York)



SAYRE, J. B., New Jersey, officer in the Liberty party.

(Minutes General Liberty Convention Buffalo, New York, October 20, 1847).



SEWALL, Samuel E., Boston, Massachusetts, attorney, abolitionist leader. Co-founding member of the New England Anti-Slavery Society (NEASS), founded January 1, 1832, in Boston, Massachusetts. Founding member of the American Anti-Slavery Society, December 1833, and Manager, 1833-1837. Auditor, Massachusetts Anti-Slavery Society, 1836-1840. Leading member of the Boston Vigilance Committee (BVC). As a lawyer, he reppresented fugitive slaves in Boston. Sewall supported immediate, uncompensated emancipation. He was a leader and active member of the Liberty Party and was its party candidate for Governor of Massachusetts. Sewall was a close working associated of abolitionist leader William Lloyd Garrison. Sewall was a descendant of early colonial abolitionist Samuel Sewall (1652-1730).

(Dumond, Dwight Lowell, Antislavery: The Crusade for Freedom in America, University of Michigan Press, 1961, pp. 301, 405n12; Sinha, 2016, pp. 222-223, 225, 321, 251, 327, 385, 386, 391, 392, 404, 505-508, 545, 560; Abolitionist, Volume I, No. XII, December, 1833; Minutes, Convention of the Liberty Party, June 14, 15, 1848, Buffalo, New York)


SHATTUCK, William,

(Minutes, Convention of the Liberty Party, June 14, 15, 1848, Buffalo, New York).



SHAW, Benjamin, Vermont, abolitionist leader, National Convention of Friends of Immediate Emancipation, Albany, New York, 1840, which became the new Liberty party.

(Dumond, Dwight Lowell, Antislavery: The Crusade for Freedom in America, University of Michigan Press, 1961, p. 297)



SHEPARD, Carey, 1805-1866, Maine, abolitionist, political leader. U.S. House of Representatives, 1843, 1850-1853. Officer, Liberty Party. Candidate for Governor in Liberty Party in Maine in 1854, lost.

(Minutes, Convention of the Liberty Party, June 14, 15, 1848, Buffalo, New York)



SMITH, Gerrit, 1797-1874, Peterboro, New York, large landowner, reformer, philanthropist, radical abolitionist. Smith was one of the most important leaders of the abolitionist movement. Originally, he supported the American Colonization Society (ACS) and served as a Vice President, 1833-1836. Smith later came to reject the idea of sending freed slaves back to Africa. Smith became a leader and important supporter of William Lloyd Garrison and the American Anti-Slavery Society (AASS). He served as a Vice President of the AASS, 1836-1840, 1840-1841. Smith also served as Vice President of the American and Foreign Anti-Slavery Society, 1840. He was the founding President of the New York State Anti-Slavery Society, October 1836, in Utica, New York. Smith came to believe that slavery could be abolished by political means and he was instrumental in the founding of the Liberty Party in 1840. He was the President and co-founder of the Liberty League in 1848 and was its presidential candidate in 1848. He was active in supporting the Underground Railroad. Smith was a member of the Pennsylvania Free Produce Association. He supported the New England Emigrant Aid Company of Massachusetts, which sent anti-slavery settlers to the Kansas Territory. He was one of six abolitionists (known as the “Secret Six”) who secretly supported radical abolitionist John Brown. Supported women’s rights and suffrage. He served as an anti-slavery member of Congress, 1853-1854. After the Civil War, he supported the right to vote for Blacks.

(Blue, Frederick J. No Taint of Compromise: Crusaders in Antislavery Politics. Baton Rouge: Louisiana State University Press, 2005, pp. 19, 20, 25, 26, 32-36, 50, 53, 54, 68, 101, 102, 105, 112, 132, 170; Dumond, Dwight Lowell, Antislavery: The Crusade for Freedom in America, University of Michigan Press, 1961, pp. 200, 221, 231, 295, 301, 339, 352; Friedman, 1982; Mabee, Carleton. Black Freedom: The Nonviolent Abolitionists from 1830 Through the Civil War. London: Macmillan, 1970, pp. 37, 47, 55, 56, 71, 72, 104, 106, 131, 135, 150, 154, 156, 187-189, 195, 202, 204, 219, 220, 226, 227, 237, 239, 246, 252, 253, 258, 307, 308, 315, 320, 321, 327, 342, 346; Mitchell, Thomas G. Antislavery Politics in Antebellum and Civil War America. Westport, CT: Praeger, 2007, pp. 5, 8, 13, 16, 22, 29, 31, 36, 112, 117-121, 137, 163, 167, 199, 224-225, 243; Rodriguez, Junius P., Slavery in the United States: A Social, Political, and Historical Encyclopedia, ABC-CLIO, 2007, pp. 46, 50, 51, 56, 138, 163, 206, 207, 327, 338, 452-454; Sernett, Milton C. North Star Country: Upstate New York and the Crusade for African American Freedom. Syracuse, NY: Syracuse University Press, 2002, pp. 22, 36, 49-55, 122-126, 129-132, 143-146, 169, 171, 173-174, 205-206, 208-217, 219-230; Sorin, Gerald. The New York Abolitionists: A Case Study of Political Radicalism. Westport, CT: Greenwood Publishing Corporation, 1971, pp. 25-38, 47, 49, 52, 66, 95, 96, 102, 126, 130; Appletons’ Cyclopaedia of American Biography, 1888, Volume V, pp. 583-584; Dictionary of American Biography, Charles Scribner’s Sons, New York, 1936, Volume 9, Pt. 1, p. 270; American Reformers: An H.W. Wilson Biographical Dictionary, New York, 1985; American National Biography, Oxford University Press, New York, 2002, Volume 20; The National Cyclopaedia of American Biography, Volume II. New York: James T. White, 1892, pp. 322-323; Harlow, Ralph Volney. Gerrit Smith: Philanthropist and Reformer, New York: Holt, 1939.) Family papers in Library of Syracuse University; O. B. Frothingham, Gerrit Smith (1878); 2nd ed. (1879).

Appletons’ Cyclopaedia of American Biography, 1888, Volume V, pp. 583-584:

SMITH, Gerrit, philanthropist, born in Utica, New York, 6 March, 1797; died in New York City, 28 December, 1874, was graduated at Hamilton College in 1818, and devoted himself to the care of his father's estate, a large part of which was given to him when he attained his majority. At the age of fifty-six he studied law, and was admitted to the bar. He was elected to Congress as an independent candidate in 1852, but resigned after serving through one session. During his boyhood slavery still existed in the state of New York, and his father was a slave-holder. One of the earliest forms of the philanthropy that marked his long life appeared in his opposition to the institution of slavery, and his friendship for the oppressed race. He acted for ten years with the American Colonization Society, contributing largely to its funds, until he became convinced that it was merely a scheme of the slave-holders for getting the free colored people out of the country. Thenceforth he gave his support to the Anti-Slavery Society, not only writing for the cause and contributing money, but taking part in conventions, and personally assisting fugitives. He was temperate in all the discussion, holding that the north was a partner in the guilt, and in the event of emancipation without war should bear a portion of the expense; but the attempt to force slavery upon Kansas convinced him that the day for peaceful emancipation was past, and he then advocated whatever measure of force might be necessary. He gave large sums of money to send free-soil settlers to Kansas, and was a personal friend of John Brown, to whom he had given a farm in Essex County, New York, that he might instruct a colony of colored people, to whom Mr. Smith had given farms in the same neighborhood. He was supposed to be implicated in the Harper's Ferry affair, but it was shown that he had only given pecuniary aid to Brown as he had to scores of other men, and so far as he knew Brown's plans had tried to dissuade him from them. Mr. Smith was deeply interested in the cause of temperance, and organized an anti-dram shop party in February, 1842. In the village of Peterboro, Madison County, where he had his home, he built a good hotel, and gave it rent-free to a tenant who agreed that no liquor should be sold there. This is believed to have been the first temperance hotel ever established. But it was not pecuniarily successful. He had been nominated for president by an industrial congress at Philadelphia in 1848, and by the land-reformers in 1856, but declined. In 1840, and again in 1858, he was nominated for governor of New York. The last nomination, on a platform of abolition and prohibition, he accepted, and canvassed the state. In the election he received 5,446 votes. Among the other reforms in which he was interested were those relating to the property-rights of married women and female suffrage and abstention from tobacco. In religion he was originally a Presbyterian, but became very liberal in his views, and built a non-sectarian church in Peterboro, in which he often occupied the pulpit himself. He could not conceive of religion as anything apart from the affairs of daily life, and in one of his published letters he wrote: “No man's religion is better than his politics; his religion is pure whose politics are pure; whilst his religion is rascally whose politics are rascally.” He disbelieved in the right of men to monopolize land, and gave away thousands of acres of that which he had inherited, some of it to colleges and charitable institutions, and some in the form of small farms to men who would settle upon them. He also gave away by far the greater part of his income, for charitable purposes, to institutions and individuals. In the financial crisis of 1837 he borrowed of John Jacob Astor a quarter of a million dollars, on his verbal agreement to give Mr. Astor mortgages to that amount on real estate. The mortgages were executed as soon as Mr. Smith reached his home, but through the carelessness of a clerk were not delivered, and Mr. Astor waited six months before inquiring for them. Mr. Smith had for many years anticipated that the system of slavery would be brought to an end only through violence, and when the Civil War began he hastened to the support of the government with his money and his influence. At a war-meeting in April, 1861, he made a speech in which he said: “The end of American slavery is at hand. The first gun fired at Fort Sumter announced the fact that the last fugitive slave had been returned. . . . The armed men who go south should go more in sorrow than in anger. The sad necessity should be their only excuse for going. They must still love the south; we must all still love her. As her chiefs shall, one after another, fall into our hands, let us be restrained from dealing revengefully, and moved to deal tenderly with them, by our remembrance of the large share which the north has had in blinding them.” In accordance with this sentiment, two years after the war, he united with Horace Greeley and Cornelius Vanderbilt in signing the bail-bond of Jefferson Davis. At the outset he offered to equip a regiment of colored men, if the government would accept them. Mr. Smith left an estate of about $1,000,000, having given away eight times that amount during his life. He wrote a great deal for print, most of which appeared in the form of pamphlets and broadsides, printed on his own press in Peterboro. His publications in book-form were “Speeches in Congress” (1855); “Sermons and Speeches” (1861); “The Religion of Reason” (1864); “Speeches and Letters” (1865); “The Theologies” (2d ed., 1866); “Nature the Base of a Free Theology” (1867); and “Correspondence with Albert Barnes” (1868). His authorized biography has been written by Octavius BORN Frothingham (New York, 1878). Appleton’s Cyclopaedia of American Biography, 1888, Volume V, pp. 583-584.

Dictionary of American Biography, Charles Scribner’s Sons, New York, 1936, Volume 9, Pt. 1, p. 270:

SMITH, GERRIT (March 6, 1797-December 28, 1874), philanthropist and reformer, was born at Utica, New York, the grandson of James Livingston [q.v.] and the son of Elizabeth (Livingston) and Peter Smith [q.v.]. In 1806 the family moved to Peterboro, Madison County, New York, where Smith spent the greater part of his adult life. He graduated from Hamilton College in 1818 and helped his father manage the substantial fortune, the product of shrewd land purchases. On January 11, 1819, he married Wealthy Ann Backus, the daughter of Azel Backus [q.v.]. She died the next August, and on January 3, 1822, he married Ann Carroll Fitzhugh. Of their four children, only two lived to maturity. In 1826 he became a member of the Presbyterian Church.

He succeeded to the entire control of his father's property, which, real and personal, was valued at about $400,000, and was able to increase it in amount and in value. His father, melancholy and later estranged from his second wife who had gone back to Charleston, South Carolina, to live, withdrew into himself more and more. Smith used his wealth, in so far as he could find guidance on the subject from prayer and from his own conscience, for what he considered the good of mankind. For a time he helped to build churches, and he gave generously to several theological schools and to various colleges. He experimented with systematic charity on a large scale, giving both land and money to needy men and women throughout his own state (see sketch of James McCune Smith); but his carefully selected "indigent females" made poor farmers, and the blacks whom he tried to colonize in the Adirondack wilderness found the environment unsuited to their needs. Much of the property he disposed of in this work was subsequently sold for non-payment of taxes.

His greatest reputation was made in the field of reform. He labored in the cause of the Sunday School and of Sunday observance; he was an anti-Mason; he advocated vegetarianism; and he opposed the use of tobacco and alcoholic beverages; he joined the national dress reform association and the woman's suffrage cause; he believed in prison reform and in the abolition of capital punishment. He contributed to home and foreign missions and to the causes of the op. pressed Greeks, the Italians, and the Irish. Through his influence his cousin, Elizabeth Cady Stanton [q.v.], was interested in temperance and abolition movements. He was vice-president of the American Peace Society and advocated compensated emancipation of slaves. He joined the anti-slavery crusade in 1835 with his customary enthusiasm, and he became one of the be st-known abolitionists in the United States. Although on terms of intimate friendship with William Lloyd Garrison, he never went to the extremes of the Garrison group; but he was always ready to help escaped slaves to Canada and in 1851 participated in the "Jerry rescue" in Syracuse. After the enactment of the Kansas Nebraska law he joined the Kansas Aid Societies in New York, and he helped Eli Thayer's New England Emigrant Aid Company in Massachusetts. This work cost him at least fourteen thousand dollars; how much more it is difficult to determine. In spite of his advocacy of peace, he urged the use of force against the pro-slavery contingent in Kansas, and forcible resistance to the federal authorities there, because, as he said, the federal government upheld the pro-slavery cause. In February 1858 John Brown went to Smith's home in Peterboro, not to plan his campaign in Virginia but to obtain Smith's moral and financial support for plans already made. On this occasion, at a second vi sit in April 1859, and in several letters, Smith gave Brown assurance of his approval and some money. After the raid at Harpers Ferry, Smith became temporarily insane. He made a quick recovery, however, and six months later he was in his usual good health. From then on to the end of his life he denied complicity in Brown's plot, but the available evidence bears out newspaper charges made at the time, that he was an accessory before the fact.
Unlike the Garrisonians, he believed in political action as a means of reform, and for a full fifty years, from 1824 to 1874, he took an active part in politics. He was one of the leaders in forming the Liberty party; in 1840 he was its candidate for governor. In 1848 the "true" Liberty party m en, those who refused to indorse the Free Soil "heresy," nominated him for the presidency, though he declined. In 1852 he was elected a member of Congress on an independent ticket and served from March 4, 1853, to August 7, 1854, when he resigned. In 1858 he ran for governor on the "People's State Ticket," advocating temperance, anti-slavery, and land reform. During the Civil War he wrote and spoke often in support of the Union cause. This work led him gradually into the Republican party, so that he campaigned for Lincoln's reelection in 1864 and for Grant in 1868. In reconstruction he advocated a policy of moderation toward the Southern whites with suffrage for the blacks. In 1867 he was one of the signers of the bail bond to release Jefferson Davis from captivity. He published many of his speeches and letters on important subjects. Of his published books the more important are Religion of Reason (1864), an exposition of his later religion of Nature or Rationalism; Speeches of Gerrit Smith in Congress (1856); and the two volumes (1864-65) of his Speeches and Letters of Gerrit Smith on the Rebellion. He died in New York City.

[Family papers in Library of Syracuse University; O. B. Frothingham, Gerrit Smith (1878); 2nd ed. (1879) "corrected" by Smith's daughter in order to bring it into harmony with the family belief that Smith was not an accomplice of John Brown; C. A. Hammond, Gerrit Smith (1900); K. W. Porter, John Jacob Astor (2 volumes, 1931); Appletons' Annual Cyclopedia, 1874; R. V. Hadow, "Gerrit Smith and the John Brown Raid" and " Rise and Fall of the Kansas Aid Movement," Annual Historical Review, October 1932, October 1935; New York Tribune, December 29-30, 1874.]

R. V. H.



SPOONER, Lysander, 1808-1887, lawyer, author, abolitionist leader. Wrote, “Unconstitutionality of Slavery,” 1845. “A Defense for Fugitive Slaves,” 1850, and “A Plan for the Abolition of Slavery (and) to tell Non-Slaveholders of the South” in 1858. This was used by the Liberty party for its political campaigns. Spooner believed the institution of slavery was not supported by the Constitution. He wrote The Unconstitutionality of Slavery in 1845. He believed that slavery itself had no basis in law historically. He wrote that slavery “had not been authorized or established by any of the fundamental constitutions or charters that had existed previous to this time; … it had always been a mere abuse sustained by the common consent of the strongest party” (Spooner, 1845, p. 65). Spooner was opposed to the Fugitive Slave Act and wrote in 1850, “A Defence for Fugitive Slaves, Against the Acts… of 1793 … 1850.”

(Rodriguez, Junius P., Slavery in the United States: A Social, Political, and Historical Encyclopedia, ABC-CLIO, 2007, p. 162; Appletons’ Cyclopaedia of American Biography, 1888, Volume V, pp. 634-635; Dictionary of American Biography, Charles Scribner’s Sons, New York, 1936, Volume 9, Pt. 1, p. 466; American Reformers: An H.W. Wilson Biographical Dictionary, New York, 1985, pp. 750-752; American National Biography, Oxford University Press, New York, 2002, Volume 20; Hinks, Peter P., & John R. McKivigan, Eds., Encyclopedia of Antislavery and Abolition. Westport, Connecticut, Greenwood, 2007, Volume 2, pp. 651-652).

Dictionary of American Biography, Charles Scribner’s Sons, New York, 1936, Volume 9, Pt. 1, pp. 466-467:

SPOONER, LYSANDER (January 19, 1808- May 14, 1887), lawyer and writer on political subjects, was born at Athol, Massachusetts, the son of Asa and Dolly (Brown) Spooner and a descendant of William Spooner who was in Plymouth, Massachusetts, as early as 1637. Lysander remained on his father's farm until the age of twenty-five, and then read law in the office of John Davis and, later, in that of Charles Allen at Worcester, Massachusetts. In defiance of the legal requirement that those not college graduates should read law for three years before practising, he opened an office. In 1835 he published a pamphlet, addressed to members of the legislature, which se cured repeal of that requirement the following year. After six years' residence in Ohio, where he protested unsuccessfully against the draining of the Maumee River, he returned to the Atlantic seaboard and in 1844 established the American Letter Mail Company, a private agency carrying letters at the uniform rate of five cents each between Boston and New York. He soon extended the service to Philadelphia and Baltimore, but, faced with many prosecution s brought by the government, was forced to abandon the enterprise within the year. Thereupon he published a vigorous pamphlet, The Unconstitutionality of the Laws of Congress Prohibiting Private Mails (1844), in which he contended that th e constitutional authority was permissive, not exclusive. It has been believed that Congress twice reduced postage rates within the following six years as a result of his activities.

Spooner was an uncompromising foe of slavery, and, believing that the institution had no constitutional sanction, advocated political organization with a view to its abolition. His Unconstitutionality of Slavery (1845, reprinted with a second part added, 1847, 1853, 1856, 1860) became campaign literature of the Liberty Party. Not only did slavery lack validation in the Constitution, he contended, but it "had not been authorized or established by any of the fundamental constitutions or charters that had existed previous to this time; ... it had always been a mere abuse sustained by the common consent of the strongest party" (p. 65). His starting point was that "Law, ... applied to any object or thing whatever, signifies a natural, unalterable, universal principle. . . . Any rule, not ... flexible in its application, is no law" (p. 6). The last quotation discloses Spooner's dogmatic insistence upon natural rights. Gerrit Smith [q.v.] agreed with his legal contentions as to slavery as heartily as Wendell Phillips and William Lloyd Garrison [qq.v.] disapproved of them (see Wendell Phillips, Review of Lysander Spooner's Essay on the Unconstitutionality of Slavery, 1847). All admitted, of necessity, that he was an inexorable logician. His A Defence for Fugitive Slaves, against the Acts ... of 1793 and ... 1850 (1850) showed the same ingenuity in argument and the same intense moral purpose; the laws being unconstitutional, "it follows that they can confer no authority upon the judges and marshals appointed to execute them; and those officers are consequently, in law, mere ruffians and kidnappers" (p. 27). For his religion as for his political and legal theory, he sought a basis in nature, as is evidenced by his The Deist's Reply to th e Alleged Supernatural Evidences of Christianity (1836). When Millerite laborers at Athol quit work to wait for the encl of the world and were arrested as vagrants, he secured their release because of a flaw in the indictments. He was a bachelor and a recluse, spending much of his time in the Boston Athenaeum. Of strong convictions and positive utterance, he had few lasting friends. The range of his interests w s wide, however, and his sympathies were warm. He defended the Irish again st British tyranny and attacked American financiers for exploitation of the public. His Essay on the Trial by Jury (1852) maintained that jurors should be draw n by lot from the whole body of citizens, and that they should be judges of law a s well as of fact. Among his other works were Constitutional Law, Relative to Credit, Currency, and Banking (1843), A New Banking System (1873), and The Law of Intellectual Property (1855).

[Thomas Spooner, Records of William Spooner, of Plymouth, Massachusetts, and His Descendants, volume I (1883); Boston Sunday Globe, May 15, 1 887; Boston Transcript, May 16, 1887.]

B. M.

Appletons’ Cyclopaedia of American Biography, 1888, Volume V, pp. 634-635:

SPOONER, Lysander, lawyer, born in Athol, Massachusetts, 19 January, 1808; died in Boston, Massachusetts, 14 May, 1887. He studied law in Worcester, Massachusetts, but on completing his course of reading found that admission to the bar was permitted only to those who had studied for three years, except in the case of college graduates. This obnoxious condition at once engaged his attention and he succeeded in having it removed from the statute-books. In 1844 the letter postage from Boston to New York was twelve and a half cents and to Washington twenty-five cents. Mr. Spooner, believing that the U. S. goverment had no constitutional right to a monopoly of the mails, established an independent service from Boston to New York, carrying letters at the uniform rate of five cents. His business grew rapidly, but the government soon overwhelmed him with prosecutions, so that he was compelled to retire from the undertaking, but not until he had shown the possibility of supporting the post-office department by a lower rate of postage. His efforts resulted in an act of congress that reduced the rates, followed in 1851 and subsequent years by still further reductions. Mr. Spooner was an active Abolitionist, and contributed largely to the literature of the subject, notably by his “Unconstitutionality of Slavery” (1845), the tenets of which were supported by Gerrit Smith, Elizur Wright, and others of the Liberty party, but were opposed by the Garrisonians. He defended Thomas Drew, who in 1870 declined to take his oath as a witness before a legislative committee on the ground that in the matter it was investigating it had no authority to compel him to testify. The case was adversely decided on the ground of precedent, but the principles of Mr. Spooner's argument were afterward sustained by the U.S. supreme court. His writings include “A Deistic Reply to the Alleged Supernatural Evidences of Christianity” and “The Deistic Immortality, and an Essay on Man's Accountability for his Belief” (1836); “Credit, Currency, and Banking” (1843); “Poverty, Causes and Cure” (1846); “A Defence for Fugitive Slaves” (1856); “A New System of Paper Currency” (1861); “Our Financiers” (1877); “The Law of Prices” (1877); “Gold and Silver as Standards of Value” (1878); and “Letter to Grover Cleveland on his False Inaugural Address” (1886). Appleton’s Cyclopaedia of American Biography, 1888, Volume V, pp. 634-635.


STANTON, Henry Brewster, 1805-1887, New York, New York, Cincinnati, Ohio, abolitionist leader, anti-slavery agent, journalist, author. Worked with William T. Allan and Birney. Financial Secretary of the American Anti-Slavery Society (AASS), Manager, 1834-1838, Corresponding Secretary, 1838-1840, and Executive Committee of the Society, 1838. Secretary, 1840-1841, and Member of the Executive Committee, American and Foreign Anti-Slavery Society, 1840-1844. Leader of the Liberty Party. Wrote for abolitionist newspapers. Worked against pro-slavery legislation at state level. Later edited the New York Sun.

(Dumond, Dwight Lowell, Antislavery: The Crusade for Freedom in America, University of Michigan Press, 1961, pp. 164, 219, 238-240, 286; Filler, Louis. The Crusade Against Slavery, 1830-1860. New York: Harper and Brothers, 1960, pp. 68, 72, 134, 137, 156, 189, 301; Mitchell, Thomas G. Antislavery Politics in Antebellum and Civil War America. Westport, CT: Praeger, 2007, pp. 4, 5, 7, 8, 12, 14016, 18, 28, 36, 45, 47, 101, 162, 223; Rodriguez, Junius P., Slavery in the United States: A Social, Political, and Historical Encyclopedia, ABC-CLIO, 2007, p. 162; Sorin, Gerald. The New York Abolitionists: A Case Study of Political Radicalism. Westport, CT: Greenwood Publishing Corporation, 1971 p. 63-67, 97, 131, 132; Appletons’ Cyclopaedia of American Biography, 1888, Volume V, pp. 649-650.

Appletons’ Cyclopaedia of American Biography, 1888, Volume V, pp. 649-650:

STANTON, Henry Brewster, journalist, born in Griswold, New London County, Connecticut, 29 June, 1805; died in New York City, 14 January, 1887. His ancestor, Thomas, came to this country from England in 1635 and was crown interpreter-general of the Indian dialects, and subsequently judge of the New London County court. His father was a manufacturer of woollens and a trader with the West Indies. After receiving his education, the son went in 1826 to Rochester, New York, to write for Thurlow Weed's newspaper, “The Monroe Telegraph,” which was advocating the election of Henry Clay to the presidency. He then began to make political speeches. He moved to Cincinnati to complete his studies in Lane Theological Seminary, but left it to become an advocate of the anti-slavery cause. At the anniversary of the American Anti-Slavery Society in New York City in 1834 he faced the first of the many mobs that he encountered in his tours throughout the country. In 1837-'40 he was active in the movement to form the Abolitionists into a compact political party, which was resisted by William Lloyd Garrison and others, and which resulted in lasting dissension. In 1840 he married Elizabeth Cady, and on 12 May of that year sailed with her to London, having been elected to represent the American Anti-Slavery Society at a convention for the promotion of the cause. At its close they travelled through Great Britain and France, working for the relief of the slaves. On his return, he studied law with Daniel Cady, was admitted to the bar, and practised in Boston, where he gained a reputation especially in patent cases, but he abandoned his profession to enter political life, and removing to Seneca Falls, New York, in 1847, represented that district in the state senate. He was a member of the Free-Soil Party previous to the formation of the Republican Party, of which he was a founder. Before this he had been a Democrat. For nearly half a century he was actively connected with the daily press, his contributions consisting chiefly of articles on current political topics and elaborate biographies of public men. Mr. Stanton contributed to Garrison's “Anti-Slavery Standard” and “Liberator,” wrote for the New York “Tribune,” and from 1868 until his death was an editor of the New York “Sun.” Henry Ward Beecher said of him: “I think Stanton has all the elements of old John Adams; able, stanch, patriotic, full of principle, and always unpopular. He lacks that sense of other people's opinions which keeps a man from running against them.” Mr. Stanton was the author of “Sketches of Reforms and Reformers in Great Britain and Ireland” (New York, 1849), and “Random Recollections” (1886). Appleton’s Cyclopaedia of American Biography, 1888, Volume V, pp. 649-650.

Dictionary of American Biography, Charles Scribner’s Sons, New York, 1936, Volume 9, Pt. 1, p. 525:

STANTON, HENRY BREWSTER (June 27, 1805-January 14, 1887), lawyer, reformer, journalist, was born in Griswold, Connecticut. His father, Joseph, a woolen manufacturer and merch ant, traced his ancestry to Thomas Stanton who emigrated to America from England, and about 1637 settled in Connecticut. He was Crown interpreter of the Indian tongues in New England and judge of the New London county court. Henry's mother, Susan Brewster, was a descendant of William Brews ter [q.v.] who arrived on the Mayflower. After studying at the academy in Jewett City, Connecticut, Henry went to Rochester in 1826 to write for Thurlow Weed's Monroe Telegraph, which was then supporting Henry Clay for the presidency. In 1828 he delivered addresses and wrote for the Telegraph in behalf of John Quincy Adams. The next year he became deputy clerk of Monroe County, New York, and continued in that office until 1832, meanwhile studying law and the classics. Converted by Charles G. Finney [q. v.], and having come into contact with Theodore D. Weld [q.v.], he then entered Lane Theological Seminary, in Cincinnati, where in th e fall of 1834 he helped organize an anti-slavery society. This the trustees, who tried to prevent all discussion of the question, opposed, and in consequence about fifty students left, including Stanton (Liberator, January 10, 1835), who at once associated himself with James G. Birney [q.v.] in his anti-slavery work. Soon he was made agent of the American Anti-Slavery Society, and was later a member of its executive committee.

For many years thereafter he devoted practically all of his time to this reform. He wrote for the Liberator and other abolitionist journals, for religious publications, and for some political papers, including the National Era of Washington and the New York American. He also appeared before many legislative commissions, and made platform speeches from Maine to Indiana. As a speaker he was quick-witted, eloquent, and impassioned, capable of making his hearers laugh as well as weep, and was ranked by many as the ablest anti-slavery orator of his day. His handsome, distinguished appearance, personal charm, and rare conversational powers added to his general popularity. His thunderous denunciations of human bondage subjected him, however, to scores of mob attacks. From 1837 to 1840 he busied himself with trying to get the abolitionists to form a strong political organization, a project which William Lloyd Garrison [q.v.] opposed, thereby causing a permanent break in the relation of the two men. On May 10, 1840, he married Elizabeth Cady [see Elizabeth Cady Stanton], daughter of Judge Daniel Cady [q.v.] of Johnstown, New York; seven children were born to them.

Immediately after his marriage Stanton sailed with his wife for London to attend the World Anti-Slavery Convention, to which he was a delegate. Later, he traveled through Great Britain and Ireland delivering many speeches on the slavery question. One result of this tour was his Sketches of Reforms and Reformers, of Great Britain and Ireland (1849). Upon his return to the United States he studied law with his father-in- law, was admitted to the bar, and began practising in Boston. Finding the Massachusetts winters too severe for his health, he removed about 1847 to Seneca Falls, New York, making this place his home for the next sixteen years. He was successful at the law, but his continued interest in abolition led him into increased political activity. In 1849 he was elected to the state Senate from Seneca Falls. He was one of the senators who resigned to prevent a quorum in the Senate and the passage of the bill appropriating millions of dollars for the enlargement of the canals. In 1851 he was reelected but was not again a candidate. He helped draft the Free-Soil platform at Buffalo in 1848; in 1855 he helped organize the Republican party in New York State; and in 1856 he campaigned for Fremont. He remained a Republican until Grant's administration, during which he joined the Democrats. After the Civil War he gave most of his time to journalism, being connected with the New York Tribune under the editorship of Greeley, and with the Sun from 1869 to his death. He died in New York City.

[H. B. Stanton, Random Recollections (3rd ed., 1887); Elizabeth Cady Stanton, as Revealed in her Letters, Diary, and Reminiscences (copyright 1922), ed. by Theodore Stanton and Harriot Stanton Blatch; Letters of Theodore Dwight Weld, Angelina Grimke Weld and Sarah Grimke (2 volumes, copyright 1934); annual reports of the American Anti-Slavery Society, 1835 ff.; New York Senate Journal and Documents, 1850-51; William Birney, James G. Birney and His Times (1890); W. A. Stanton, A Record ... of Thomas Stanton, of Connecticut, and His Descendants (1891); Liberator (Boston), January 10, 1835; New York Tribune and New York Sun, January 15, 1887.]

M. W. W.



STEARNS, George Luther, 1809-1867, Medford, Massachusetts, merchant, industrialist, Free-Soil supporter, abolitionist. In 1848, as a Conscience Whig, he liberally supported the Free-soil campaign with his money Chief supporter of the Emigrant Aid Company which financed anti-slavery settlers in the Kansas Territory. Founded the Nation, Commonwealth, and Right of Way newspapers. Member of the “Secret Six” who secretly financially supported radical abolitionist John Brown, and his raid on the U.S. Arsenal at Harpers Ferry, (West) Virginia, on October 16, 1859. Recruited African Americans for the all-Black 54th and 55th Massachusetts Infantry Regiments, U.S. Army.

(Filler, Louis. The Crusade Against Slavery, 1830-1860. New York: Harper and Brothers, 1960, p. 268; Rodriguez, Junius P., Slavery in the United States: A Social, Political, and Historical Encyclopedia, ABC-CLIO, 2007, pp. 207, 327, 338; Appletons’ Cyclopaedia of American Biography, 1888, Volume V, p. 655; Dictionary of American Biography, Charles Scribner’s Sons, New York, 1936, Volume 9, Pt. 1, p. 543).

Biography from Appletons’ Cyclopaedia of American Biography, 1888, Volume V, pp. 655:

STEARNS, George Luther, merchant, born in Medford, Massachusetts, 8 January, 1809; died in New York, 9 April, 1867. His father, Luther, was a teacher of reputation. In early life his son engaged in the business of ship-chandlery, and after a prosperous career undertook the manufacture of sheet and pipe-lead, doing business in Boston and residing in Medford. He identified himself with the anti-slavery cause, became a Free-Soiler in 1848, aided John Brown in Kansas, and supported him till his death. Soon after the opening of the Civil War Mr. Stearns advocated the enlistment of Negroes in the National Army. The 54th and 55th Massachusetts Regiments, and the 5th Cavalry (colored), were largely recruited through his instrumentality. He was commissioned major through the recommendation of Secretary of War Stanton, and was of great service to the National cause by enlisting Negroes for the volunteer service in Pennsylvania, Maryland, and Tennessee. He was the founder of the “Commonwealth” and “Right of Way” newspapers for the dissemination of his ideas. Appleton’s Cyclopaedia of American Biography, 1888, Volume V, pp. 655.

Dictionary of American Biography, Charles Scribner’s Sons, New York, 1936, Volume 9, Pt. 1, p. 543:

STEARNS, GEORGE LUTHER (January 8, 1809-April 9, 1867),. Free-Soiler, was born in Medford, Massachusetts, the eldest son of Luther and Mary (Hall) Stearns and the descendant of Charles Stearns who became a freeman of Watertown, Massachusetts, in 1646. Such formal education as the boy received was in a preparatory school for boys established by his father, a physician. At the age of fifteen he began his business career in Brattleboro, Vermont, in 1827 entered a ship chandlery firm in Boston. and in 1835 returned to Medford to manufacture linseed oil and to marry, on January 31, 1836, Mary Ann Train. He became a Unitarian and was prominent in church activities. After the death of his wife in 1840, he reentered business in Boston, at first with a ship-chandlery company but later, very successfully, as a manufacturer of lead pipe. By 1840 he felt strongly enough on the subject of slavery to support James G. Birney and the Liberty party. His marriage, on October 12, 1843, to Mary Elizabeth Preston probably furthered his interest in the anti-slavery cause for his wife was a niece of Lydia Maria Child [q.v.]. In 1848, as a Conscience Whig, he liberally supported the Free-soil campaign with his money. He was greatly disturbed by the passage of the Fugitive Slave Law in 1850 and is known to have aided at least one slave to escape. He was among the leaders in the movement that put Charles Sumner in the federal Senate, and later, as a member of the famous Bird Club, he played a considerable part in the rise of the Republican party in Massachusetts, becoming particularly interested in the political fortunes of his friend John A. Andrew.

He was in the group that, in 1856, raised a subscription to equip the free state forces in Kansas with Sharpe's rifles. The subsequently successful operations of the Kansas committee of Massachusetts, of which he became chairman, were largely due to the willingness with which he contributed his time and money. In 1857 he met John Brown and made him the committee's agent to receive the arms and ammunition for the defense of Kansas and also aided in purchasing a farm for the Brown family at North Elba, New York Indeed, from this time on Stearns practically put his purse at Brown's disposal. That he ever appreciated Brown's responsibility for the murders on the Potawatomi is doubtful, but in March 1858 Brown confided to him the general outline of his proposed raid into Virginia, an enterprise that Stearns approved, as did S. G. Howe, Theodore Parker, T. W. Higginson and Franklin B. Sanborn [qq.v.]. These five men constituted an informal committee in Massachusetts to aid Brown in whatever attack he might make on slavery. Stearns acted as treasurer for the enterprise in New England. Gerrit Smith of New York and Martin F. Conway of Kansas were also in the secret. Stearns, however, does not appear to have known just when and where Brown proposed to strike, and the blow at Harpers Ferry took him by surprise. On learning of Brown's capture he authorized two prominent Kansas jayhawkers to go to Brown's relief if they thought they could effect his rescue. Stearns himself, becoming somewhat apprehensive of the attitude of the Federal government, fled with Howe to Canada. He soon returned, however, and appeared before the Mason committee of the Senate that was investigating the Brown conspiracy. No further action was taken by the government respecting Stearns.
During the Civil War, upon Governor Andrew's authorization he recruited many negro soldiers for the 54th and 55th Massachusetts regiments, especially from the middle and western states. So satisfactory were his efforts that in the summer of 1863 Secretary Stanton commissioned him as major with headquarters in Philadelphia and directed him to recruit colored regiments for the Federal government. A few months later he was sent to Nashville, where he successfully continued his work until a misunderstanding with Stanton led him to resign from the army early in 1864. In 1865 he established the Right Way, a paper that supported radical Republican policies, particularly negro suffrage, and attained a circulation of 60,000, largely at his expense. He died of pneumonia while on a business trip to New York.

[F. P. Stearns, The Life and Public Services of George Luther Stearns (1907) and Cambridge Sketches (1905); O. G Villard, John Brown (1910); J. F. Rhodes, History of the U.S., volume II (1892); Sen. Report, No. 278, 36 Congress, 1 Session (1860); A. S. Van Wagenen, Genealogy and Memoirs of Charles and Nathaniel Stearns, and Their Descendants (1901).]

W.R.W.



STEEL, William, 1809-1881, reformer, abolitionist leader, southeastern Ohio, active in Underground Railroad. Congressional candidate for congress in the Liberty Party.

(Appletons’ Cyclopædia of American Biography, 1888,Volume V., p. 659)

Appleton’s Cyclopaedia of American Biography, 1888, Volume V, p. 659:

STEEL, William, reformer, born in Biggar, Scotland, 26 August, 1809; died in Portland, Ore., 5 January, 1881. He came to the United States with his parents in 1817 and settled near Winchester, Virginia, but removed soon afterward to Monroe county, Ohio, where, from 1830 till the civil war, he was an active worker in the “Underground railroad,” of which he was one of the earliest organizers. During these years large numbers of slaves were assisted to escape to Canada, and in no single instance was one retaken after reaching him. At one time the slave-holders of Virginia offered a reward of $5,000 for his head, when he promptly addressed the committee, offering to bring it to them if the money were placed in responsible hands. He acquired a fortune as a merchant, but lost it in 1844. From 1872 till his death he resided with his sons in Oregon. In the early days of the anti-slavery movement Mr. Steel was the recognized leader of the Abolitionists in southeastern Ohio. He was at one time a candidate of the Liberty party for congress, and in 1844 circulated in eastern Ohio the “great petition,” whose signers agreed to vote for Henry Clay if he would emancipate his one slave. Appleton’s Cyclopaedia of American Biography, 1888, Volume V, pp. 659.



STEWART, Alvan, 1790-1849, New York, reformer, educator, lawyer, abolitionist leader, temperance activist. Member, American Anti-Slavery Society. Vice President, 1834-1835, and Manager, 1837-1840, AASS. Member of the Executive Committee, American and Foreign Anti-Slavery Society, 1844-149. Founder, leader, Liberty Party. Founder, New York State Anti-Slavery Society (NYSASS), 1835.

(Blue, Frederick J. No Taint of Compromise: Crusaders in Antislavery Politics. Baton Rouge: Louisiana State University Press, 2005, pp. xiii, 4-5, 9, 13, 15-36, 49, 50, 63, 68, 92-94, 98, 145, 266; Dumond, Dwight Lowell, Antislavery: The Crusade for Freedom in America, University of Michigan Press, 1961, pp. 225-226, 293-295, 300; Filler, Louis. The Crusade Against Slavery, 1830-1860. New York: Harper and Brothers, 1960, pp. 151, 177; Mabee, Carleton. Black Freedom: The Nonviolent Abolitionists from 1830 Through the Civil War. London: Macmillan, 1970, pp. 4, 39, 40, 41, 246, 293; Mitchell, Thomas G. Antislavery Politics in Antebellum and Civil War America. Westport, CT: Praeger, 2007, pp. 4-5, 9, 13, 15-36, 49, 50, 63, 92, 98; Sernett, Milton C. North Star Country: Upstate New York and the Crusade for African American Freedom. Syracuse, NY: Syracuse University Press, 2002, pp. 49, 52, 73, 112, 122; Sorin, Gerald. The New York Abolitionists: A Case Study of Political Radicalism. Westport, CT: Greenwood Publishing Corporation, 1971, pp. 25, 32, 33, 47-52, 60, 103n, 115, 132; Zilversmit, Arthur. The First Emancipation: The Abolition of Slavery in the North. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1967, pp. 218-220; Appletons’ Cyclopaedia of American Biography, 1888, Volume V, p. 683; Dictionary of American Biography, Charles Scribner’s Sons, New York, 1936, Volume 9, Pt. 2, p. 5; American Reformers: An H.W. Wilson Biographical Dictionary, New York, 1985, pp. 768-769; American National Biography, Oxford University Press, New York, 2002, Volume 20, p. 742).

Dictionary of American Biography, Charles Scribner’s Sons, New York, 1936, Volume 9, Pt. 2, pp. 5-6:

STEWART, ALVAN (September 1, l790-May 1, 1849), lawyer, abolitionist, was born in South Granville, New York, the son of Uriel Stewart, who five years after the boy's birth moved to Westford, Chittenden County, Vermont. Alvan attended district school and in 1809 entered the University of Vermont, leaving there in 1812 to teach in Canada. After a visit home he was arrested as a spy in Schoharie County, New York, and upon his release went to Cherry Valley, Otsego County, New York, where he taught school and studied law. In, 1815 he journeyed as far West as Paris, Kentucky, and there spent a year teaching and studying. He then traveled in the South for a time, finally returning to Cherry Valley, where he was admitted to the bar. About 1832 he moved to Utica. Here he acquired a considerable reputation as a lawyer and was regarded as a most formidable adversary before a jury (Proctor, post, p. 220). Originally a Democrat, he became an aggressive protectionist, and in 1828 published a pamphlet, Common Sense, opposing Jackson on the tariff question.

In 1834 he joined the newly organized American Anti-Slavery Society, and at once took the lead in establishing abolitionist organizations in New York. In 1835 he issued a call for a convention, which assembled at Utica on October 21, and formed the New York State Anti-Slavery Society. During the next few years, as the society's president, he labored incessantly, collecting money, organizing auxiliaries, and making speeches. These speeches, characterized by a wildfire humor and a vivid, if somewhat exuberant, imagination, earned for him the title of humorist of the anti-slavery movement. He aspired to another title, however, that of constitutionalist to the cause. Basing his argument upon the due process clause of the Constitution, he contended that slaves were deprived of their freedom without due process of law, and that slavery itself was therefore in violation of the Constitution: This view he attempted to persuade the Ameri~ can Anti-Slavery Society at its 1838 meeting to adopt. It so outraged William Jay [q.v.], son of the great jurist, that he withdrew from the society; and though Stewart won over to his views a majority of the delegates, he was unable to convince the two-thirds necessary to amend the anti-slavery creed.

As president of the New York State Anti-Slavery Society, he took the position that the national society had no jurisdiction within the bounds of his organization. In the 1838 convention of the latter he proposed that agents' of the national society be excluded from all the state auxiliaries, and the proposal was adopted. Furthermore, at the New York State Society headquarters, he opposed the pledging of contributions to the support of the national society. "A dollar spent at Utica," he told his constituents, "is worth three spent at New York." Erratic, independent, and intractable by nature, he placed himself at the head of the faction opposed to the operations of the American Anti-Slavery Society. More than any other abolitionist except William Lloyd Garrison [q.v.] he was responsible for the disruption of the national movement, which occurred in 1840.

At an early date Stewart had urged separate political anti-slavery organization. In 1840 he joined with Myron Holley [q.v.], the leading political abolitionist, in calling an anti-slavery political convention, which met in Albany, on April 1, with Stewart as presiding officer. This convention organized the Liberty Party and nominated James G. Birney [q.v.] for president and Stewart for governor of New York; but in the subsequent campaign, Birney received only a few thousand votes and Stewart a few hundred. Disgusted with the outcome of political action, he returned to private life. He still served as president of the diminished New York society, and on occasion he donated his services as counsel for the slave. Before the supreme court of New Jersey, in a test case arranged by local abolitionists, he challenged the constitutionality of slavery with eloquence (A Legal Argument before the Supreme Court of the State of New Jersey ... for the Deliverance of Four Thousand Persons from Bondage, 1845). In his early years he "was quite too much given to his cups," but later became an advocate of total abstinence and an effective temperance lecturer (Beardsley, post, pp. 159, 169). In 1835 he published Prize Address for the New York City Temperance Society. His wife was Keziah Holt of Cherry Valley, New York, by whom he had five children, three of them dying young. In 1860 Writings and Speeches of Alvan Stewart on Slavery was published by his son-in-Jaw, Luther R. Marsh.

[The Friend of Man (Utica, New York), 1835-42; Emancipator (New York and Boston), 1833-42; Bayard Tuckerman, William Jay and the Constitutional Movement for the Abolition of Slavery (1893); Levi Beardsley, Reminiscences (1852); L. B. Proctor, The Bench and Bar of New York (1870); G. H. Barnes, The Anti-Slavery Impulse (1933); D. S. Durrie, A Genealogical History of the Holt Family in the U. S. (1864); New York Tribune, May 3, 1849; Oneida Morning Herald, May 4, 1849. ]

G. H. B.

Appletons’ Cyclopaedia of American Biography, 1888, Volume V, p. 683:

STEWART, Alvan, reformer, born in South Granville, Washington county, New York, 1 September, 1790; died in New York city, 1 May, 1849. His parents removed when he was five months old to Crown Point, New York, and in 1795, losing their possessions through a defective title, to Westford, Chittenden county, Vermont, where the lad was brought up on a farm. In 1808 he began to teach and to study anatomy and medicine. In 1809 he entered Burlington college, Vermont, supporting himself by teaching in the winters, and, visiting Canada in 1811, he received a commission under Governor Sir George Prevost as professor in the Royal school in the seigniory of St. Armand, but he returned to college in June, 1812. After, the declaration of war he went again to Canada, and was held as a prisoner. On his return he taught and studied law in Cherry Valley, New York, and then in Paris, Kentucky, making his home in the former place, where he practised his profession and won reputation. He was a persistent advocate of protective duties, of internal improvements, and of education. He removed to Utica in 1832, and, though he continued to try causes as counsel, the remainder of his life was given mainly to the temperance and anti-slavery causes. A volume of his speeches was published in 1860. Among the most conspicuous of these was an argument, in 1837, before the New York state anti-slavery convention, to prove that congress might constitutionally abolish slavery; on the “Right of Petition” at Pennsylvania hall, Philadelphia, and on the “Great Issues between Right and Wrong” at the same place in 1838; before the joint committee of the legislature of Vermont; and before the supreme court of New Jersey on a habeas corpus to determine the unconstitutionality of slavery under the new state constitution of 1844, which last occupied eleven hours in delivery. His first published speech against slavery was in 1835, under threats of a mob. He then drew a call for a state anti-slavery convention for 21 October, 1835, at Utica. As the clock struck the hour he called the convention to order and addressed it, and the programme of business was completed ere the threatened mob arrived, as it soon did and dispersed the convention by violence. That night the doors and windows of his house were barred with large timbers, and fifty loaded muskets were provided, with determined men to handle them, but the preparations kept off the menaced invasion. “He was the first,” says William Goodell, the historian of abolitionism, “to insist earnestly, in our consultations, in committee and elsewhere, on the necessity of forming a distinct political party to promote the abolition of slavery.” He gradually brought the leaders into it, was its candidate for governor, and this new party grew, year by year, till at last it held the balance of power between the Whigs and Democrats, when, uniting with the former, it constituted the Republican party. The characteristics of Mr. Stewart's eloquence and conversation were a strange and abounding humor, a memory that held large resources at command, readiness in emergency, a rich philosophy, strong powers of reasoning, and an exuberant imagination. A collection of his speeches, with a memoir, is in preparation by his son-in-law, Luther R. Marsh. Appleton’s Cyclopaedia of American Biography, 1888, Volume V, pp. 683.



SWISSHELM, Jane Grey Cannon, 1815-1884, abolitionist leader, women’s rights advocate, journalist, reformer. Free Soil Party. Liberty Party. Republican Party activist. Established Saturday Visitor, an abolition and women’s rights newspaper.

(Appletons’ Cyclopaedia of American Biography, 1888, Volume VI, p. 13; Dictionary of American Biography, Charles Scribner’s Sons, New York, 1936, Volume 9, Pt. 2, p. 253; Blue, Frederick J. No Taint of Compromise: Crusaders in Antislavery Politics. Baton Rouge: Louisiana State University Press, 2005, pp. 8-9, 50, 138-160, 268, 269; American National Biography, Oxford University Press, New York, 2002, Volume 21, p. 217; The National Cyclopaedia of American Biography, Volume II. New York: James T. White, 1892, p. 316 Hinks, Peter P., & John R. McKivigan, Eds., Encyclopedia of Antislavery and Abolition. Westport, Connecticut, Greenwood, 2007, Volume 2, pp. 668-670).

Appletons’ Cyclopaedia of American Biography, 1888, Volume VI, p. 13:

SWISSHELM, Jane Grey, born near Pittsburg, Pennsylvania, 6 September, 1815;died in Swissvale, Pennsylvania, 22 July, 1884. When she was eight years of age her father, James Cannon, died, leaving a family in straitened circumstances. The daughter worked at manual labor and teaching till she was twenty-one, when she married James Swisshelm, who several years afterward obtained a divorce on the ground of desertion. Two years later she removed with her husband to Louisville, Kentucky. In this city she became an outspoken opponent of slavery, and her first written attack upon the system appeared in the Louisville “Journal” in 1842. She also wrote articles favoring abolition and woman's rights in the “Spirit of Liberty,” of Pittsburg, for about four years. In 1848 she established the Pittsburg “Saturday Visitor,” a strong abolition and woman's rights paper, which, in 1856, was merged with the weekly edition of the Pittsburg “Journal.” In 1857 she went to St. Cloud, Minn., and established the St. Cloud “Visitor.” Her bold utterances caused a mob to destroy her office and its contents, and to throw her printing-press into the river. But she soon began to publish the St. Cloud “Democrat.” When Abraham Lincoln was nominated for the presidency, she spoke and wrote in his behalf and for the principles of which he was the representative. When the civil war began and nurses were wanted at the front, she was one of the first to respond. After the battle of the Wilderness she had charge of 182 badly wounded men at Fredericksburg for five days, without surgeon or assistant, and saved them all. She was a prolific writer for newspapers and magazines, and published “Letters to Country Girls” (New York, 1853), and an autobiography entitled “Half of a Century” (1881). Appleton’s Cyclopaedia of American Biography, 1888, Volume VI.

Dictionary of American Biography, Charles Scribner’s Sons, New York, 1936, Volume 9, Pt. 2, p. 253:

SWISSHELM, JANE GREY CANNON (December 6, 1815-July 22, 1884), reformer and editor, was the daughter of Thomas and Mary (Scott) Cannon, Scotch-Irish Covenanters of Pittsburgh, Pa. She spent her youth in the new settlement of Wilkinsburg, to which her parents removed soon after she was born. At the age of three she began attending school; by the time she was t en she was aiding her widowed mother in earning a living; at fourteen she became active in the anti-slavery cause; before her fifteenth birthday she took charge of the only school in the village. After six years of teaching she married, November 18, 1836, James Swisshelm, a young farmer of the neighborhood. In 1838 she accompanied him to Louisville, Kentucky, where he attempted, unsuccessfully, to establish a business, and she earned what she could as seamstress and teacher. Her hatred of slavery became an absorbing passion during this sojourn. Returning to Pennsylvania, she took charge of a seminary at Butler in 1840, and began to use her pen in defense of the rights of married women. Two years later she rejoined her husband on a farm, which she named Swissvale, near Pittsburgh. In the midst of domestic duties she continued to write, supplying stories and verses to the Dollar Newspaper and to Neal's Saturday Gazette. At the same time she contributed to the Spirit of Liberty, the Pittsburgh Gazette, and to the Daily Commercial Journal racy, vehemently written articles on abolition and the property rights of women.

In 1847 she used a legacy from her mother to establish the Pittsburgh Saturday Visiter (sic), a political and literary weekly, advocating abolition, temperance, and woman's suffrage, the first number of which appeared on December 20. She edited this paper with such spirited audacity that she became widely known for her powers of denunciation. "Beware of sister Jane," contemporary editors said to each other. Most notable among her attacks was one that she published in 1850 upon Daniel Webster's private life. This, she loved to believe, ruined his chances for becoming president. In 1853 she publish ed a volume called Letters to Country Girls, compiled from articles in the Visiter. In 1857 she sold her paper, separated permanently from her husband- who secured a divorce from her on the ground of desertion a few years late r-and, accompanied by her only child, took up her residence in Minnesota. The following year she began the St. Cloud Visiter. A libel suit ended this publication in a few months. She at once established the St. Cloud Democrat, a Republican paper, which she conducted in her usual intrepid, intensely personal manner until 1863. During this time she lectured frequently throughout the state on political subjects.

In the midst of the Civil War she went to Washington, DC., and while doing clerical work in a government office and assisting in a war hospital contributed to the New York Tribune and to the St. Cloud Democrat. During this period she became a warm personal friend of Mrs. Lincoln. In the course of Andrew Johnson's administration she started a radical paper called the Reconstructionist. In this she attacked the President with such violence that in 1866 he dismissed her from the government service. Returning to Swissvale, she made that place her home for the rest of her life. In 1880 she published Half a Century, an entertaining account of her life to the year 1865. Her extreme individualism made her a free lance in all her undertakings. She never worked happily in reform organizations, preferring always to forge her own thunderbolts. Her firm convictions, her powers of sarcasm, her stinging yet often humorous invective, and her homely, vigorous style made her a trenchant journalist.

[In addition to Half a Century, see L. B. Shippee, "Jane Grey Swisshelm: Agitator," Mississippi Valley Historical Review, December 1920; Minn. Historical Society Collections, volume XII (1908); S. J, Fisher, "Reminiscences of Jane Grey Swisshelm," Western Pennsylvania Historical Magazine, July 1921; B. M. Stearns, "Reform Periodicals and Female Reformers," American Historical Review, July 1932; A. J. Larsen, Crusader and Feminist: Letters of Jane Grey Swisshelm, 1858-1865 (1934); New York Times, July 23, 1884.]

B. M. S.

Sources:
Dictionary of American Biography, Volumes I-X, Edited by Dumas Malone, New York: Charles Scribner’s Sons, 1930.

Appletons’ Cyclopaedia of American Biography, Volumes I-VI, Edited by James Grant Wilson & John Fiske, New York: D. Appleton and Co., 1888-1889.