Joshua Coffin of Newbury Obit

From The Liberator July 1 1864 Please post or email for PDF/JPEG Copy of article or Coffin Line

"Olden teacher, present friend, Wise with antiquarian search, In the scrolls of State and Church; Named on history's title-page, Parish-clerk and justice sage." To My Old Schoolmaster." John Greenleaf Whitter 

Newburyport Preservation Trust

Coffin Family Papers, 1700s-1860s
Joshua Coffin Papers

Purchase Book at Sons & Daughters of Newbury 

George Thompson Garrison and the 55th

 

   

1st Lieutenant (55th Regiment) George Thompson Garrison was born February 13, 1836 and died January 1, 1904 son of William Lloyd Garrison and Helen Eliza Benson Garrison. He married Annie Keene Anthony on October 1, 1873. Annie was d. of John Gould Anthony and Anna W Rhodes
All seven of the Garrison children were named for Abolitionists.  The first, born in 1836, was named for the English abolitionist, George Thompson, whom Garrison met on his 1833 trip to the UK.  Thompson has experienced in England some of the same intense verbal vitriol, calling him “fanatic”, similarly experienced here by Garrison. They became constant co-laborers in the international abolitionist cause.
May 25, 1836
Garrison, writing to Helen, tells of a letter from George Thompson.  “T. says…that our dear babe, with such a name as he has got, must really be a double dipped fanatic — George Thompson GARRISON !!”
George, not sharing his father's scruples, enlisted in the Fifty-fifth Colored Regiment of Massachusetts Volunteers, attaining the rank of captain. He was a printer before he went into the war. 
Read about George T Garrison's tent found in family attic 
George T. Garrison's Trunk, National Museum of African American History and Culture

 

Garrison Family 1876 Newburyport MA Smith College Collection

 William Lloyd Garrison and his daughter Fanny (Helen Francis) , carte-de-visite, ca. 1856. From Boston's Crusade against Slavery  C. Seaver, Jr., photographer (Boston, Mass.)

                                                   

                                                 

Photo From William Lloyd Garrison, 1805-1879; the story of his life told by his children. George Thompson, abolitionist age 40

 Wendell Phillips, William Lloyd Garrison and George Thompson 1851

Garrison Family Papers, 1694-2005
Visit Smith College Library for more Garrison Information
Francis Jackson Garrison, William Lloyd Garrison, 1805-1879; the story of his life told by his children: volume 2 
The Memorial History of Boston: Including Suffolk County, Massachusetts Chapter 6 (1882)
A House Dividing Against Itself, 1836-1840 By William Lloyd Garrison
Mayors of Boston: An Illustrated Epitome of who the Mayors Have Been and what They Have Done
The Life and Times of Wendell Phillips by George Lowell
"Anti-Slavery Excitement" in Boston

Charles Lenox Remond and other who heard Garrison's Call

Charles Lenox Remond   (February 1, 1810 – December 22, 1873) was an American orator, activist and abolitionist based in Massachusetts. From my column They answered Garrison's anti slavery call

Pioneer abolitionist William Lloyd Garrison attracted a legion of revolutionaries who pressed total reform to “break the yoke of oppression.” Garrisonian satellite groups rose all over, crusading for social equality. 

The opposing public filled the editorial pages, calling Garrisonians “a farce,” not short of “Bedlam let loose,” subscribing to “hot headed ravings of an insane man.” Andover Theology School and Phillips Academy ordered Abolition Society (A.S.) meetings to cease “as they did not wish to identify with Garrison’s imprudence.” 

On the issue of slavery, the order was “not to pray about it publicly.” Nevertheless, over 50 of the firebrand fellows joined an A.S. off campus and were expelled. Two of the Andover “defiers,” Richard Rust and Gilbert Pillsbury, enrolled in the progressive Noyes Academy in N.H. 

Both men would play an instrumental role in the abolitionist movement. Rust helped set up Wilberforce University, the first college to be owned and operated by African Americans. He established Rust College, offering teacher training for freed slaves, and went on to organize 14 others. 

Francis and Archibald Grimké From The Earnest Protest of Francis Grimké

Pillsbury was elected commissioner of the Freedmen’s Bureau of South Carolina. His wife, Ann Francis Ray, opened a school for black students that included the Grimké brothers. The Pillsbury family also sponsored them, sending Archibald to Harvard and Francis to Princeton. Both became co-founders of the NAACP. 

Charles Lenox. Remond, a black lawyer from Salem, won the favor of those “generally dark on the issue of slavery and prejudice” with his compelling speeches. He was a global reformer, and society ladies from Bangor to Newport financed his travels. On one mission, Redmond brought back 60,000 signatures endorsed by the lord mayor of Dublin encouraging Irishmen in America to oppose slavery and “insist on liberty for all regardless of color, creed, or country.”

During the Civil War, Remond recruited soldiers for the black regiments while Garrison and his associates raised funds to support them.

His sister, Sarah Parker Remond, a brilliant orator and gutsy woman, challenged discrimination on all levels. In 1853, Remond made national headlines when she filed suit against Boston Howard Athenaeum. The opera house forcibly evicted her when she declined her seat in the segregated area. She won and was awarded $500.

Sarah Parker Remond (1826-1894) From ‘Bury Me Not in a Land of Slaves’: Unsung Legacy of Frances Harper & Sara Remond 
While overseas, Sarah Remond sparred with the American Embassy in London when denied a passport to France due to her color. She remedied the matter by contacting the press. When the buzz circulated, the British foreign secretary approved her visa. She got her medical degree and established a successful practice in Italy.

Charles C. Burleigh (Photo) met Mary Moody Emerson at a lecture and aroused her with Garrison’s valiant deeds, and by the end of the evening she declared: “he out be canonized!”

Some sources suggest Burleigh’s long flowing beard and sandy ringlets may have sealed the deal.

Mary Emerson rallied her Concord friends like Lousia Alcott and Lidian Emerson to raise a handsome sum to aid fugitive slaves.
The Anthony Burns case, where a fugitive slave was recaptured in Boston, tried and sent back to slavery, fueled anti-slavery sentiment and Garrison publicly burned a copy of the Fugitive Slave Act. 

Amos A. Lawrence was one of the many who redeemed his “old fashioned, Whig conservative” ways and “woke up a stark mad Abolitionist.” J. B. Swasey was “a new convert and a very zealous one” (Charlotte Forten Grimke). Many noted he lit up the Port during his speeches.

Caleb Cushing’s “zeal and ability” to defend the abolitionist cause was not above board, as he “failed to remember the pledges” he promised. Cushing’s attempt to suppress his antislavery record and gain power with the Whig party was quickly diminished by John Greenleaf Whittier, who reprinted a telling letter from Cushing with a witty preface, sinking his ambitions.

The petition to boot Judge Edward G. Loring from the bench over the Anthony Burns tragedy put Cushing back in the arena. The newspapers printed his performance, praising him as he brought down the house with his attacks on Garrison, “a half insane colored man,” and a few “possessed with monomania” as representative of the true commonwealth. Cushing was wrong, as Loring was disrobed and had lost the confidence of the people.

In the first edition of The Liberator Garrison wrote: “I WILL BE HEARD!” Well, he was heard and so were his soul sparkers. They spoke “in a slumbering nation’s ear,” and “the fetter’s link” was broken!

HBCU RESEARCH Magazine

Soldiers of the 54th From Detour to Liberty: Black Troops in Florida during the Civil War

 

 

 

In 1840, Charles Lenox Redman was an American delegate to the World’s Anti-Slavery Convention in London, but he refused to take his seat when women delegates were segregated from the main floor into the gallery. He remained in England and Ireland lecturing against slavery and returned to the United States in 1841 with an "Address from the People of Ireland," with 60,000 signatures, that called on Irish Americans to oppose slavery and all discrimination. He became a close friend and associate of Frederick Douglass, initially advocating peaceful means to end slavery, but became increasingly militant. He broke with Douglass in 1852 when the latter refused to adopt the view that the U.S. Constitution was an instrument of slaveholders. Remond increasingly advocated violent means if necessary to overthrow slavery, declaring "slaves were bound by their love of justice to rise at once, en masse, and throw off their fetters." At the outbreak of the Civil War, Remond joined Douglass in recruiting black soldiers for the Massachusetts 54th and 55th regiments. After the war he continued to lecture for the freedman and worked as an official of the customs house in Boston. (bio by: Bob on Gallows Hill)

PHOTO: Abolitionist group at Lucy Stone's house, undated. Picture includes: Samuel May, William Lloyd Garrison, Elizabeth B. Chase, Francis Garrison, Sarah Stone, Samuel E. Sewall, George T. Garrison, Zilpha H. Spooner, Wendell P. Garrison, Henry B. Blackwell and Theodore D. Weld. By Notman Photograph Company, Boston, Massachusetts. Photograph courtesy of the Sophia Smith Collection, Smith College, Northampton, Massachusetts. Author's note: The reference to William Lloyd Garrison in this citation is probably to his son William Lloyd Garrison Jr.   From Common Place

• African-American Orators: A Bio-critical Source book edited by Richard W. Leeman 
• The Selected Papers of Elizabeth Cady Stanton and Susan B. Anthony: National protection for national citizens, 1873 to 1880
• Charles Lenox Remond: Black Abolitionist, 1838-1873 William Edward Ward
• The Frederick Douglass Papers: 1842-1852 By Frederick Douglass
• The Journals of Charlotte Forten Grimké By Charlotte L. Forten
• Picture From Find a Grave
• Hidden History of Salem By Susanne Saville
• The Salem World of Nathaniel Hawthorne By Margaret B. Moore
• Charles Benson: Mariner of Color in the Age of Sail By Michael Sokolow
• Black Past.org
• See Salem Women's History

History of Berry's Tavern Danvers MA

Now open under the same name see Berry Tavern

The tavern was first owned by John Porter, licensed to run an ordinary in 1748. His widow Aphia sold it to Colonel Jethro Putnam who operated  it from 1799-1803. Josiah Dodge, jr. managed it and in 1804 Ebenezer Berry, Sr. bought it.

"He kept an inn or tavern here until his death in 1843, and then the same came into possession of his son, Eben Gardiner Berry, and from him it passed to his descendants, who now own the same.  The old tavern was removed in parts when the present house was erected, and the hall part, that portion of the same which had been a part of the beautiful mansion erected on Folly Hill by William Browne, of Salem, about 1750, was also removed a short distance away and in the great fire of 1845 was burned, that fire which destroyed most of the buildings on both sides of that portion of Maple Street lying between Conant and Cherry streets. Many distinguished persons must have tarried here.

The hall of the old house was the portion of the " Browne Hall" already referred to. This hall was used on all state occasions. The officers of the militia at the May trainings had their headquarters here. The selectmen of the town met here, as did also Jordan Lodge of Masons, and here also were held the meetings of the Danvers Lyceum. Dr. Braman once delivered a very funny lecture in this hall, the subject of which was " Quackery." Many debates took place in the old hall. And it is said that here were held those dancing parties, at the mention of which old eyes kindle and limbs no longer sprightly beat time to the echoes of the darky Harry's fiddle, which still linger in their ears. Mr. Eben G. Berry conducted the house up to 1870, when he retired from active management. It was known as the Howard house by the management Edwin A. Southwick, who managed it up to the time of his death in 1895. Mr. Berry died the same year, and during the settlement of the Southwick and Berry estates, Mr. Littlefield managed the house. The present lessee, Mr. Brown, took possession in the latter part of 1896 Danvers Historical Society

Ebenezer Gardner Berry was a descendant from the early Newbury Ma and Rye Beach settlers. He was son of Ebenezer Berry and Ruth Peabody.


Eben married Sept. 12, 1831 1st Elizabeth Jaquith/Jaques Abbott, (b. November 8 1807) daughter of Asa Abbott and Judith Jaquith/Jaques 2nd Mrs. Sarah Page Nichols daughter of Abel Nichols

Eben G. Berry

From Mrs. Louisa Crowninshield Bacon Personal Reminiscences Of The Old Home At Danvers, Massachusetts:

 

"It must have been about 1848 that I first remember going to stay with Grandpa and Grandma Putnam, but afterwards the visit became annual. We went in the train to Salem, where we took the real old-fashioned stage-coach for Danvers. It was a very hot day in May, and I sat on the middle seat of the coach. This seat folded over to let in the more favored passengers who sat in the back seat, after which it was folded hack and a rather wide leather strap was fastened at the end with an iron pin, making a back for the occupants, but toohigh to be of any comfort to the very young, who could hardly reach it. We drove through Salem and South Danvers, passing the large house on one side of the road and the brick woolen mill on the other belonging to Richard Crowninshield. I think we passed the old Judge Collins house, as it was then called, then Danvers Plains and Mr. Berry's tavern, where we once passed a summer. Mr. Berry was much interested in my mother's collecting old-fashioned furniture and crockery. We still have in the family a fine old oak armchair, much carved, and some very beautiful old Chinese porcelain, highly decorated, that he found in Andover, I think. Then came a hawthorne hedge on the right side of the road, soon followed by a privet hedge which made one side of Grandpa's garden, when we turned into the yard and stopped at the front door, which was on the end of the house.

From Historical Collections of the Danvers Historical Society Volume 10
Dr. John H. Nichols expressed for himself, and for all the family, their appreciation of all the words spoken for the sake of honoring the memory of his father." An obituary notice in the Salem Evening News, immediately following his death, includes these paragraphs: "His was the unseen influence behind the events which culminated in the passing of the title of the present public park from Eben G. Berry to the Improvement Society. He plotted what is now known as 'Back Bay' for Mr. Berry, in 1895, and the arrangement of the street lines and lots made the utmost out of the desirable location.

From History of Essex County Volume 2  
The first meetingr of the stockholders of the Village Bank was held “ at Eben G. Berry's Tavern," on Friday April 22, 1836. Elias Putnam was chosen moderator and Moses Black, Jr., clerk. It was voted to accept the charter granted by the Legislature, and Elias Putnam, Jeremiah Stone and Eben Putnam were chosen to consider favorable locations for a banking-house. At adjournment, May 9th, the first board of directors were chosen, namely: John Page, Eben Putnam, Samuel Preston, John Perley, Elias Putnam, Daniel F. Putnam, Joseph Steams, Amos Sheldon, Moses Black, Jr., Samuel Putnam, Nathaniel Boardman, Frederick Perley. It was reported “ that lv‘leeper’s house and land on the corner could be purchased for $3000, and that it would be a favorable place for a Bank,” and later this estate was purchased for $2800. 

From Old Anti-Slavery Day Danvers Historical Society

A "DanVeis Female Anti-Slavery Society," of which Mrs. Isaac Winslow was chosen the President; Mrs. Richard Loring, Vice-President; Miss Harriet N. Webster, Corresponding Secretary; Miss Emily Winslow, daughter of Isaac Winslow, (Mrs. Emily W. Taylor, now of Germantown, Pa.), Recording Secretary, and Mrs. Elijah Upton, Treasurer; with Mrs. Eben Upton, Mrs. Amos Osborn, Mrs. Benjamin Hill, Mrs. Charles Northend, Mrs. Abel Nichols, and Mrs. John Morrison, as Councillors. The Society was evidently meant for the whole town and probably its sixty members represented the North Parish as well as the South. Mrs. Abel Nichols, not to mention others, was of North Danvers, and she and her husband were among the best of abolitionists. Their daughter, the late Mrs. Eben G. Berry, recalled with what fear and trembling she was wont, as a young girl, to circulate antislavery documents, and their nephew, Mr. Andrew Nichols, now of Danvers, son of Dr. Andrew Nichols, remembers how he used to be stoned in the streets for procuring subscribers to anti-slavery papers. But among the men of the place who were earnest for emancipation, there were—besides Isaac Winslow and Joseph Southwick—Mr. Abner Sanger, whom Frederick Douglass so deservedly hoaors in his eloquent letter; Eli F. Burnham, Amasa P. Blake* and Andrew Porter; and Dr. Andrew Nichols and Alonzo P. Phillips, both of whom were of the highest character and came to be prominent and influential members of the Liberty party.

Portrait of Levi Preston painted by Abel Nichols Danvers Archival Center

More Art on Abel Nichols Peabody Essex Institute

• The Berry Family of Andover http://www.mhl.org/sites/default/files/files/Abbott/Berry%20Family.pdf
• The Jacques & Jaquith Family of Andover
• Find A Grave 

In the Danvers Archival Center a poem written by Eben “Milan [Murphy] and his wife Happy”

Column: Ipswich's anti-slavery roots ran deep

From Melissa Berry See Wicked Local

Since its establishment, residents of Ipswich, Massachusetts played an instrumental role in eradicating the practice of human bondage, while campaigning rigorously to abolish slavery. In celebrating the 150^th anniversary of the Emancipation Proclamation, along with Black History Month, it seems fitting to pay historical tribute to several men and women who once lived in the Ipswich community.

Two men from Ipswich helped plant the seed of anti-slavery. Nathaniel Ward initially set the precedent in his 1641 legal treatise entitled The Body of Liberties. In this first code of laws established in Massachusetts, Article 91 states that “there shall never be any bond slavery, villeinage, or captivity among us unless it be lawful captives taken in just wars.” Sharing Ward’s sentiment, Richard Saltonstall, founder of Ipswich and a magistrate of the courts, contested against the Captain of the “Rainbow,” who kidnapped two slaves from the New Guinea Coast in 1645. He denounced the act as "expressly contrary to the law of God and the law of the country." The guilty men were jailed for the "heinous crime of man-stealing," and Saltonstall mandated that both kidnapped men were to be sent home at the expense of the Commonwealth.

During the colonial period, many local slaves initiated the emancipation process by suing their masters for freedom. The victory of an Ipswich slave over her master became a potent example for future cases in the legal forum. In 1766, Jenny Slew successfully won her freedom after bringing her master, John Whipple, Jr., to the Superior Court of Judicature. A jury ruled four pounds in damages (issued 4 Dec. 1766, Records of the Superior Court of Judicature (Vol. 1766-7), page 175).

John Quincy Adams witnessed the Slew vs. Whipple trial, recording this entry in his diary on November 5, 1766: “Attended Court: heard the trial of an action called trespass… This is called suing for liberty; the first action that I ever knew of the sort, though I have heard of many.” While observing these trials, Adams wondered how a man set free is really free, if he is left in poverty with no foundation or blueprint to invent a new life. In a letter to Jonathan Sewall dated February 1760, he asks the Commonwealth, “Can he recover his legacy and how?”
Ipswich’s old families held significant positions within notable anti-slavery groups. The New England Anti-Slavery Convention assembled at Boylston Hall on May 27, 1834. William Oakes, Esq., Ipswich’s famous botanist, was appointed vice president, and the Rev. David Kimball, Pastor of the First Church, was named an officer. In 1839, James Appleton, a renowned public and political figure from Ipswich, became vice president of the Anti-American Slavery Society organized by famed abolitionist William Lloyd Garrison of Newburyport.

William Loyd Garrison

New England business men witnessed the increasing atrocities of slavery and corruption as the power struggle festered between the South and the North. One case in particular involving the capture of fugitive slave Anthony Burns helped turn the tides for many unionists. An attempt to rescue him turned into a blood bath at the court house, and Burns was transported back to Virginia to his owner. The notion that the government would honor this assault on liberty infuriated many. Amos Adams Lawrence, owner of Ipswich mills, recalled his anguish at this incident: “I went to bed an old fashioned, conservative,” he wrote, and woke up “a stark mad Abolitionist.” Afterward, Lawrence gathered the support of many prominent New England men to finance the anti-slavery movement, helping to make Kansas a free state.

As the movement gathered strength, locals opened up their hearts and homes to create a league of freedom advocates and reformers. The Old Parsonage house on North Main Street, owned by the Manning family, offered a hidden tunnel door where slaves could be secretly transported to freedom via cargo ships to Nova Scotia. The vestry at the Ipswich Methodist Church held anti-slavery meetings, as recorded in 1838 by Edwin Thompson, agent of the Essex County Abolition Society.

Not to be outdone by the men, the women of Ipswich were equally active in the struggle to end slavery. The Ipswich Female Anti-Slavery Society met at the home of Jazeb Farley. At the Ipswich Female Seminary, John Phelps Cowles and Eunice Caldwell Cowles openly expressed their antislavery sentiments, and pamphlets were circulated freely on school grounds. Mary Abigail Dodge, a teacher at the school, published her poetry in the National Era, an anti-slavery magazine.
 

George Russell compiled a scrapbook of anti-slavery poetry he collectedfrom the Massachusetts Abolitionist during 1839 and 1840. Much of this poetry was authored by such noteworthy and popular poets as Elizabeth Margaret Chandler, Eliza Lee Follen, Lydia Sigourney, and John G. Whittier. The editors of the Massachusetts Abolitionist clearly hoped that the poetry might convince readers to acknowledge not only the horrors of slavery, but also the justness of political abolitionism (Holly M. Kent from Abolitionist Literature).

The final stop on our Ipswich anti-slavery tour is 16 Elm Street, home of Josiah and Lucy Caldwell. Josiah was Representative to the General Court, Selectmen, and Principal of Grammar Schools. He was also the first president of the Ipswich Anti-Slavery Society. Likewise, Lucy held meetings for the women’s counterpart organization and helped to produce anti-slavery materials. This warm, vibrant home became a pivotal influence in the community. The meetings featured lecturers, parlor games, and lots of jubilant singing.

Josiah and Lucy were spirited and generous people. Both fond of music and dance, Josiah, a “rich bass,” had a “remarkable voice of compass and power.” He composed a beautiful song, “Ode to Peace,” performed by the Handel Society. The Caldwells’ daughter, Mrs. Margaret Whipple remembered the “house was always open to many lecturers who came to Ipswich. I well remember Walker with the hand branded S. S. (Slave Stealer) for his efforts freeing slaves; and Torrey, who died a martyr to the cause in a southern prison, spending nights in this hospitable home.”

Ipswich residents should be proud of their ancestors and the former residents who served a higher cause. In the words of Josiah Caldwell, “God’s mercy reached our land. Peace came to heal the bleeding wound. Dispensing blessings wide around with an unsparing hand.” 

Ipswich Historical Society
Ipswich Visitor Center
Women Organized Against Slavery, 1688-1870 Part One
Gordon Harris Historic Ipswich
Ipswich in the Massachusetts Bay Colony Thomas Franklin Waters, Sarah Goodhue, John Wise. Ipswich Historical Society
The Westminster Review, Volume 84
The Origin of the Maine Law and of Prohibitory Legislation with a brief memoir of James Appleton
Women During the Civil War: An Encyclopedia by Judith E. Harper
Proceedings of the New-England Anti-Slavery Convention held in Boston on the 27th, 28th and 29th of May, 1834
One House, Many Stories by Robert Freedman
The Underground Railroads in Massachusetts by Wilbur H. Siebert
History of Essex County, Massachusetts with biographical sketches of many of its pioneers and prominent men (Volume 1) by Duane Hamilton
Legal Papers of John Adams, Volume 2
For the Press National Museum of American History
History of the Caldwell Family: John Caldwell and Sarah Dillingham Caldwell, his wife, Ipswich, Mass. 1654 [Genealogical records of their descendants, eight generations, 1654-1900 (1904)]