Raynors HCA 2017-09
This lot is closed for bidding. Bidding ended on 9/7/2017
Autograph Letter Signed, “David J. Lewis” 2pp. quarto, Cazenovia, New York, June 16, 1852, with integral leaf addressed to Mr. Lewis H. Lewis of New Orleans, it reads in part: “...This afternoon I heard a fugitive slave lecture on slavery. He has been away from slavery about a year when he ran away he could not read. He seems to be a very intelligent looking man but he cannot express all his ideas by words...” Very good condition. Cazenovia, New York was one of the stops on the famous "Underground Railroad" which moved fugitive slaves into Canada. An 1850 meeting brought together Frederick Douglass, one of the nation's great antislavery orators and abolitionist Garratt Smith; their meeting was captured on a daguerreotype, an early form of photography. It's the tree branches that give the photo a sense of place. The Cazenovia Fugitive Slave Law Convention of 1850 brought so many people to the village -- more than 2,000 by most accounts -- that the only place that could hold them was Grace Wilson's apple orchard on Sullivan Street. Douglass, himself a former fugitive slave, presided over the convention. Close to 50 fugitive slaves responded to the call to participate. This letter is offered with scan of a daguerreotype, the pride of the Madison County Historical Society's collection, is a rare glimpse of a historic call to end slavery. It was made by Ezra Greenleaf Weld, a resident of Cazenovia and brother of Theodore Weld, said Smithfield historian Donna Burdick. The meeting opened on Aug. 21, at the Free Congregational Church of Cazenovia, now the Cazenovia College Theater on Lincklaen Street. The meeting was to lay out the abolitionists' opposition to the proposed Fugitive Slave Act, which would allow federal marshals to arrest and return runaway slaves and punish those who harbored them. While the name of this fugitive slave is unknown, some additional research could identify him.
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