Chapter Eighteen
“If slavery could not kill us, liberty won’t”
Seneca Falls’ Union Woman’s Suffrage Society hated to lose one of its most faithful and ardent members, but the manner of her leaving was cause for much rejoicing.A Civil Service position in Washington! My goodness, what a break!
“It’s not a break.” Miss Dean, secretary of the society, spoke indignantly. “Helen Pitts has passed the examination, and she is taking her well-earned place in the ranks of government workers.”
“Sure,” Matilda Hooker teased, “but isn’t Susan B. Anthony wearing herself out all over the place just so women can have such rights? This is a significant step, and I say we women in Seneca can be proud of Helen Pitts.”
“Hear! Hear!” they said. Then Helen Pitts came in, her face flushed, and after a little excited chatter the meeting was called to order.
It was true that Helen had taken the fall Civil Service examination by way of a “declaration of independence.” When she presented herself at the post-office they had eyed her with disapproval.
“What’s the schoolmarm here for?” they asked. And Sid Green remarked sourly that he’d heard tell she was one of those “advanced women.” His wife rebuked him sharply.
“Miss Pitts is one of the nicest and most ladylike teachers we’ve ever had. You ought to be ashamed of yourself, Sid Green!”
But Sid hadn’t taken it back. The School Board hadn’t liked their teacher’s marching in the suffrage parade last fall—and Sid knew it, no matter what his wife said. Anyhow,hewore the pants inhishouse. He hitched them up now with a jerk and went outside.
There was no question about the teacher’s popularity with her pupils. The morning she mailed her resignation (to take effect at theend of the month) she decided not to tell the children until after the Christmas party. That wasn’t going to be easy.
The teacher’s mind was jerked back to the present by hearing her name.
“I move that Helen Pitts be our delegate,” Lucy Payne said.
Helen blinked her eyes.
“I second the motion.” Mrs. Huggins was nodding her head emphatically.
Helen nudged the girl next to her and whispered, “I didn’t hear—What’s going on?”
“Delegates to the National Convention,” came the low answer.
“But—”
“Sh-sh! You’re on your way to fame and fortune.” The girl grinned as the chairman rapped for order. She was ready to put the motion.
“It has been moved and seconded that Miss Helen Pitts be our delegate in Washington next month. All those in favor say ‘Aye’.”
The “Ayes” had it, and everybody beamed at Helen.
“Get up! You’re supposed to thank them!” Her friend nudged her.
It was silly to be nervous—they were all her friends. But the hazel eyes were dangerously bright and the neat, folded kerchief at her throat fluttered.
“Ladies, you do me great honor,” she said. “I—I’ll try to be a good representative.” She swallowed and then spoke resolutely. “We know why we want votes for women—not for any of the silly reasons some men say. We must be very sure and as courageous as our leaders. They are taking the fight right to the Capital, and I promise you we’ll fling it into the very teeth of Congress, disturbing their peaceful complacency until they will be forced to action.”
They did not have enough funds in the treasury to send a delegate from Seneca Falls. Helen would go down to Washington a week before her job started.
Helen Pitts spent most of her Christmas holiday at home packing and harking to parental admonitions. Gideon Pitts regarded his daughter both with pride and apprehension. Schoolteaching had been a nice, quiet occupation, but he knew something about the “wiles” and “pitfalls” of big cities. He thought he ought to go down with her and see that she found a respectable place to live in. His wife held him back.
“That’s silly, Pa. Helen’s got plenty mother wit, for all she’s so small and frail-looking.” Her mother sighed. “I was hoping she’d be settling near home—that she might accept Brad.”
Aunt Julia was a little more direct.
“I’d get this nonsense out of Helen’s head if I was her mother.” She spoke firmly. “Old maids soon fade, and all these new-fangled ideas ain’t a-gonna keep her warm winter nights.”
“Helen’s no old maid yet,” defended her mother.
“’Pears like to me she’ll be thirty come this spring. And if that ain’t an old maid my mind’s failing me,” was the acid comment.
In due time Helen Pitts took her seat in the Fourth National Suffrage Convention, meeting in Washington the first week in January, 1874.
The air crackled with excitement. Now that the Fourteenth Amendment had gone to some length to define “citizenship” within the United States, “manhood suffrage” was being substituted by the politicians for the recent vanguard cry “universal suffrage.” Susan B. Anthony was calling upon the women of America to have their say. The leaders of the movement were ridiculed, mocked and libeled, but they had come to Washington in full armor.
Her face aglow, eyes sparkling with indignation, Miss Anthony told the opening session that a petition against woman’s suffrage had been presented in the Senate by a Mr. Edmunds. Mrs. General Sherman, Mrs. Admiral Dahlgren and other Washington wives had signed it.
“These are the women,” she said, “who never knew a want, whose children are well fed and warmly clad. Yet they would deny these same comforts to other women even though they are earned by the toil of their hands. Such women are traitors not only to their best instincts, but to all mothers of men!”
Helen tried to applaud louder than anybody else. She would have liked to stand and tell them that her home was in Rochester, that she had been one of the youngest members of Susan B. Anthony’s own club. But the women did not spend their time exchanging compliments. Helen voted for or against resolution after resolution; she was placed on one committee.
Lincoln Hall was packed for the big open session on Saturday afternoon. Many came just to hear the big speakers, but the women were happy because they were creating a real stir in Washington. They devoutly hoped it would be felt throughout the country.
A shiver of anticipation went through the crowd at the appearance of Robert Ingersoll.
“He’s like a Greek god,” a woman seated beside Helen moaned. “Any man as handsome as that is bound to be wicked!”
An outstanding editor had written at great length on how laws in the United States favored women. Word by word and line by line Ingersoll, the lawyer, cut the ground from underneath the editor’s feet. Skilfully he analyzed the many laws upon the statute books which bound women and their children to the petty whims and humors of men.
“But these laws will not change untilyouchange them,” he told them. “Justice and freedom do not rain like manna from heaven upon outstretched hands. We men will notgiveyou the ballot. You musttakeit!”
The secretaries rustled papers nervously. The chairman glanced at her watch. There was a hitch in the program, but the audience did not mind a little breathing spell. The side door up front opened, and Frederick Douglass entered as quietly as possible. He looked like a huge bear. He was covered with snow which clung even to his beard and hair. With some assistance he hurriedly removed this overcoat and rubbers. After wiping his face and hair with his big handkerchief, he mounted the steps to the platform.
Instantly the crowd burst into applause which continued while Susan B. Anthony took his hand and Mr. Ingersoll, leaning forward in his seat, greeted him warmly. When Douglass sat down facing the audience his broad shoulders sagged a little, and Helen fancied he closed his eyes for a moment as he rested his hands on his knees. She had not heard him since the close of the war. The touch of gray in his hair heightened his air of distinction, but she had not before noticed how his cheekbones showed above the beard. Perhaps his face was thinner.
To this convention Douglass was the very symbol of their strivings. He was one of the first to see that woman’s suffrage and Negro citizenship were the same fight. He had appeared with Susan B. Anthony in her early meetings at Syracuse and Rochester. Now slavery was abolished and here he was still standing at her side.
Few in the big hall heard the effort in Frederick Douglass’ voice that afternoon. They heard his words. But behind him Robert Ingersoll’s mouth tightened and a little frown came on his face.What can I do to help?he wondered.
Afterward, Helen Pitts tried to speak to Mr. Douglass. He would not remember her, but it would be something to write to the folks at home. But the press of the crowd was too great, and her committee was called for a short caucus.
In front of the hall some time later she was surprised to see him just leaving the building. With him was Mr. Ingersoll. Helen was struck again by the somber shadows in Douglass’ face, but Ingersoll was smiling, his face animated.
“Nonsense, Douglass!” she heard Ingersoll say. “What you’ve needed for a long time is a good lawyer.” He laughed buoyantly. “Well, here he is!”
Douglass’ voice was heavy.
“But, Mr. Ingersoll, I can’t—”
Ingersoll had stepped to the curb and, lifting his cane, was hailing a passing cab.
“But you can. Come along, Douglass! First, we eat. Then I shall tell you something about banking. What a spot foryouto be in!”
They climbed into the cab, and it rolled away through the gathering dusk. Helen walked to her room, wondering what on earth they had been talking about.
The next time Helen Pitts heard Douglass speak was on the occasion of the unveiling of the Freedmen’s Monument in Lincoln Park. Negroes throughout the United States had raised the money for this monument to Lincoln; and on a spring day, when once more the lilacs were in bloom, they called together the great ones of the country to pause and think. Helen had never before witnessed such an array of dignitaries—the President of the United States, his Cabinet, judges of the Supreme Court, members of the Senate and House of Representatives.
“Few facts could better illustrate the vast and wonderful change which has taken place in our condition as a people,” Douglass, the ex-slave, told the hushed crowd, “than our assembling here today.... It is the first time that, in this form and manner, we have sought to do honor to an American great man, however deserving and illustrious. I commend the fact to notice. Let it be told in every part of the Republic. Let men of all parties and opinions hear it. Let those who despise us, not less than those who respect us, know it and that now and here, in the spirit of liberty, loyalty and gratitude, we unite in this act of reverent homage. Let it be known everywhere, and by everybody who takes an interest in human progress and in theamelioration of the condition of mankind, that ... we, the colored people, newly emancipated and rejoicing in our blood-bought freedom, near the close of the first century in the life of this Republic, have now and here unveiled, set apart, and dedicated a monument of enduring granite and bronze, in every line, feature, and figure of which men may read ... something of the exalted character and great works of Abraham Lincoln, the first martyr-President of the United States.”
Douglass spoke as one who loved and mourned a friend. And when the last word was said, men turned and walked away in silence.
“He is the noblest of them all!” Helen Pitts said to herself.
Douglass sat that night at home in his study, his head bowed in his hands. Lincoln had been struck down, his face turned toward the future; he had been struck down as he walked in the road. And they had not carried on. The nation had failed Lincoln and new chaos was upon them. “You are caught up in a rosy cloud, Douglass.”
He had been with the Senator from Massachusetts when he died. With his last breath Charles Sumner had pleaded for the Civil Rights Bill—his bill. He had died fighting for it.
Douglass had pinned his faith on the ballot. He shuddered. Armed men were now riding through the night, marking their course by whipping, shooting, maiming and mutilating men, women and children. They were entering houses by force, shooting the inmates as they fled, destroying lives and property. All because the blacks were trying to use their ballot.
The summer saw a hesitating, weak old man pleading with Congress for assistance. Congress refused, and so the soldier had no other recourse but to call out troops to enforce the Reconstruction laws. Three times the soldiers restored to power candidates who had been ousted from office by force and fraudulent elections. In retaliation, the planters in Louisiana killed Negroes and whites in cold blood. Pitched battles raged in the streets of New Orleans.
The lowest ebb of degradation was reached with the election of 1876. School histories touch that month lightly and move quickly on. The deal was made, and Rutherford B. Hayes became President of the United States.
The calm was ominous. From several sections of the dead-still South groups of grim-faced men journeyed to Washington and gathered at Frederick Douglass’ house.
“They say he will remove the soldiers. That means the end of everything for us. Only the Federal troops have held them back!”
“Is there nothing? Nothing you can cling to?” Douglass sought for one hope.
“There might have been had we cemented ties with Northern labor. They are just as intent on crushing the white worker.” The black man’s eyes on Douglass’ face accused him. He had been a delegate to the Louisiana convention. And that was where the Negro labor union died!
“How bitter knowledge is that comes too late!” Douglass acknowledged his mistake with these words. The man from South Carolina spoke.
“They’ll say we lost the ballot because we did not know how to use it.”
“It is a lie—we could not do the things we knew to do!”
“The measures you have passed? Reforms?” Douglass searched the drawn faces.
“They’ll all be swept away—”
“Like so much trash!”
“Go to the new President,” they urged. “You cannot be accused of seeking favors. Go and tell him the truth. Plead with him to leave us this protection a little longer.”
“A little longer, they ask a little more time, Mr. Hayes.” Douglass was in the White House, begging understanding for his people’s need. He leaned forward, trying to read the face of the man who held so much of their destiny in his hands.
President Hayes spoke calmly.
“You are excited, Douglass. You have fought a good fight—and your case is won. There is no cause for further alarm. Your people are free. Now we must work for the prosperity of all the South. How can the Negro be deprived of his political or civil rights? The Fourteenth and Fifteenth Amendments are part of the Constitution. Douglass, do you lose faith in your government?”
Douglass rose slowly to his feet. There was logic and reason in the President’s words.
“I covet the best for my country—the true grandeur of justice for all,” he said. “Humbly I do pray that this United States will not lose so great a prize.”
He bowed and took his leave.
All restrictions were lifted from the South. Little by little, on onepretext or another, blacks and poor whites were disfranchised; and the North covered the ugliness with gossamer robes of nostalgic romance. The Black Codes were invoked; homeless men and women were picked up for vagrancy, chain gangs formed, and the long, long night set in.
Not all at once, of course. And that afternoon as Douglass walked away through the White House grounds, he could not be sure. The air was clean and sweet after a cleansing shower, and he decided to walk.
He swung along, hardly heeding his direction. Then he saw that he was on I Street, N.W., and, as he approached a certain building, his steps slowed. The Haitians had opened their Legation with such pomp and pride! At last the valiant little Republic had been recognized, and President Lincoln had invited them to send their ambassador. He had come, a quiet, cultured gentleman who spoke English and French with equal charm and grace. But almost immediately the Haitian Legation on I Street had closed, and Ernest Roumain moved to New York City. He had said very little, but everybody knew that Washington would not tolerate the Legation of Haiti.
Douglass sighed. He hesitated a moment. Then his face brightened. He would go and see Miss Amelia. Yes, it would do him good to talk to Miss Amelia a little while.
Over on Pennsylvania Avenue at Fifteenth Street government clerks and secretaries were leaving the Treasury Building. They glanced up at the clearing skies and set off in their several directions. Helen Pitts paused a moment at the top of the steps. She and Elsie Baker usually walked home together; but Elsie did not come, so Helen started walking rather slowly down the street.
It was nice to stroll along like this after the busy day. Her work had settled into a regular routine. Life in the civil service was by no means dull. There was always the possibility of being let in on some “important secret.” Anything could and often did happen in Washington.
And now there was not even the slightest chance of her getting homesick. Her first lodging place had been respectable enough, but she used to look forward to times when she could go home. Now she was thinking about having her mother come down and spend a week with her. She’d love it.
Her good luck had come on a particularly cold night whenElsie, whom she knew then only as the Senior Clerk, had spoken to her.
“You have an awfully long ways to go, don’t you, Miss Pitts?”
“Yes, it is far. But it’s only in weather like this that I really mind it.”
Mrs. Baker—she was a war widow—regarded her for a few minutes and then murmured, “I wonder!”
“You wonder what?” asked Helen pleasantly.
“I was just wondering ifmaybeMiss Amelia wouldn’t let you have Jessie Payne’s room.”
“And why should I have Jessie Payne’s room? I don’t know the lady.”
The Senior Clerk laughed.
“You probably won’t because she went home Christmas to be married. And her roomisempty.”
“Is it a nice room?”
“Miss Amelia’s house is special.” Elsie smiled. “All of us have been there for ages. John and I both lived there when we—Naturally, afterward, when I came back I went straight to Miss Amelia. But she doesn’t take new people. She isn’t able to get about much any more. Mr. Haley’s really the boss, and she doesn’t have to do anything. So you see, it isn’t a lodging house at all. You’d love it.”
“It sounds wonderful!”
“Why not come home with me tonight for supper? We could sound Miss Amelia out.”
They sat around the big table in the dining room—eight of them when a chair was placed for Helen—with the nicest little blue-eyed lady smiling at them from behind a tall teapot. Helen knew that the call, stoop-shouldered Mr. Haley was city editor of one of the daily papers. He didn’t talk much, but he was a pleasant host.
“Where are you from, Miss Pitts?”
Her reply brought Miss Amelia’s full attention.
“Rochester!” Miss Amelia exclaimed. “We have a very distinguished friend who lives—or rather used to live—in Rochester. He’s in Washington now. You’ve heard of Frederick Douglass?” She leaned forward, her eyes bright.
“Oh, yes, ma’am.” Helen’s enthusiasm was quite genuine. “Everybody in Rochester knows Frederick Douglass.”
The little lady sat back, a smile on her face.
“I knew him when he was a boy.”
Jack Haley chuckled. He turned to Helen, and his tired eyes smiled.
“Hold on to your hat, Miss Pitts. You’re going to hear a story.”
Everybody laughed. They all knew Miss Amelia’s favorite story.
“You’ll get the room!” whispered Elsie.
She was right, of course. The next day Helen Pitts moved into Jessie Payne’s room.
They met just outside the gate. He saw that the lady was about to turn in and so, lifting his hat, he stepped back. She smiled and said, “How do you do, Mr. Douglass?”
“Good evening, ma’am.” She walked up the path, and he cursed his inability to remember names. He was sure her face was familiar. It was dusk. When he saw her inside surely he would remember. At the door she turned.
“Stop cudgeling your brains,” she said. “I’ve never been introduced to you.”
“Then it’s not really my fault if I don’t know your name.” He gave a sigh of relief.
They both laughed then, and Miss Amelia was calling, “Come in! Come in, both of you! Well, so at last you two have met again.”
“Why no, Miss Amelia, the lady doesn’t—”
“We haven’t been introduced,” Helen interrupted.
“Tck! Tck! You told me that—”
“But that was years ago, Miss Amelia.”
Douglass was holding both Miss Amelia’s hands in his.
“Please, ladies! This isn’t fair. Now, please, won’t you present me?”
Amelia was severe.
“After the length of time you’ve stayed away, Fred, I shouldn’t.”
Douglass bowed gravely when at last she complied with his request, his eyes still somewhat puzzled. Then Helen said, “I’m Gideon Pitts’s daughter, from Rochester.”
A few weeks later—to the horror of Washington—President Hayes appointed Frederick Douglass United States Marshal of the District of Columbia. It might almost seem that, having recalled the troops from the South, the President went out of his way to administer a rebuke where it would hurt most.
Fear was expressed that Douglass would pack the courts andjury-boxes with Negroes. Of even more concern was the time-honored custom that the Marshal presented all guests to the President at state functions! Immediately efforts were made by members of the bar to defeat Douglass’ confirmation for office. But a one-time slaveholder, Columbus Alexander, of an old and wealthy Washington family, joined with George Hill, influential Republican, in presenting the necessary bond; and when the confirmation came up before the Senate the gentleman from New York, Senator Roscoe Conkling, won them over with a masterly and eloquent address on “Manhood.”
So Frederick Douglass in “white kid gloves, sparrow-tailed coat, patent-leather boots and alabaster cravat” was at the President’s side at the next White House reception. Nothing could be done now but wait for some overt act on his part to justify his removal. The opposition thought they had him a couple of months after he took office.
The Marshal had been invited to Baltimore to deliver a lecture in Douglass Hall—named in his honor and used for community educational purposes. He spoke on “Our National Capital.” Everybody seemed to enjoy a pleasant evening. But the next morning Douglass awoke to find that he was being quoted and attacked by the press. Within a few days some of the newspapers had worked themselves into a frenzy, and committees were appointed to procure names to a petition demanding his removal from office.
It is said that the President laughed about the matter, and it is certain that after a statement made by Douglass was printed in theWashington Evening Starthe hostility kindled against him vanished as quickly as it had come.
Douglass could be very witty, and he had made some humorous reflections on the great city. “But,” he wrote the editor, “it is the easiest thing in the world, as you know, sir, to pervert the meaning and give a one-sided impression of a whole speech.... I am not such a fool as to decry a city in which I have invested my money and made my permanent residence.”
As a matter of fact, Douglass had spoken in the most glowing terms of “our national center.... Elsewhere we may belong to individual States, but here we belong to the whole United States....”
Douglass did love Washington. With his children and their families he occupied the double house at 316 and 318 A Street, N.E. But he wanted to buy some place on the outskirts of the city where Anna could have peace and rest. His house was only a few minutes’ walk from the Capitol, and visitors were always knocking on theirdoor. Besides, Anna missed her trees and flowers. She shrank from what she termed the “frivolities” of Washington and would seldom go anywhere with him. When he spoke of moving “out into the country” he saw her face brighten. He began looking for a place.
Marshal Douglass was on hand to welcome President James A. Garfield to the White House. According to long-established usage, the United States Marshal had the honor of escorting both the outgoing and the incoming presidents from the imposing ceremonies in the Senate Chamber to the east front of the Capitol where, on a platform erected for the purpose, the presidential oath was administered to the President-elect.
Hopes throughout the country ran high at the time of Garfield’s inauguration. As Senator from Ohio, Garfield had been a reform advocate for several years.
There was no question about the serious state of affairs. “Under the guise of meekly accepting the results and decisions of war,” Douglass noted, “Southern states were coming back to Congress with the pride of conquerors rather than with any trace of repentant humility. It was not the South, but loyal Union men, who had been at fault.... The object which through violence and bloodshed they had accomplished in the several states, they were already aiming to accomplish in the United States by address and political strategy.”
In Douglass’ mind was lodged a vivid and unpleasant memory which he thought of as “Senator Garfield’s retreat.”
In a speech on the floor the Ohio Senator had used the phrase “perjured traitors,” describing men who had been trained by the government, were sworn to support and defend its Constitution, and then had taken to the battlefield and fought to destroy it. One Randolph Tucker rose to resent the phrase. “The only defense Mr. Garfield made to this brazen insolence,” Douglass remembered, “was that he did not make the dictionary. This was perhaps the soft answer that turneth away wrath, but it is not the answer Charles Sumner, Benjamin Wade or Owen Lovejoy would have given. None of these men would have in such a case sheltered himself behind a dictionary.”
Yet no one in the country felt the shock of President Garfield’s assassination more deeply than Douglass. Not only had a good man been cruelly slain in the morning of his highest usefulness, but his sudden death came as a killing blow to Douglass’ newly awakened hopes for further recognition of his people.
Only a few weeks before, Garfield had asked Douglass to the White House for a talk.[30]The President said he had wondered why his Republican predecessors had never sent a colored man as minister or ambassador to a white nation: He planned to depart from this usage. Did Douglass think one of his race would be acceptable in the capitals of Europe?
Douglass told President Garfield to take the step. Other nations did not share the American prejudice. Best of all, it would give the colored citizen new spirit. It would be a sign that the government was in earnest when it clothed him with American citizenship.
Again the country was in gloom. People in their sorrow came together; legislators and earnest men and women shook their heads and marveled at the struggles which seemed necessary for welding a nation of free men. The people as a whole were finding that freedom is a hard-bought thing.
Douglass rose before a huge audience in New York City. He was older. He had suffered because of failure to see, he had stumbled a little on the way—but he had never left the road. The lines in his face were lines of strength, the fire in his eyes was the light of knowledge, the sweet song of emancipation no longer filled his ears to the exclusion of everything else. He saw the scarred and blackened stumps that blocked his path, he saw the rocks and muddy pitfalls on the way, he knew that there were hidden snipers further up the road, but he went on—walking with dignity. The crowd listening to him was very still.
“How stands the case with the recently emancipated millions of colored people in our country?” he began. “By law, by the Constitution of the United States, slavery has no existence in our country. The legal form has been abolished. By law and the Constitution the Negro is a man and a citizen, and has all the rights and liberties guaranteed to any other variety of the human family residing in the United States.”
Men who had recently come to these shores from other lands heard him. New York—melting pot of the world! They had come from Italy and Germany, from Poland and Ireland and Russia to the country of freedom.
“It is a great thing to have the supreme law of the land on the side of right and liberty,” he said. “Only,” he went on, “they gave the freedmen the machinery of liberty, but denied them the steamwith which to put it in motion. They gave them the uniforms of soldiers but no arms; they called them citizens and left them subjects; they called them free and almost left them slaves. They did not deprive the old master-class of the power of life and death. Today the masters cannot sell them, but they retain the power to starve them to death!
“Greatness,” the black orator reminded the citizens of New York, “does not come to any people on flowery beds of ease. We must fight to win the prize. No people to whom liberty is given can hold it as firmly or wear it as grandly as those who wrench their liberty from the iron hand of the tyrant.”
He could take the cheers of the crowd with a quiet smile. He knew that some of them would remember and in their own way would act.
Anna joined her husband on the New York trip. And for a short while they relived the time more than forty years before, when, after the anxious days and nights, they were first free together. This trip, their youngest son Charles was marrying Laura Haley, whose home was in New York.
They had banks of flowers, organ music, smart ushers and lovely bridesmaids. The marriage of Charles, son of Frederick Douglass, was a very different affair from that wedding so long ago when Frederick, fugitive from slavery, took Anna Murray, freewoman, to be his wife. As the bride all in white came floating down the aisle, Douglass turned and smiled into Anna’s clear, good eyes.
With his appointment as Recorder of Deeds for the District of Columbia, Douglass knew that he could safely buy the house he coveted. It was for sale, but until now he had only gazed with longing. It was on Anacostia Heights overlooking Washington across the Potomac—a fine old house with spacious grounds, servants’ quarters and stables. As soon as he took office, and without saying anything to Anna, he set about buying the property.
For many reasons Douglass’ present appointment was far more desirable than the post of Marshal. The Recorder’s job was a local office; though held at the pleasure of the President, it was in no sense a federal or political post.
Douglass felt freer and more on his own. At that time the salary was not fixed. The office was supported solely by fees paid for work done by its employees. Since every transfer of property, every deedof trust and every mortgage had to be recorded, the income was at times larger than that of any office of the national government except that of the President. Also, Douglass had that winter brought out the third of his autobiographies,The Life and Times of Frederick Douglass.
June promised to be a hot month, and everybody was talking about getting away from the city. Anna thought her husband seemed increasingly busy and preoccupied.
“Come along, dear,” he said one Sunday. “We’re going for a drive.”
“Me too, Grandma!” Their grandchild, Rosetta’s little girl, came running up.
“Not this time, honey,” Douglass said. “Grandpa’ll take you riding, but not right now.” And he added for Anna’s ears alone, “Today I only want your grandmother.”
He was in a talkative mood that afternoon.
“Remember the morning the boat pulled into New Bedford?” he asked as they crossed the bridge over the Potomac River. “Remember the big house sitting up on the hill?”
He turned in the buggy seat and looked at her. And in that moment he was no longer the great Frederick Douglass—he was the slender, eager boy, just escaped from slavery, leaning on the rail of the boat, devouring with his young eyes every detail of their wonderful free home. The big white house far up on the hill had caught their eyes. “Look! Some day we’ll have a house like that! Look, Anna!”
So now, when he asked, “Do you remember?” she only nodded her head. The smart little buggy was rolling along on land once more.
“Now we’re in Anacostia,” he said. “Close your eyes and keep them closed till I say!” She heard him chuckle like a boy, and then he said, “Now—Look!” He pointed with his whip.
It was the big white house high on a hill!
“There’s our house, Anna, the house I promised you!”
She could only stare. Then the meaning of his words made her gasp.
“Frederick! You don’t really mean—You haven’t—?”
He laughed as she had not heard him laugh in a long time. They were winding up the hill now—toward the house.
That afternoon they planned and dreamed. The owners had let the house run down, but it would be perfect.
“We’ll try to have it ready in time to escape the August heat. This is why I’ve been deaf to your talk about a vacation.”
The afternoon almost exhausted Anna.
“Mamma’s all fagged out,” Rosetta told her father the next day.
June was very hot, and Douglass began to worry about his wife.
“Perhaps you’d better go away for a few days.” She shook her head.
“The house will be ready soon. When we get on our hill—” Her eyes were happy with anticipation.
When the doctor ordered her to bed, she was planning the moving.
“I’ll just take it easy for a few days—then we’ll start packing,” she said.
Anna Murray Douglass died on August 4th, 1882.