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FREDERICK DOUGLASS, a noted American character, was a protege of the great abolitionist, William Lloyd Garrison,
by whom he was aided in gaining his education. Mr. Douglass was born in Tuckahoe county, Maryland, in February,
1817, his mother being a negro woman and his father a white man. He was born in slavery and belonged to a man by
the name of Lloyd, under which name he went until he ran away from his master and changed it to Douglass. At the
age of ten years he was sent to Baltimore where he learned to read and write, and later his owner allowed him to
hire out his own time for three dollars a week in a shipyard. In September, 1838, he fled from Baltimore and made
his way to New York, and from thence went to New Bedford, Massachusetts. Here he was married and supported himself
and family by working at the wharves and in various workshops. In the summer of 1841 he attended an anti slavery
convention at Nantucket, and made a speech which was so well received that he was offered the agency of the Massachusetts
Anti slavery Society. In this capacity he traveled through the New England states, and about the same time he published
his first book called ''Narrative of my Experience in Slavery." Mr. Douglass went to England in 1845 and lectured
on slavery to large and enthusiastic audiences in all the large towns oT the country, and his friends made up a
purse of seven hundred and fifty dollars and purchased his freedom in due form of law.
Mr. Douglass applied himself to the delivery of lyceum lectures after the abolition of slavery, and in 1870 he
became the editor of the "New National Era" in Washington. In 1871 he was appointed assistant secretary
of the commission to San Domingo and on his return he was appointed one of the ter-. ritorial council for the District
of Colorado by President Grant. He was elected presidential elector at large for the state of New York and was
appointed to carry the electoral vote to Washington. He was also United States marshal for the District of Columbia
in 1876, and later was recorder of deeds for the same, from which position he was removed by President Cleveland
in 1886. In the fall of that year he visited England to inform the friends that he had made while there, of the
progress of the colored race in America, and on his return he was appointed minister to Hayti, by President Harrison
in 1889. His career as a benefactor of his race was closed by his death in February, 1895, near Washington.
FROM:
A Biographical Record
Of Schuyler County, New York
The S. J. Clarke Publishing Company
New York and Chicago 1903.
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