Charles R. Douglass to Frederick Douglass, January 16, 1873

CHARLES R. DOUGLASS TO FREDERICK DOUGLASS

Washington[,] D.C. 16 Jan[uar]y 1873.

DEAR FATHER,

I have delayed writing until now, simply for something of interest to write about. Fred.^{1Frederick Douglass, Jr.} informed you of the new arrival^{2Charles’s wife, Mary Elizabeth Murphy Douglass, gave birth to the couple’s fourth child, Julia Ada Douglass (1873–87), on 5 January 1873. “Ada” was born in Washington, D.C., where she died of typhoid fever at age fourteen, just one day after the disease claimed her brother Charles Frederick. Bernier and Taylor, If I Survive, 37, 38, 489; Blight, Prophet of Freedom, 678; Fought, Women, 266, 310.} and I can add that both Libbie and the baby are doing finely.

They are progressing rapidly with the building on the corner, and by the last of next week I expect the roof will be completed.

I have great prospects in view, and I expect by April first, in company with four or five others to open a brick yard on the hill. We have had one meeting at my house and have examined the clay on the hill lot and find it to be of superior quality. Two of our company are practical brickmakers. We propose to start with five hundred dollars, and burn 100,000

brick before making any sale. I am satisfied the investment will pay handsomely, and after a short time, I intend to make the profits build me on the two remaining building sites on the corner, two buildings like the one now going up, the difference being that they shall be entirely brick. I have agreed to take my share in brick for one year.^{3Although there is no evidence that this business venture ever materialized (or, if it did, that it proved to be a financial success), it is worth noting that Charles did build a structure, Douglass Hall, at the corner of Howard Street and Nichols Avenue in Anacostia in the 1870s. Muller, Lion of Anacostia, 98; Hutchinson, Anacostia Story, 118.}

With my health keeping good, in a very few years I expect to make myself independent of Uncle Sam, and turn my back on politics. This I am determined on. I have found out lately that those for whom I have striven to serve are the first ones to turn their backs on me when I am down. I now intend to mind my own business, and leave others to do the same for themselves. You would hardly believe the mean things that have been said and done against me and mine by those whom I have served faithfully, and the reason, contemptible as it is, seems to be my success in keeping my head above water, and trying to get hold of something. I am fully satisfied that I have done no injury to any of my own folks, or their friends.

On sunday morning last I took mother,^{4Anna Murray Douglass.} Miss Peirce,^{5The editors have not been able to identify Miss Peirce. The only person by that name who can currently be placed within Charles R. Douglass’s potential social circle is a young widow named Rosemond “Rose” Asenath Simons Pierce (aka Peirce or Pearce) (1840–1913), who worked as a clerk in the treasurer’s office starting in 1863. A native of Herkimer County, New York, and the daughter of a Methodist minister who supported the abolitionist and the temperance movements, Pierce gave up her job with the Treasury Department in March 1873 after marrying Lester Frank Ward, the wellknown author, botanist, and sociologist. 1850 U.S. Census, New York, Herkimer County, 44A; 1870 U.S. Census, District of Columbia, Washington, 119; 1880 U.S. Census, District of Columbia, Washington, 13; Edward C. Rafferty, Apostle of Human Progress: Lester Frank Ward and American Political Thought, 1841–1914 (Lanham, Md., 2003), 88–89; “U.S., Register of Civil, Military, and Naval Services, 1863–1959,” Ancestry.com; “U.S., City Directories, 1822–1995”; Find a Grave (online).} and Louisa^{6Helen Louise “Louisa” Sprague.} to the Presbyterian Church^{7Charles and his party probably attended the Fifteenth Street “Colored” Presbyterian Church, where the Reverend J. Sella Martin had been pastor before editing the New National Era with the Douglass family. After Martin’s departure, the Reverend Septimus Tustin served as minister beginning in 1871 and might still have been there in early 1873. In 1877, the Reverend Francis Grimké began a more than half-century tenure as pastor of the Fifteenth Street Presbyterian Church. From 1870, the church housed the first high school for African Americans in the District. Douglass frequently spoke at meetings in the church, whose carpeted interior and glass chandeliers were a source of pride for the city’s African American community. Allan Johnston, Surviving Freedom: The Black Community of Washington, D.C., 1860–1880 (New York, 1993), 56, 60, 84–85, 192; Constance McLaughlin Green, The Secret City: A History of Race Relations in the Nation’s Capital (Princeton, N.J., 1967), 51–52, 97, 102.} in the large carraige. It was a beautiful day, and to day seems like spring. Ladies are out with parasols. The bay window has been completed, and is now ready for use. I hope you will get home before the first of March. It seems to me that you might let your Nebraska appointments go.^{8Douglass gave his speech “Reminiscences of the Anti-Slavery Conflict” at Simpson’s Hall in Omaha, Nebraska, on 21 January 1873 as part of an extended tour that also took him to Illinois, Iowa, Minnesota, and Michigan. Douglass was back in Washington, D.C., by the end of February. His only known speaking engagement in March took place on the 10th, when he spoke at the Academy of Music in Philadelphia. His next engagement was not until 11 April, when he spoke at Lincoln Hall, in Washington, D.C. Douglass Papers, ser. 1, 4:xxxii; Omaha Daily Herald, 19, 21, 22 January 1873; Grand Rapids (Mich.) Daily Times, 22, 24, 26, 29, 30, 31 January, 1 February 1873; Carthage (Ill.) Gazette, 22 January 1873; Council Bluffs (Iowa) Weekly Nonpareil, 22, 23, 24 January 1873; Omaha Weekly Herald, 29 January 1873; Grand Rapids (Mich.) Daily Eagle, 29, 30, 31 January 1873; NNE, 30 January, 13, 20 February 1873; Grand Rapids (Mich.) Morning Democrat, 1 February 1873; St. Paul (Minn.) Dispatch, 4, 7, 8 February 1873.} You would enjoy such weather as we are having now, and I see no necessity of sacrificing every pleasure in this world especially after you have done more than the work of a score of men, and can live independently to the end if you choose. I would rejoice to day if I knew that you had determined to stop, and for the remainder of your life enjoy the fruits of your too many years labor as other men do who have not labored as you have. Thirty years on Rail-roads and steam-boats, aside from lecturing night after night, would kill most any ordinary man, and now that you are in seeming good health you should stop. If any thing less laborious should turn up for you, the case might be different. I firmly believe by the signs of the times, and the recognition you are receiving from such prominent administration men as Sec’y Fish,^{9Hamilton Fish.} that something worth your while to accept is in store for you.^{10At the time Charles wrote this letter, rumors that Douglass was under consideration for appointment to a senior diplomatic post had been circulating in Washington, D.C., for several years, and would continue to do so for years to come. In an era when political allies were routinely rewarded for their support, Douglass, who vigorously campaigned for Ulysses S. Grant in the 1872 election, would not have been amiss to expect his efforts to receive acknowledgment from both the Republican party and the Grant administration in the form of an appointment of some kind. Whether he was seriously under consideration for the kind of diplomatic post implied by Charles is uncertain, but we know that Douglass’s only political appointments under Grant were as an assistant secretary to the commission sent to Santo Domingo in 1871 and as a council member in the upper legislative branch of the District of Columbia’s territorial government in 1872. Barnes, Douglass, 110–13; Blight, Prophet of Freedom, 533–34; Horne, Deepest South, 245; Hutchinson, Anacostia Story, 95, 97.} Your course since election is being favorably commented upon by all parties, while that of [illegible] is being condemned.

All join in love and hope to see you at home soon,

Aff’y Your Son

CHAS. R. DOUGLASS

ALS: General Correspondence File, reel 2, frames 644–46L, FD Papers, DLC.

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