ENPages
page_0001
FREDERICK DOUGLASS TO ROSETTA DOUGLASS SPRAGUE
Washington, D.C. 25 May [1878.]
My dear Rosa:
Your nameless boy1Herbert Douglass Sprague (1874–1943) was born on 17 May 1874 in Rochester, New York. He was the sixth of Nathan and Rosetta Douglass Sprague’s seven children, and their only son. Unlike his sisters, he does not appear to have excelled academically, and rather like his father, he instead pursued a variety of occupations over his lifetime, including chauffeur, house painter, and handyman. For many years he lived in Yonkers, New York, with his wife, Martha, and their seven children, but at the time of his death, Sprague was living on his own in New York City, where he was the caretaker of the lodging house where he lived. He was the final person to be buried in the Sprague family plot in Mount Hope Cemetery in Rochester, New York. 1915 New York State Census, Westchester County, 30; 1920 U.S. Census, New York, Westchester County, 11B; 1940 U.S. Census, New York, New York County, 13B; Fought, Women, 220, 267, 272, 276, 310; “U.S. World War I Draft Registration Cards, 1917–1918,” Ancestry.com. is now eight days old. No doubt he is a fine fellow and I should be glad to see him, but he must get a little older before I make him a call. I was once vain enough to want your first boy called “Douglass,” but upon reflection I have given up this vanity: I think the honor belongs to Nathan.2Nathan Sprague. His first boy should be called Nathan.
We are doing pretty well here considering that I neither have Mother3Anna Murray Douglass. nor Louisa4Helen Louise “Louisa” Sprague. to help me keep house—I wish you could send me one or the other of them by the first of June.
Our house is now perfectly clean from top to bottom. A glorious rain came this morning giving a smiling face to my lawn—lettuce & cantelope vines.
Lewis has come home from a weeks tour of his postal agency5Lewis H. Douglass was appointed special postal agent (or inspector for the post office) on 13 April 1875 and served in this capacity for two years. Without additional information, it is impossible to determine where his most recent inspection tour took him. Washington Bee, 26 September 1908; James Monroe Gregory, Frederick Douglass the Orator (Springfield, Mass., 1893), 203; Bernier and Taylor, If I Survive, 22. He is doing much hard travelling but looks well. He is young, strong and should like his work. I did at his age. But I now begin to like the chimney corner and hate to travel those I want to see and those who want to see me must do the needful travelling I have had enough of it. This will reach you about Thursday and I hope by that time you will be able to scribble me a few lines with your own dear feeble hand. You must tell me all about your grand Boy—If I shall like him as well as I like your girls—he will be very well liked.
Love from all here to all in Rochester and especially to yourself—
Your father
FREDK DOUGLASS
ALS: General Correspondence File, reel 32, frames 58R–59, FD Papers, DLC.
