Mar 27, 2014 - Sale 2342

Sale 2342 - Lot 102

Price Realized: $ 1,188
?Final Price Realized includes Buyer’s Premium added to Hammer Price
Estimate: $ 1,500 - $ 2,500
(SLAVERY AND ABOLITION.) PENNINGTON, J[AMES] W.C. A Two Year's Absence or a Farewell Sermon Preached in the Fifth Congregational Church by J.W.C. Pennington, Nov. 2nd, 1845. 31 pages, 8vo, dis-bound. Hartford: H.T. Wells, 1845
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James Pennington (1807-1870) escaped from slavery in Maryland in 1827. He made his way to the Northeast where he studied and became an ordained minister. Pennington was actually well educated, the first black student at Yale, and the author of the first black history (Textbook of the Origin and History . . . Colored People 1841). In 1838, he had officiated at the wedding of Frederick Douglass and Anna Murray. Years later however, word of his location had gotten back to his owner who put out reward for his recapture. In this "Farewell Sermon," Pennington explains to his flock why he must leave them, not from risk of capture: "If I wanted dollars to buy myself, I could raise a thousand within the fire limits of Hartford in twenty-four hours," but in order to continue to prepare for the "great moral battle day," the extinction of slavery, He explains that he is going to take a leave of two years to do "classical study." Pennington toured for several years, returning to his flock in 1850.