Mar 10, 2011 - Sale 2239

Sale 2239 - Lot 53

Price Realized: $ 2,400
?Final Price Realized includes Buyer’s Premium added to Hammer Price
Estimate: $ 3,000 - $ 4,000
DOUGLASS, FREDERICK. Frederick Douglass' Paper, Vol. VIII, No 39, September 14, 1855. Bi-folium, four pages; creases where folded. A fresh, crisp copy. Rochester, 1855

Additional Details

a very important issue, reporting on the noted Passmore Williamson Case. Passmore Williamson. together with William Still and other free blacks, were accused of attacking the Honorable John H. Wheeler, then Minister to Nicaragua, in an attempt to free the latter's slaves. On July 18, 1855, while working for the Pennsylvania Anti-Slavery Society, Williamson and others helped Jane Johnson and her two children (one 5 or 6, the other 11 or 12) escape enslavement from John Hill Wheeler, who in 1855, was on a trip with his slaves from Washington, D.C., to Nicaragua as U.S. ambassador. Williamson, with a group of freemen, forcibly took Wheeler's slaves from his possession and helped them to safety. When Wheeler tried to stop Johnson's escape, a minor scuffle ensued. Includes testimony from Jane Johnson herself.