Pea-Pho: Peabody through Phoenix

See below for annotated biographies of American abolitionists and anti-slavery activists. Sources include: Scribner’s Dictionary of American Biography and Appletons’ Cyclopaedia of American Biography.


PEABODY, David, Worcester, Massachusetts, Massachusetts Anti-Slavery Society, Vice-President, 1838-40.


PEABODY, Elizabeth, 1804-1894, Billenica, Massachusetts, educator, anti-slavery activist.


PEARL, Cyril, Reverend, Bolton, Connecticut, clergyman.  Agent for the American Colonization Society (ACS), representing Vermont and Maine.  He was assistant to ACS agent Reverend Joshua Danforth. 

(Staudenraus, P. J. The African Colonization Movement, 1816-1865. New York: Columbia University Press, 1961, p. 197)


PEARSON, Robert, New Jersey, abolitionist, member and delegate of the New Jersey Society for Promoting the Abolition of Slavery, founded in New Jersey, 1793.

(Basker, James G., gen. ed. Early American Abolitionists: A Collection of Anti-Slavery Writings, 1760-1820. New York: Gilder Lehrman Institute of American History, 2005, pp. 223, 239n6)


PECK, Alfred, New York, abolitionist, American Abolition Society.

(Radical Abolitionist, Volume 1, No. 1, New York, August 1855)


PECK, Harriet, abolitionist.

(Yellin, Jean Fagan and John C. Van Horne (Eds). The Abolitionist Sisterhood: Women’s Political Culture in Antebellum America. Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press, 1994, pp. 187-188, 190, 193, 193n, 196)


PECK, Sheldon, 1797-1869, radical abolitionist, social reformer, advocate for women’s rights, temperance, racial equality, education, pacifism.  Called for immediate end to slavery.  Agent for abolitionist newspaper, Western Citizen.  Delegate for the Liberty Party.


PEERS, Benjamin Orrs, 1800-1842, clergyman, university president, successful agent of the American Colonization Society.  Traveled in Pennsylvania, Kentucky and Ohio, founding numerous auxiliaries and raising funds.  Organized auxiliaries in Pittsburgh, Cleveland, Canfield, Canton, and Columbus. 

(Appleton’s Cyclopaedia of American Biography, 1888, Volume IV, p. 699; Dictionary of American Biography, Charles Scribner’s Sons, New York, 1936, Volume 7, Pt. 2, p. 389; Staudenraus, P. J. The African Colonization Movement, 1816-1865. New York: Columbia University Press, 1961, pp. 137-139)


PEIRCE, Cyrus, 1790-1860, Nantucket, Massachusetts, educator, Unitarian minister, abolitionist, Massachusetts Anti-Slavery Society, Vice-President, 1838-40.


PELOUBET, Chabrier, Bloomfield, New Jersey, abolitionist, American Anti-Slavery Society, Manager, 1839-1840.


PEMBERTON, James, 1723-1808, merchant, Society of Friends, Quaker.  President of the Abolition Society, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, 1790-1803.  Aided numerous slaves.  Co-founder of the Society for the Relief of Free Negroes, in 1775.  Its name was changed to the Society for Promoting the Abolition of Slavery in 1787.  He was Vice President of the Society, 1787-1790.  In 1790, he became President, succeeding Benjamin Franklin, and led the Society for 13 years.  He was active in Native American issues.  He served on the Friendly Association for Regaining and Preserving Peace with the Indians by Pacific Measures.  He was opposed to the war with the Delaware Indians in 1756.  He was active in public education and health.  Pemberton’s brother was also actively engaged in the anti-slavery movement and was Vice President of the Society for Promoting the Abolition of Slavery.
 
(Basker, James G., gen. ed. Early American Abolitionists: A Collection of Anti-Slavery Writings, 1760-1820. New York: Gilder Lehrman Institute of American History, 2005, pp., x, 80, 84-85, 92, 101; Bruns, Roger, ed. Am I Not a Man and a Brother: The Antislavery Crusade of Revolutionary America, 1688-1788. New York: Chelsea House Publishers, 1977, pp. 510, 514; Drake, 1950, pp. 54, 93-94, 102, 113, 122; Locke, Mary Stoughton. Anti-Slavery in America from the Introduction of African Slaves to the Prohibition of the Slave Trade (1619-1808). Boston: Ginn & Co., 1901, p. 92; Nash, Gary B., & Soderlund, Jean R. Freedom by Degrees: Emancipation in Pennsylvania and Its Aftermath. New York: Oxford University Press, 1991, pp. 49, 65, 124-125, 130; Soderlund, Jean R. Quakers & Slavery: A Divided Spirit. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1985, pp. 44, 140, 151, 161, 170, 171, 197, 199; Zilversmit, Arthur. The First Emancipation: The Abolition of Slavery in the North. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1967, pp. 159, 160; Appletons’ Cyclopaedia of American Biography, 1888, Volume IV, p. 706; Dictionary of American Biography, Charles Scribner’s Sons, New York, 1936, Volume 7, Pt. 2, p. 413).

Dictionary of American Biography, Charles Scribner’s Sons, New York, 1936, Volume 7, Pt. 2, p. 413:

PEMBERTON, JAMES (August 26, 1723-February 9, 1809), Quaker merchant and philanthropist, the eighth of the ten children of Israel and Rachel (Read) Pemberton, and brother of Israel and John Pemberton [qq.v.], was born in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania He was educated in Friends' School. In 1745 he traveled in the Carolinas and in 1748 he went to Europe, primarily for business purposes, as he was associated with his father and brother in the shipping trade. His main interest was in the Society of Friends and in the various religious organizations. An active member of Meeting, he sat at the head of the preacher's gallery for many years. When the Meeting for Sufferings, the executive body of the Friends, was established in 1756 he was, appointed a member; a position which he held until 1808. With his brother Israel he was .one of the trustees of the Friendly Association for Regaining and Preserving Peace with the Indians by Pacific Measures, and was a liberal contributor to its support. He as one of the founders of the Society for the Relief of Free Negroes, established in 1775. In 1787, when it became the Pennsylvania Society for Promoting the Abolition of Slavery, he became vice-president, and in 1790 he succeeded Franklin as president, holding this office for thirteen years. He was a member of the Board of overseers of the public schools of Philadelphia, for both the city and the county, and took an active part in establishing secondary education in, the Friends' schools. A member of the first board. of managers of the Pennsylvania Hospital, he served for twenty-two years on the board, and acted as secretary from 1759 to 1772. He was elected a member of the American Philosophical Society in January 1768.

Pemberton was elected to the Assembly for the County. of Philadelphia but he resigned in June 1756 with five colleagues because of his opposition to a war with the Delawares. In 1757, as clerk of the Meeting, he signed a petition to the governor protesting against forcing the Friends of the Lower Counties to bear arms. He was reelected to the Assembly in 1765 and held office for four years. At the time of the Stamp Act, he signed the non-importation agreement. He opposed armed resistance to Great Britain and was arrested, imprisoned in the Free Masons' Lodge, and deported with nineteen other Quakers to Virginia. Since they were not permitted to attend meeting, Pemberton helped to set up one of their own. On his return to Philadelphia he gave up all active interest in politics. As early as 1756 he wrote An Apology for the People called Quakers, containing some Reasons for their not complying with Human Injunctions and Institutions in matters relative to the Worship of God. In his capacity as clerk of the meeting he wrote, as well, many documents of a religious nature, one of which was a "Remonstrance v s. Erecting a Theatre and Theatrical Performances in Philadelphia." (See Votes and Proceedings of the House of Representatives ... of Pennsylvania, 1775, volume V, p. 524.) During the exile in Virginia he kept a journal, but more interesting are his letters, which are descriptive, concise, and filled with comments up on the life in the city and country. He died in 1809, in his eighty-sixth year. He had married, on October 15, 1751, Hannah, daughter of Mordecai and Hannah (Fishbourne) Lloyd. After h er death in 1764, he married, on March 22, 1768, Sarah, daughter of Daniel and Mary (Hoedt) Smith of Burlington, New Jersey.  Two years after her death he married, on July 12, 1775, Phoebe (Lewis) Morton, daughter of Robert and M ary Lewis.

[See: F. W. Leach, "Old Philadelphia Families," Philadelphia North America, July 28, 1907; J. W. Jordan. ed., Colonial Families of Philadelphia (1911), volume I; Isaac Sharpless, A History of Quaker Government in Pennsylvania (2 volumes, 1900) and Political Leaders of Provincial Pennsylvania (1919); R. M. Smith, The Burlington Smiths (1877); Thos. Gilpin, Exiles in Virginia (1848); Edward Needles, An Historical Memoir of the Pennsylvania Society for Promoting the Abo1ition of Slavery (1848); G. B. Wood, An Address on the Occasion of the Centennial Celebration of the Founding of the Pennsylvania Hospital (1851); J. F. Watson, Annals of Philadelphia (1844), volume I; Friends' Miscellany, May 1835; Pennsylvania. Magazine of History and Biography, January 1889, July 1899, July 1914; Pennsylvania Archives, 2 series IX (1880); Minutes of the Provincial Council of Pennsylvania, volume VII (1851), volume IX (1852). There are Pemberton manuscripts in the library of the Pennsylvania Historical Society]

E.M.B-n.

Appletons’ Cyclopaedia of American Biography, 1888, Volume IV, p. 706:

PEMBERTON, James, merchant, born in Philadelphia, 26 August, 1723; died there, 9 February, 1808, after completing his education in the Quaker schools, entered on a successful mercantile career. Although not so distinguished a man among the Quakers as his brother Israel, he wielded a large influence in both church and public affairs. He was one of the founders, and a member of the board of managers, of the Pennsylvania hospital, was early interested in the negroes, and became one of the organizers of the Pennsylvania abolition society, of which, on Benjamin Franklin's death in 1790, he was chosen president. During the Indian wars he united with his brothers to restore peace. Many of the Indian chiefs that came to Philadelphia enjoyed his hospitality. An important object with him during his life was the distribution of religious and instructive books, for which he gave liberally. In 1756, while holding a place in the assembly, he resigned his seat because the service, involving the consideration of military measures, was incompatible with his principles. In the following year he published “An Apology for the People called Quakers, containing some Reasons for their not complying with Human Injunctions and Institutions in Matters relative to the Worship of God.” He was among those that, in 1777, were exiled to Virginia. His country-seat, on Schuylkill river, was occupied by some of Lord Howe's officers when the British held Philadelphia. It passed into the possession of the National government, and is now the site of the U. S. naval asylum. Appleton’s Cyclopaedia of American Biography, 1888, Volume IV, pp. 706.


PEMBERTON, John, 1727-1795, Delaware, abolitionist leader, Society of Friends, Quaker, leader and delegate of the Delaware Abolition Society, founded 1788, vice president of the Pennsylvania Society for Promoting Abolition of Slavery, 1787.

(Appletons’ Cyclopaedia of American Biography, 1888, Volume IV, pp. 706-707; Dictionary of American Biography, Charles Scribner’s Sons, New York, 1936, Volume 7, Pt. 2, pp. 413-414; Basker, James G., gen. ed. Early American Abolitionists: A Collection of Anti-Slavery Writings, 1760-1820. New York: Gilder Lehrman Institute of American History, 2005, pp. 225, 240n19; Nash, Gary B., & Soderlund, Jean R. Freedom by Degrees: Emancipation in Pennsylvania and Its Aftermath. New York: Oxford University Press, 1991, pp. 49, 56, 65, 163; American National Biography, Oxford University Press, New York, 2002, Volume 17, p. 269). 

Dictionary of American Biography, Charles Scribner’s Sons, New York, 1936, Volume 7, Pt. 2, pp. 413-414:

PEMBERTON; JOHN (November 27, 1727-January 31, 1795), Quaker preacher, ninth of the ten children of Israel and Rachel (Read) Pemberton and younger brother of Israel and James Pemberton, [qq.v.], was born in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, where he attended Friends' schools. He entered business with his father and brother s, but soon gave this up so that he might devote his full time to religious work. In 1750, while traveling abroad for his health, he came into contact with John Churchman, a Quaker minister who was on his way to Great Britain on a religious tour. He persuaded Pemberton to accompany him, and for three years they journeyed through the west counties of England, in Ireland, Scotland, and Holland. During the trip Pemberton was persuaded to preach and on his return to Philadelphia he devoted his time to preaching and to missionary work, visiting in Pennsylvania, New Jersey, Delaware, and Virginia. A member of the Friendly Association for Regaining and Preserving Peace with the Indians by Pacific Measures, he attended the Easton conference in 1756. Ten years later he was chosen with John Penn to present the remonstrance against stage plays, prepared by his brother James, to the governor. Further revealing his religious convictions is the provisional lease which Pemberton granted in 1780 for a Coffee House, in which the tenant promised to "preserve decency," keep the house closed on Sunday, and prohibit swearing and card playing, with a penalty of £100 for the first offense.

Opposed to the war against the Delawares in 1756, he was equally hostile to armed resistance to Great Britain in 1777. Early in September 1777 he was notified that orders had been received to take him prisoner. When he refused to leave the house or give up his keys a guard of ten men took him by force. His desk was broken open and the contents seized. With his brothers he was sent to Winchester, Virginia, a journey of nineteen days by wagon. The year before he had begun to keep a journal, commenting upon the arrest of Friends for refusing to bear arms, and deploring the loss of life caused by war and sickness. He kept this journal throughout his exile, giving a clear picture of his arrest and imprisonment. His chief complaint throughout his imprisonment was of the cold and rain. On April 21, 1778, he left Winchester, arriving in Philadelphia nine days later, the day after he received his official pardon from Washington. He continued to keep up his journal after his return, but the majority of the entries refer only to the Meeting and to various Friends. At the Quarterly Meeting, February 5, 1781, Pemberton was given a certificate to visit the Friends in England. Despite the fact that it was now against the law to leave the country without a passport, he notified the council that he intended to dispense with the formality. Permitted to leave, he went to England, Ireland, and Scotland, visiting and preaching for five years. He returned to Philadelphia but set out again on May 30, 1794, for Holland and Germany. He held meetings on shipboard, in Amsterdam, and in several towns in Prussia. Early in September he became ill, but he continued to Pyrmont, Westphalia. Thereafter he referred constantly in his journal and letters to his illness, though he commented also upon his surroundings, the scenery, and the people. His condition rapidly grew worse and he died at Pyrmont on the last day of January 1795. Pemberton's wife was Hannah, the daughter of Isaac and Sarah Zane, whom he married in Philadelphia on May 8, 1766.

[F. W. Leach, "Old Philadelphia Families," Philadelphia North American, July 28, 1907; J. W. Jordan, ed., Colonial Families of Philadelphia (19II), volume I; Isaac Sharpless, A History of Quaker Government in Pennsylvania (2 volumes, 1900); J. F. Watson, Annals of Philadelphia (1844), volume I; Thos. Gilpin, Exiles in Virginia (1848); G. B. Wood, An Address on the Occasion of the Centennial Celebration of the Founding of the Pennsylvania Hospital (1851); Friends' Miscellany, January, February, March 1836; The Diary of John Pemberton for the Years I777 and 1778 (1867), ed. by E. K. Price; Thos. Wilkinson, Some Account of the Last Journey of John Pemberton to the Highlands, and Other Parts of Scotland (1811); Pennsylvania Magazine of History and Biography, October 1885, April-October 1917.]

E. M. B-n.

Appleton’s Cyclopaedia of American Biography, 1888, Volume IV, pp. 706-707:

PEMBERTON, John, Quaker preacher, born in Philadelphia, 27 November, 1727; died in Pyrmont, Westphalia, Germany, 31 January, 1795, received a good education, and engaged in business as a merchant. In 1750 he made a voyage to Europe for his health and the prosecution of some business matters. Shortly after his arrival in London, Pemberton accompanied his friend, John Churchman, on a religious tour. He subsequently travelled with Churchman, preaching the doctrines of the Friends, through England, Ireland, Scotland, and Holland, and after three years returned to this country. He took a deep interest in the Indians, and was active in his efforts to maintain peaceful relations between them and the whites. In 1777 he was among those Quakers who were arrested in Philadelphia and sent in exile to Virginia. His journal, containing an account of the same, is printed in “Friends' Miscellany” (vol. viii.). In 1782 he made another religious visit to Great Britain and Ireland which continued until 1789, his meetings being frequently held in barns and in the open air, because other places could not be had. “An Account of the Last Journey of John Pemberton to the Highlands and other Places in Scotland in the Year 1787,” written by his companion, Thomas Wilkinson, is printed in “Friends' Miscellany.” Pemberton returned to Philadelphia in 1789, and in 1794 again went abroad on a missionary tour into Holland and Germany, in which countries he labored until his death. On quitting Amsterdam, he issued an address to the inhabitants of that city, entitled “Tender Caution and Advice to the Inhabitants of Amsterdam.” See his journal of travels in Holland and Germany in “Friends' Miscellany” (vol. viii.). He left a large estate, much of which he gave by his will to the several charitable, benevolent, and religious organizations with which he had been associated, and for the purpose of aiding in the formation of like organizations. Appleton’s Cyclopaedia of American Biography, 1888, Volume IV, pp. 706-707.


PENDLETON, James Madison (November 20, 1811-March 4, 1891), Baptist minister and educator. He thus supported the proposals of Henry Clay, for gradual emancipation of the slaves, a project which did not meet with general approval in Kentucky.

Dictionary of American Biography, Charles Scribner’s Sons, New York, 1936, Volume 7, Pt. 2, pp. 241-242:

PENDLETON, JAMES MADISON (November 20, 1811-March 4, 1891), Baptist minister and educator, was born in Spotsylvania County, Virginia, the son of John and Frances J. (Thompson) Pendleton. He could not trace his ancestry beyond his grandfather, Henry Pendleton, Jr., of Culpeper County, who served in the Revolution. When James was about a year old, the family moved to Christian County, Kentucky, where, on a farm near Pembroke, he lived until he was twenty. He attended the local schools, and from 1833 to 1836 an academy at Hopkinsville. At seventeen he had joined the church; he began to preach at nineteen, and was licensed by the Bethel Baptist Church in 1831. For the next two years he preached, taught school, and studied, and on November 2, 1833, he was ordained at Hopkinsville. After some local preaching during the continuation of his studies, he became in 1837 pastor of the Baptist Church at Bowling Green, and the following year, March 13, 1838, he married Catherine Stockton Garnett of Glasgow, Kentucky. To them four children, were born. His twenty-year pastorate at Bowling Green fell during a period when no one could exert an influence in the spiritual and moral life of the community without showing his political proclivities, and Pendleton's development was increasingly adverse to slavery and concerned for the preservation of the Union. He thus supported the proposals of Henry Clay, including that for gradual emancipation of the slaves, a project which did not meet with general approval in Kentucky.

In 1857 Pendleton accepted the chair of theology in Union University at Murfreesboro, Tennessee. Here he studied and taught church history as well as Biblical and historical theology, and also served as pastor of the local Baptist Church. At the outbreak of the Civil War his attachment to the Union cause virtually forced him to leave Tennessee, and from 1862 to 1865 he served as pastor at Hamilton, Ohio. A son who had enlisted in the Confederate army was soon killed by accident; but the grief of the father was assuaged by the thought that his son "had never fired a gun at a Union soldier." In 1865 he accepted a call to the Baptist Church at Upland, Pennsylvania, where he became one of the original trustees of Crozer Theological Seminary, established three years later. He resigned the Upland pastorate in 1883 and spent the following years with one or another of his children, in Kentucky, Tennessee, and Texas. He died at Bowling Green.

Pendleton won a reputation as a preacher and writer of superior intellectual power, especially during his career at Murfreesboro, when from 1855 to 1861 he was one of the editors of the Southern Baptist Review Eclectic. His articles and review s show a wide range of reading and acute logical powers, based upon certain presuppositions which he never questioned. His later revisions of his early works show little change from his fundamental position (strictly orthodox and essentially "Landmarker"), although in the later works some of his conclusions were not so obtrusively asserted. Among his published works are Three Reasons Why I am a Baptist (1853), revised as Distinctive Principles of Baptists (1882); Church Manual (copyright 1867); A Treatise on the Atonement of Christ (1869, revised in 1885); and Christian Doctrines (1878), the last two being revisions of articles first published in the Review and Eclectic. His autobiography, Reminiscences of a Long Life (1891), was published after his death.

[J. M. Pendleton, Reminiscences (1891); Wm. Cathcart, The Baptist Encyclopedia (1881); Semi-Centennial of Upland Baptist Church, 1852-1902 (n.d.), containing an interpretation by a son, Garnett Pendleton; J. H. Spencer, A History of Kentucky Baptists (1886), II, 523-25; Courier-Journal (Louisville, Kentucky), March 5, 1891.]

W.H.A.


PENNINGTON, James William Charles, 1807-1870, African American, American Missionary Association, fugitive slave, abolitionist, orator, clergyman.  Published The Fugitive Blacksmith in London in 1844.  One of the first African American students to attend Yale University. Served as a delegate to the Second World Conference on Slavery in London.  Active in the Amistad slave case.  Recruited African American troops for the Union Army. 

(Dumond, Dwight Lowell, Antislavery: The Crusade for Freedom in America, University of Michigan Press, 1961, pp. 330-334; Mabee, Carleton. Black Freedom: The Nonviolent Abolitionists from 1830 Through the Civil War. London: Macmillan, 1970, pp. 65, 100, 101, 140, 194, 203, 269, 338, 339, 413n1; Rodriguez, Junius P., Slavery in the United States: A Social, Political, and Historical Encyclopedia, ABC-CLIO, 2007, pp. 52, 73, 166, 413-414; Dictionary of American Biography, Charles Scribner’s Sons, New York, 1936, Volume 7, Pt. 2, pp. 441-442; American National Biography, Oxford University Press, New York, 2002, Volume 17, p. 300). 

Dictionary of American Biography, Charles Scribner’s Sons, New York, 1936, Volume 7, Pt. 2, pp. 441-442:

PENNINGTON, JAMES W. C. (1809-0ctober 1870), teacher, preacher, and author, was born in slavery on the Eastern Shore of Maryland. While he was a slave he was known as Jim Pembroke. In his own story of his early life he recalls the desolate, terrifying days of his childhood, deprived of parental care, lacking education, and shrinking from the tyranny of his master's children and the brutality of the overseers. When he was four years old he was given, with his mother, to his first master's son, Frisbie Tilghman of Hagerstown, and was taken to live in Washington County. At nine he was hired out to a stone mason. Returning two years later to the home plantation, he was trained as a blacksmith and followed that trade until he was about twenty-one, when he decided to run away. After experiencing hunger, exhaustion, and escape from capture, he was welcomed one morning by a Pennsylvania Quaker with the friendly greeting, "Come in and take thy breakfast, and get warm" (The Fugitive Blacksmith, post, p. 41). He spent six months in this home, and under the guidance of his Quaker teacher, laid the foundation of an extensive education. Some months later he found work on western Long Island, near New York City; he attended evening school, and was privately tutored. Five years after his escape he qualified to teach in colored schools, first at Newtown, L. I., then at New Haven, Connecticut. While at New Haven he studied theology, and pastorates in African Congregational churches at Newtown, L. I. (1838-40) and at Hartford, Connecticut (1840-47) followed. His scholarship and pulpit eloquence attracted favorable attention in Hartford, and he served twice as president of the Hartford Central Association of Congregational Ministers, the membership being all white except himself. During this time he examined two candidates (one a Kentuckian) for their licenses to preach. Closely identified with measures to help his race, he was five times elected a member of the General Convention for the Improvement of Free People of Colour, and in 1843 was sent to represent Connecticut at the World's Anti-Slavery Convention at London. He was also the delegate of the American Peace Convention to the World's Peace Society meeting in London the same year. While in Europe he lectured or preached in London, Paris, and Brussels.

Until a short time before the passage of the "Fugitive Slave Law" (1850) he kept secret, even from his wife, the fact that he was a runaway slave. Fearing recapture, he appealed to John Hooker, of Hartford, to negotiate for his freedom and went abroad until his status should be determined. After many discouragements, a payment of $150 to the estate of his one-time master brought a bill of sale, and a deed of manumission was recorded in the town records of Hartford, June 5, 1851. In the meantime Pennington had become the first pastor of the First (Shiloh) Presbyterian Church on Prince Street in New York City. This pulpit he occupied for eight years (1847-55). During this time his story of his early life, The Fugitive Blacksmith (preface dated 1849; 3rd ed., 1850) was published in London, the proceeds of the sa le of the same being intended to aid in financing the new church. He had previously published Text Book of the Origin and History, &c, &c of the Colored People (1841). A few of his sermons and addresses survive, including Covenants Involving Moral Wrong Are Not Obligatory upon Man: A Sermon (1842), and The Reasonableness of the Abolition of Slavery (1856). In 1859 he contributed to the Anglo-African Magazine several articles on the capabilities of his race. After 1855 he is listed in the Minutes of the Presbyterian General Assembly as a member of the Third New York Presbytery, without a pastorate, his address appearing as New York, Hartford, occasionally Maine. During his last years his usefulness was much impaired by the excessive use of intoxicants (Brown, post). In 1869 or early in 1870 he went to Florida, hoping to benefit his health, and at Jacksonville he gathered together a colored Presbyterian church, but he died there soon after.

[In addition to The Fugitive Blacksmith, see John Hooker, Reminiscences of a Long Life (1899); Wilson Armistead, A Tribute for the Negro (1848), containing an autographed portrait; W. W. Brown, The Rising Son; or, The Antecedents and Advancement of the Colored R ace (1874); W. J. Simmons, Men of Mark (1887); Hartford (1843-49) and New York City (1848- 68) directories; Hartford Town Records; references in the Tappan Papers, Journal of Negro History, April July 1927; Minutes of the General Assembly, Presbyt. Church in the U. S. A., 1871, p. 601, which gives date of death as October 20; New York Observer, November 10, 1870, which gives date of death as October 22.]

A. E. P.


PENNOCK, Abraham, Philadelphia, Society of Friends, Quaker, Free Produce Society of Pennsylvania, abolitionist, editor Non Slaveholder.

(Drake, Thomas. Quakers and Slavery in America. New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 1950, pp., 130, 172-173; Mabee, Carleton. Black Freedom: The Nonviolent Abolitionists from 1830 Through the Civil War. London: Macmillan, 1970, p. 389n7)


PENNOCK, Mary C., abolitionist, Philadelphia Female Anti-Slavery Society (PFASS), Philadelphia, Pennsylvania.

(Yellin, Jean Fagan and John C. Van Horne (Eds). The Abolitionist Sisterhood: Women’s Political Culture in Antebellum America. Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press, 1994)


PENNYPACKER, Elijah Funk, 1804-1888, reformer.  Both of his wives were members of the Society of Friends, which he joined in 1841, being drawn not only by such family ties but also by the anti-slavery sentiment that was a ruling factor in his life. In 1839, he joined the abolition movement, serving from time to time as president of the local society and also as head of the Chester County and the Pennsylvania state anti-slavery societies. His house near Phoenixville, Pennsylvania, became one of the stations on the Underground Railroad, and his two horse wagon was a frequent carrier of black-skinned human freight that sought its way toward the North Star and to freedom. Manager, American and Foreign Anti-Slavery Society (AFASS), 1841-1842. 

(Appletons’ Cyclopaedia of American Biography, 1888, Volume IV, p. 719; Dictionary of American Biography, Charles Scribner’s Sons, New York, 1936, Volume 7, Pt. 2, p. 446). 

Dictionary of American Biography, Charles Scribner’s Sons, New York, 1936, Volume 7, Pt. 2, p. 446:

PENNYPACKER, ELIJAH FUNK (November 29, 1804-January 4, 1888), reformer, was born in Schuylkill Township, Chester County, Pennsylvania. He was the son of Joseph and Elizabeth (Funk) Pennypacker and the descendant of Heinrich (or Hendrick) Pannebacker, a Mennonite who ca me from the Low Countries to Pennsylvania before 1699. He was the uncle of Galusha Pennypacker [q. v.]. The family was prosperous, and he was educated at the boarding school of John Gummere [q.v.] of Burlington, New Jersey, where he followed the bent of his master toward mathematics, surveying, and such practical studies. He married, first, Sarah W. Coates in 1831 who had no children and who died ten years later. In 1843 he married Hannah Adams on, who bore him nine children. Both wives were members of the Society of Friends, which he too joined in 1841, being drawn not only by such family ties but also by the anti-slavery sentiment that was a ruling factor in his life. In his early life he taught for a few years, practised surveying, and devoted himself to farming. Between 1831 and 1836 he served several sessions in the state legislature, where his reputation for uprightness and ability attracted the attention of such men as Thaddeus Stevens and Joseph Ritner. His loyalty to what he thought right must have become irksome at times in legislative halls, for Stevens was once minded to tell him not "to be so damned honest" (Still, post, p. 689). While in the legislature he served ably in many ways as secretary to the board of canal commissioners in 1836 and 1837 and a member of that board in 1838, as chairman of the committee on banks, as sponsor for the bill for incorporation of the Philadelphia Reading Railroad, and as collaborator with Thaddeus Stevens in the establishment of the common school system of Pennsylvania. A career in politics was undoubtedly open to him, but he declined to continue in this path, being unwilling, as one has said, "to hold office under a government that sanctioned human slavery" (Jordan, post, p. 492). After his retirement from public affairs, in 1839, he joined heartily in the abolition movement, serving from time to time as president of the local society and also as head of the Chester County and the Pennsylvania state anti-slavery societies. His house near Phoenixville, Pennsylvania, became one of the stations on the Underground Railroad, and his two horse wagon was a frequent carrier of black-skinned human freight that sought its way toward the North Star and to freedom. Of the " Railroad" he said, whimsically, when the work was done, that its "stock was never reported in money circles, nor dividends declared, but means were ready as long as necessity required. The Emancipation Proclamation of Abraham Lincoln dissolved the Corporation" (Jordan, post, p. 492). He was also prominent in the temperance movement and its candid ate for state treasurer in 1875. Woman's emancipation and her equal education also found in him a hearty supporter. His character did not fail to impress his fellow citizens. Whittier said of him, "In mind, body, and brave championship of the cause of freedom he was one of the most remarkable men I ever knew " (statement of Isaac R. Pennypacker in letter January 27, 1931); and another declared, "If that is not a good man, there is no use in the Lord writing His signature on human countenances " (Still, post, p. 688).

Wm. Still, The Underground Rail Road (1872); J. W. Jordan, Colonial Families of Philadelphia (1911), volume I; J. S. Futhey and Gilbert Cope, History of Chester County, Pennsylvania (1881); S. W. Pennypacker, Annals of Phoenixville (1872); Village Record and Local News of West Chester, Pennsylvania, both of January 5, 1888; date of birth from Pennypacker's daughter.]

T. W.

Appletons’ Cyclopaedia of American Biography, 1888, Volume IV, p. 719:

PENNYPACKER, Elijah Funk, reformer, born in Chester county, Pennsylvania, 20 November, 1804; died in Phoenixville, Pennsylvania, 4 January, 1888. He was educated in the private schools in Burlington, New Jersey, taught there, and subsequently engaged in land surveying in Phoenixville, Pennsylvania. He then became interested in real estate, was in the legislature in 1831-'5, chairman of its committee on banks, and a principal mover in the establishment of public schools. In 1836-'8 he was a canal commissioner. He joined the Society of Friends about 1841, and thenceforth for many years devoted himself to the abolition movement, becoming president of the local anti-slavery society, and of the Chester county, and Pennsylvania state societies. He was an active manager of the “Underground railroad,” and his house was one of its stations. With John Edgar Thompson he made the preliminary surveys of the Pennsylvania railroad. He aided the suffering poor in Ireland in the famine of 1848, and subsequently identified himself with the Prohibition party, becoming their candidate for state treasurer in 1875. He was an organizer of the Pennsylvania mutual fire insurance company in 1869, and was its vice-president till 1879, when he became president, holding office till January, 1887, when he resigned. John G. Whittier says of him: “In mind, body, and brave championship of the cause of freedom he was one of the most remarkable men I ever knew.” Appleton’s Cyclopaedia of American Biography, 1888, Volume IV, pp. 719.


PENROSE, Jonathan, abolitionist leader, vice president of the Pennsylvania Abolitionist Society (PAS), 1787.

(Basker, James G., gen. ed. Early American Abolitionists: A Collection of Anti-Slavery Writings, 1760-1820. New York: Gilder Lehrman Institute of American History, 2005, pp. 81, 92; Bruns, Roger, ed. Am I Not a Man and a Brother: The Antislavery Crusade of Revolutionary America, 1688-1788. New York: Chelsea House Publishers, 1977, p. 514; Nash, Gary B., & Soderlund, Jean R. Freedom by Degrees: Emancipation in Pennsylvania and Its Aftermath. New York: Oxford University Press, 1991, pp. 124-125)


PEPPER, Calvin, abolitionist agent, the American Anti-Slavery Society (AASS). 

(Dumond, Dwight Lowell, Antislavery: The Crusade for Freedom in America, University of Michigan Press, 1961, p. 180)


PERHAM, Sidney, born 1819.  Republican Member of the U.S. House of Representatives from Maine.  Served in Congress 1863-1869.  Voted for Thirteenth Amendment to the Constitution, abolishing slavery.  Governor of Maine 1871-1874. 

(Appletons’ Cyclopaedia of American Biography, 1888, Volume IV, p. 727; Biographical Dictionary of the U.S. Congress 1774-1927 (1928) 

Appleton’s Cyclopaedia of American Biography, 1888, Volume IV, pp. 727:

PERHAM, Sidney, governor of Maine, born in Woodstock, Maine, 27 March, 1819. He was educated in the public schools, and subsequently was a teacher and farmer. He was a member of the state board of agriculture in 1852-'3, speaker of the legislature in 1854, a presidential elector in 1856, and clerk of the supreme judicial court of Oxford county in 1859-'63. He was elected to congress as a Republican, and served in 1863-'9. He was governor of Maine in 1871-'4.  Appleton’s Cyclopaedia of American Biography, 1888, Volume IV, pp. 727.


PERKINS, Jared, Nashua, New Hampshire, abolitionist, American Anti-Slavery Society, Manager, 1839-1840.  Executive Committee, American and Foreign Anti-Slavery Society, 1840-1841.


PERKINS, Jesse, S. Bridgewater, Massachusetts, Massachusetts Abolition Society, Vice-President, 1839-40.


PERO, Martha Ann, African American, abolitionist.

(Yellin, Jean Fagan and John C. Van Horne (Eds). The Abolitionist Sisterhood: Women’s Political Culture in Antebellum America. Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press, 1994, p. 58n40)


PERRY, Gardiner B., East Bradford, Massachusetts, abolitionist, American Anti-Slavery Society, Vice-President, 1834-1835.


PERRY, John M. S., Mendon, Massachusetts, abolitionist. Manager, 1833-1836, and founding member of the American Anti-Slavery Society, December 1833.

(Abolitionist, Volume I, No. XII, December, 1833)


PETER, George, founding charter member of the American Colonization Society in Washington, DC, in December 1816. 

(Staudenraus, P. J. The African Colonization Movement, 1816-1865. New York: Columbia University Press, 1961, p. 258n14)


PETERS, John, founding officer and Board of Managers, American Colonization Society, 1816. 

(Staudenraus, P. J. The African Colonization Movement, 1816-1865. New York: Columbia University Press, 1961, pp. 30, 258n14)


PETERS, John S., Connecticut, Lieutenant Governor of Connecticut.  Member and supporter of the Connecticut Society of the American Colonization Society. 

(Staudenraus, P. J. The African Colonization Movement, 1816-1865. New York: Columbia University Press, 1961, p. 126)


PETERS, Richard, abolitionist, officer of the Pennsylvania Society for Promoting the Abolition of Slavery, reorganized April 23, 1787.

(Nash, Gary B., & Soderlund, Jean R. Freedom by Degrees: Emancipation in Pennsylvania and Its Aftermath. New York: Oxford University Press, 1991, p. 124)


PETTENGILL, Moses, Newburyport, Massachusetts, abolitionist, American Anti-Slavery Society, Manager, 1834-1837.


PETTIGREW, RICHARD FRANKLIN (July 23, 1848-October 5, 1926), delegate from the Territory of Dakota, first senator from South Dakota,

Dictionary of American Biography, Charles Scribner’s Sons, New York, 1936, Volume 7, Pt. 2, p. 516-517:

PETTIGREW, RICHARD FRANKLIN (July 23, 1848-October 5, 1926), delegate from the Territory of Dakota, first senator from South Dakota, was born in Ludlow, Vermont, the son of Hannah B. (Sawtell) and Andrew Pettigrew, who was an abolitionist and maintained a station on the Underground Railroad. The boy's youth was spent on his father's farm in Evansville, Wisconsin, where he attended the public schools and local academy. He entered Beloit College but left in 1867. He studied law at the University of Wisconsin and with John C. Spooner [q.v.], and he settled in Sioux Falls in 1870.


PHELPS, Amos Augustus, Reverend, 1805-1847, Boston, Massachusetts, clergyman, editor. Founding member of the New England Anti-Slavery Society (NEASS), 1832.  Manager and founding member of the American Anti-Slavery Society (AASS), December 1833;  Manager, 1834-1835, Vice-President, 1834-1835, Executive Committee, 1836-1838, Recording Secretary, 1836-1840.  Editor, Emancipation and The National Era. Phelps was the husband of abolitionist Charlotte Phelps.

(Dumond, Dwight Lowell, Antislavery: The Crusade for Freedom in America, University of Michigan Press, 1961, pp. 182, 185, 266, 276, 285; Pease, William H., & Pease, Jane H. The Antislavery Argument. Indianapolis, IN: Bobbs-Merrill Company, 1965, pp. 71-85; Rodriguez, Junius P., Slavery in the United States: A Social, Political, and Historical Encyclopedia, ABC-CLIO, 2007, p. 290; Yellin, Jean Fagan and John C. Van Horne (Eds). The Abolitionist Sisterhood: Women’s Political Culture in Antebellum America. Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press, 1994, pp. 47, 54, 54n, 59-60, 125; Abolitionist, Volume I, No. XII, December, 1833; Appletons’ Cyclopaedia of American Biography, 1888, Volume IV, p. 751; Phelps, “Lectures on Slavery and its Remedy,” Boston, 1834; Staudenraus, P. J. The African Colonization Movement, 1816-1865. New York: Columbia University Press, 1961, pp. 132, 228-229; First Annual Report of the New England Anti-Slavery Society, 1832)

Appleton’s Cyclopaedia of American Biography, 1888, Volume IV, pp. 751:

PHELPS, Amos Augustus, clergyman, born in Farmington, Connecticut, in 1805; died in Roxbury, Massachusetts, 12 September, 1847. He was graduated at Yale in 1826, and at the divinity-school there in 1830, was pastor of Congregational churches in Hopkinton and Boston, Massachusetts, in 1831-'4, became agent of the Massachusetts anti-slavery society at the latter date, and was pastor of the Free church, and subsequently of the Maverick church, Boston, in 1839-'45. He also edited the “Emancipation,” and was secretary of the American anti-slavery society for several years. He published “Lectures on Slavery and its Remedy” (Boston, 1834); “Book of the Sabbath” (1841); “Letters to Dr. Bacon and to Dr. Stowe” (1842); and numerous pamphlets on slavery. Appleton’s Cyclopaedia of American Biography, 1888, Volume IV, pp. 751.


PHELPS, Anson Greene, 1781-1853, merchant, philanthropist. President of the Colonization Society of the State of Connecticut.  Director, American Colonization Society, 1839-1840, president of the American Bible Society, the American Board of Commissioners for Foreign Missions, the American Home Missionary Society, the New York Institute for the Education of the Blind. As president of the Colonization Society of the State of Connecticut, he was particularly interested in the latter as affording the best method of dealing with negro slavery.

(Appletons’ Cyclopaedia of American Biography, 1888, Volume IV, p. 751; Dictionary of American Biography, Charles Scribner’s Sons, New York, 1936, Volume 7, Pt. 2, pp. 525-526). 

Dictionary of American Biography, Charles Scribner’s Sons, New York, 1936, Volume 7, Pt. 2, pp. 525-526:

PHELPS, ANSON GREENE (March 24, 1781- November 30, 1853), merchant and philanthropist, was born at Simsbury, Connecticut, the youngest of the four sons of Thomas and Dorothy (Woodbridge) Phelps. He was the descendant in the sixth generation of George Phelps who, with his brother William, emigrated from Gloucestershire, England, to Dorchester, Massachusetts, about 1630 and five years later removed to Windsor, Connecticut. His father was a part owner in a saw and gristmill at Simsbury and had served through most of the Revolution. After his parents died, his father in 1789 and his mother in 1795, the orphaned boy spent the next few years in the home of the local minister learning the saddler's trade from his elder brother, who became his guardian. Shortly after the opening of the century he settled in Hartford and there followed his trade. On October 26, 1806, he was married to Olivia Eggleston, who bore him seven daughters and one son. His first successful mercantile operation was in manufacturing a large number of saddles and shipping them south. His business prospered; he established a branch in Charleston, South Carolina, and soon he was extending his interests in other lines, particularly in the merchandising and importing of tin plate and other metal s. About 1812 he removed to New York, where he associated himself in business with Elisha Peck under the firm name of Phelps, Peck & Company. This company soon became one of the lea ding concerns in the country in the importing and merchandising of various metals and began to extend its operations into metal manufacturing at Haverstraw and el sew here in New York state. The partnership was dissolved in 1828. The chief set back to a business career of almost uninterrupted success came in 1832, when a large warehouse he had recently constructed at the corner of Cliff and Fulton streets collapsed with the loss of several lives. At this time he invited his two sons-in-law, William Earl Dodge [q.v.] and Daniel James, the father of Daniel Willis James [q.v.], to join him as partners in the firm of Phelps, Dodge & Company. Under the direction of Phelps and Dodge the firm expanded its interests from merchandising into manufacturing, mining, and railroads. In the middle thirties it became interested in copper manufacturing at Birmingham on the Naugatuck River in Connecticut. Prevented from extending north along the Naugatuck, Phelps and his associates purchased a site farther south, erected a dam, a factory, and some dwelling houses. From this grew the city of Ansonia, named in his honor. Later the Birmingham Copper Mills were consolidated with the Ansonia Manufacturing Company as the Ansonia Brass and Copper Company. Phelps, Dodge & Company was important in the development of Lake Superior copper and Pennsylvania iron, and its loans to George W. Scranton [q.v.] and his brother were important to the growth of the city of Scranton (Martyn, post, pp. 146-47).

Phelps was as well known in his lifetime as a philanthropist as he was as a business man. Extracts printed from his diary indicate a man with an intense desire to follow the Christian teaching, and his life did not belie his piety. He spent an hour each morning in prayer and other devout exercises, and he frequently presided at the weekly prayer-meetings of the Presbyterian Church. He generously supported and at some time acted as president of the American Bible Society, the American Board of Commissioners for Foreign Missions, the American Home Missionary Society, the New York Institute for the Education of the Blind, and the Colonization Society of the State of Connecticut. He was particularly interested in the latter as affording the best method of dealing with negro slavery. After an extended European trip in pursuit of health he died in New York leaving almost $600,000 of his large fortune to religious and benevolent purposes (Martyn, post, p. 154).

[G. E. Prentiss, A Sermon Preached on the Death of Anson G. Phelps with some Extracts from his Diary (1854); J. L. Rockey, History of New Haven County, Connecticut (1892), volume II, 479; Carlos Martyn, Wm. E. Dodge (1890); D. S. Dodge, Memorials of Wm. E. Dodge (1887), pp. 17-19; 0. S. Phelps and A. T. Servin, Phelps Family (1899), volume II.]

H. U. F.

Appletons’ Cyclopaedia of American Biography, 1888, Volume IV, p. 751:

PHELPS, Anson Greene, merchant, born in Simsbury, Connecticut, 12 March, 1781; died in New York city, 30 November, 1853. He learned the trade of a saddler, and established himself in Hartford, Connecticut, with a branch business in Charleston, South Carolina. In 1815 he became a dealer in tin plate and heavy metals in New York city. Having accumulated a large fortune1 partly by investments in real estate, he devoted himself to benevolent enterprises, and was president of the New York blind asylum, the American board of commissioners for foreign missions, and the New York branch of the Colonization society. He bequeathed $371,000 to charitable institutions, and placed in the hands of his only son a fund of $100,000, the interest of which was to be distributed in charity. In addition to large legacies to his twenty-four grandchildren, he intrusted $5,000 to each to be used in charity. Appleton’s Cyclopaedia of American Biography, 1888, Volume IV, pp. 751.


PHELPS, Charlotte Brown, first president, Boston Female Anti-Slavery Society (BFASS), wife of abolitionist leader Reverend Amos Phelps.

(Yellin, Jean Fagan and John C. Van Horne (Eds). The Abolitionist Sisterhood: Women’s Political Culture in Antebellum America. Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press, 1994, 1994, pp. 47-49, 47n, 125)


PHELPS, Isaac, New York, abolitionist leader.

(Sorin, Gerald. The New York Abolitionists: A Case Study of Political Radicalism. Westport, CT: Greenwood Publishing Corporation, 1971)


PHILBRICK, Samuel, Brookline, Massachusetts, abolitionist.  Massachusetts Anti-Slavery Society, Counsellor, 1837-1840, 1840-1841, Treasurer, 1842-1860-.


PHILLBRICK, Eliza S., Massachusetts, abolitionist.

(Yellin, Jean Fagan and John C. Van Horne (Eds). The Abolitionist Sisterhood: Women’s Political Culture in Antebellum America. Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press, 1994, p. 332)


PHILLEO, Calvin, abolitionist, married to abolitionist Prudence Crandall.


PHILLIPS, Abner, Massachusetts, leader in Massachusetts, Free Soil Party. 

(Rayback, 1970, p. 248)


PHILLIPS, Ann, Boston Female Anti-Slavery Society (BFASS), Boston, Massachusetts.

(Yellin, Jean Fagan and John C. Van Horne (Eds). The Abolitionist Sisterhood: Women’s Political Culture in Antebellum America. Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press, 1994, pp. 50, 56, 62, 309, 311n, 333)


PHILLIPS, John, 1823-1903, Richmond, Vermont, physician, politician, abolitionist.


PHILLIPS, Stephen Clarendon, 1801-1857, philanthropist.  U.S. Congressman, Whig Party.  Also member of Free Soil Party. 

(Mabee, Carleton. Black Freedom: The Nonviolent Abolitionists from 1830 Through the Civil War. London: Macmillan, 1970, p. 161; Rodriguez, Junius P., Slavery in the United States: A Social, Political, and Historical Encyclopedia, ABC-CLIO, 2007, p. 437; Appletons’ Cyclopaedia of American Biography, 1888, Volume IV, p. 763; Biographical Dictionary of the U.S. Congress 1774-1927 (1928); Congressional Globe). 

Biography from Appletons’ Cyclopaedia of American Biography:

PHILLIPS, Stephen Clarendon, philanthropist, born in Salem, Massachusetts, 1 November, 1801; died on St. Lawrence river, 26 June, 1857. He was graduated at Harvard in 1819, and began the study of law, but soon discontinued it to engage in business in Salem. He was in the lower house of the legislature in 1824-'30, was elected to the state senate in the latter year, and in 1832-'3 was again a member of the legislature. He was then chosen to congress as a whig to fill a vacancy, and served during three terms—from 1 December, 1834, until his resignation in 1838—when he became mayor of Salem, which place he then held until March, 1842. On his retirement from this office he devoted the whole of his salary as mayor to the public schools of Salem. He was the Free-soil candidate for governor of Massachusetts in 1848-'9, and a presidential elector in 1840. Mr. Phillips discharged several state and private trusts, and was many years a member of the state board of education. Retiring from public life in 1849, he engaged extensively in the lumber business in Canada, and met his death by the burning of the steamer “Montreal” while coming down the St. Lawrence river from Quebec. Mr. Phillips was president of the Boston Sunday-school society, and author of “The Sunday-School Service Book,” in several parts (Boston). Appleton’s Cyclopaedia of American Biography, 1888, Volume IV, pp. 763.


PHILLIPS, Wendell, 1811-1884, lawyer, orator, reformer, abolitionist leader, Native American advocate.  Officer in the American Anti-Slavery Society.  Member of the Executive Committee, 1842-1864, and Recording Secretary, 1845-1864, of the American Anti-Slavery Society. Called “abolition’s golden trumpet.”  Member of the Massachusetts Anti-Slavery Society.  Advocate of Free Produce movement. 

(Dumond, Dwight Lowell, Antislavery: The Crusade for Freedom in America, University of Michigan Press, 1961, pp. 182, 186, 273, 340; Filler, Louis. The Crusade Against Slavery, 1830-1860. New York: Harper and Brothers, 1960, pp. 39, 42, 45, 59, 80, 94, 130, 138, 140, 183, 204, 206, 214, 275; Hofstadter, 1948; Mabee, Carleton. Black Freedom: The Nonviolent Abolitionists from 1830 Through the Civil War. London: Macmillan, 1970, pp. 72, 86, 105, 109, 116, 123, 124, 136, 165, 169, 173, 180, 193, 200, 243, 248, 261, 262, 269, 271, 278, 279, 286, 289, 295, 301, 309, 316, 337, 364, 369; Pease, William H., & Pease, Jane H. The Antislavery Argument. Indianapolis, IN: Bobbs-Merrill Company, 1965, pp. 339, 459-479; Rodriguez, Junius P., Slavery in the United States: A Social, Political, and Historical Encyclopedia, ABC-CLIO, 2007, pp. 50, 54, 56, 169, 309, 399, 476, 602-605; Yellin, Jean Fagan and John C. Van Horne (Eds). The Abolitionist Sisterhood: Women’s Political Culture in Antebellum America. Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press, 1994, 1994, pp. 35, 82, 86, 260, 306, 308n, 309-311, 311n, 333; Appletons’ Cyclopaedia of American Biography, 1888, Volume IV, pp. 759-762; Dictionary of American Biography, Charles Scribner’s Sons, New York, 1936, Volume 7, Pt. 2, pp. 546-547; American National Biography, Oxford University Press, New York, 2002, Volume 17, p. 454; The National Cyclopaedia of American Biography, Volume II. New York: James T. White, 1892, pp. 314-315; Bartlett, Irving H. Wendell Phillips: Brahmin Radical. Boston: Beacon Press, 1961; Sherwin, Oscar. Profit of Liberty: The Life and Times of Wendell Phillips. New York: Bookman, 1958). 

Dictionary of American Biography, Charles Scribner’s Sons, New York, 1936, Volume 7, Pt. 2, pp. 546-547:

PHILLIPS, WENDELL (November 29, 1811 February 2, 1884), orator and reformer, was the eighth child and fifth son of John and Sarah (Walley) Phillips, and traced his ancestry back to Reverend George Phillips [q.v.], who landed at Salem on the Arbella in June 1630. He inherited not only a superb physique and family traditions of a high order, but also ample wealth and an excellent social standing in Boston. At the Boston Latin School, to which he was sent in 1822, he won distinction in declamation; and later, at Harvard, where he graduated in the class of 1831, he showed ability as a debater and a student of history. He was obviously a patrician, animated by chivalric ideals and a spirit of noblesse oblige. After three years at the Harvard Law School, he was admitted to the Suffolk County bar and at once opened an office in Boston. Although he was never enthusiastic about his profession, he was able during his first two years of practice to pay his expenses, and he later enjoyed a fair clientage. He married, October 12, 1837, Ann Terry Greene, orphan daughter of Benjamin Greene, a wealthy Boston merchant. She soon became a nervous invalid, confined usually to her room and often to her bed, but their domestic life was very happy. They had no children.

Even before his marriage, Phillips had become identified with the anti-slavery movement, and his wife encouraged him in his abolitionist views. On March 26, 1837, at a meeting of the Massachusetts Anti-Slavery Society in Lynn, he spoke for twenty minutes announcing his allegiance to the cause, but he at first took no part in the work of the organization. His real opportunity presented itself on December 8, 1837, at a public meeting held in Faneuil Hall to protest against the murder of Elijah P. Lovejoy [q.v.], the abolitionist editor, at Alton, Illinois. Phillips listened in the audience while James T. Austin [q.v.], attorney general of the commonwealth, compared the assassins of Lovejoy to the Revolutionary patriots; then, urged by friends, he responded with a stirring indictment of the outrage. His personality and passionate eloquence caught the imaginations of the audience, and his impromptu address was received with cheers. Thus, at the age of twenty-six, he took his place in the front rank of the leaders of the anti-slavery protest.

Possessing an adequate private income which made it unnecessary for him to rely on his profession, he now became a lecturer on the lyceum platform, speaking mainly on the slavery question. His relatives thought him fanatical, but his wife's encouragement counteracted their influence. His ability and family prestige, as well as his charm and persuasive power, made him invaluable as a champion. Broadly speaking, he followed William Lloyd Garrison [q.v.] in his refusal to link abolitionism with the program of any political party and like Garrison he condemned the Constitution of the United States because of its compromise with the slave power, but he was never a non-resistant, and he and Garrison occasionally differed on this point. Phillips contributed frequently to Garrison's Liberator and, in 1840, went to London as a delegate from Massachusetts to the World's Anti-Slavery Convention, where he supported Garrison in the latter's insistence that women should have the same rights on the floor as men. On October 30, 1842, speaking in Faneuil Hall on the fugitive-slave issue, he said, "My curse be on the Constitution of these United States" (Sears, post, p. ro2). As time went on, he became more denunciatory in his language, arousing such hostility that on several occasions he was almost mobbed. He opposed the acquisition of Texas and the war with Mexico; and he condemned Webster bitterly for his "Seventh of March" speech, in 1850. Ultimately Phillips, like Garrison, demanded the division of the Union. During the Civil War, he was frequently a severe critic of the Lincoln administration, but the Emancipation Proclamation met with his approval as marking a victory for freedom. When, in 1865, Garrison urged the dissolution of the American Anti-Slavery Society, Phillips successfully maintained that it should not be disbanded, and was himself chosen president.

Regarding his mission as one of education, he devoted himself after the Civil War to advocating other moral causes, including prohibition, a reform in penal methods, concessions to the Indians, votes for women, and the labor movement. He was nominated in 1870 by the Labor Reform Party and the Prohibitionists for the governorship of Massachusetts and polled 20,000 votes; the following year he presided over the Labor Reform convention at Worcester and drew up its platform, which contained these words: "We affirm ... that labor, the creator of wealth, is entitled to all it creates ... we avow ourselves willing to accept ... the overthrow of the whole profit-making system .... We declare war with the wages system ... with the present system of finance" (The Labor Question, 1884, p. 4; Austin, post, p. 264). In this same year (1871) he supported General B. F. Butler [q. v. ] for the governorship. His denunciation of the moneyed corporations and his urging that the laboring class organize to further its own interests were regarded by some of his contemporaries as marking aberrations of a noble mind. Actually he seems to have had an unusually clear perception of national trends, but he was even further ahead of his time in his labor agitation than he had been when he championed abolition in 1837. In his seventieth year, he delivered the Phi Beta Kappa Centennial Oration at Harvard College, and showed himself to be still uncompromising by denouncing the timidity of academic conservatives. His last public address was delivered at the unveiling of a statue of Harriet Martineau on December 26, 1883. He died after a week's suffering from angina pectoris, and after lying in state in Faneuil Hall his body was interred in the Granary Burying Ground.

Phillips was an aristocratic-looking man, with a rich, persuasive voice and a graceful, self-assured manner. Although famous as an orator, he was seldom rhetorical, and he was amazingly free from verbosity and pomposity. His subjects were many, among the most popular being "The Lost Arts," on which he spoke more than two thousand times; "Street Life in Europe"; "Daniel O'Connell"; "The Scholar in a Republic"; and "Toussaint L'Ouverture." He spoke before all kinds of audiences, large and small, sympathetic and hostile, and, in his prime, he seemed untiring. An omnivorous reader and a thorough scholar, he knew how to impart his knowledge in an easy and appealing way. His mission was that of an agita tor, aiming to stir his countrymen to eliminate the evils in their midst. Like all extremists, he was frequently sharp of tongue and unfair to his opponents, but he was courageous, self-sacrificing, magnanimous, and lofty in his ideals, and has been rightly called the "Knight-Errant of unfriended Truth."

[Two volumes of Phillips' Speeches, Lectures, and Letters were published, the first in 1863 and the second, after his death. in 1891. The best biographies are Lorenzo Sears, Wendell Phillips (1909); G. L. Austin, The Life and Times of Wendell Phillips (1884); and C. E. Russell, The Story of Wendell Phillips (1914). See also T. W. Higginson, Contemporaries (1900), reprinting a paper first published in the Nation (New York), February 7, 1884; G. E. Woodberry, "Wendell Phillips," in his Heart of Man and Other Papers (1920); and Carlos Martyn, Wendell Phillips (1890).]

C. M. F.

Appletons’ Cyclopaedia of American Biography, 1888, Volume IV, pp. 759-762:

PHILLIPS, Wendell, orator, born in Boston, Massachusetts, 29 November, 1811; died there, 2 February, 1884, entered the Boston Latin-school in 1822, and was graduated at Harvard in 1831, in the same class with the historian J. Lothrop Motley. As a student he showed no particular interest in reforms; indeed, he bore the reputation of having defeated the first attempt to form a temperance society at Harvard. Handsome in person, cultivated in manners, and of a kindly and generous disposition, he was popular among his fellow-students, and was noted for his fine elocution and his skill in debate. His heart had responded to Webster's fiery denunciation at Plymouth in 1820 of that “work of hell, foul and dark,” the slave-trade. “If the pulpit be silent whenever or wherever there may be a sinner bloody with this guilt within the hearing of its voice, the pulpit is false to its trust.” He had taken a boy's part in honoring Lafayette, and in the midst of such associations he was unconsciously fitted for his career. In college his favorite study was history. He gave a year to the story of the English revolution of 1630, reading everything concerning it that he could find. With equal care he studied the period of George III., and Dutch history also so far as English literature enabled him to do so. His parents were of the Evangelical faith, and in one of the revivals of religion that followed the settlement of Dr. Lyman Beecher in Boston he became a convert, and he did not at any subsequent time depart from the faith of his fathers. While he denounced the churches for their complicity with slavery, he made no war upon their creeds. A fellow-student remembers well his earnest religiousness in college, and his “devoutness during morning and evening prayers which so many others attended only to save their credit with the government.” Though orthodox himself, he welcomed those of other faiths, and even of no faith, to the anti-slavery platform, resisting every attempt to divide the host upon sectarian or theological grounds. He entered the Harvard law-school for a term of three years, and in 1834 was admitted to the bar. He was well equipped for his profession in every respect save one, viz., that he appears to have had no special love for it and small ambition for success therein. “If,” he said to a friend, “clients do not come, I will throw myself heart and soul into some good cause and devote my life to it.” The clients would doubtless have come in no long time if he had chosen to wait for them, but the “good cause” presented its claims first, and was so fortunate as to win the devotion of his life. “The Liberator,” founded by William Lloyd Garrison in 1831, had already forced the slavery question upon public attention and created an agitation that the leaders of society were vainly endeavoring to suppress. It has been said, probably with truth, that the first person to interest Mr. Phillips in this subject was the lady—Miss Anne Terry Greene—who afterward became his wife and, as he himself has said, “his counsel, his guide, his inspiration,” during his whole subsequent life. Of all the young men of Boston at that period, there was hardly one whose social relations, education, and personal character better fitted him for success as an aspirant for such public honors as Massachusetts was accustomed to bestow upon the most gifted of her sons. But if ambitions or aspirations of this sort were ever indulged, he had the courage and the moral power to resist their appeals and devote himself to what he felt to be a righteous though popularly odious cause. The poet James Russell Lowell has embalmed the memory of his early self-abnegation in a sonnet, of which these lines form a part:

“He stood upon the world's broad threshold; wide
     The din of battle and of slaughter rose;
  He saw God stand upon the weaker side
     That sunk in seeming loss before its foes.
      .       .       .      .        . Therefore he went
     And joined him to the weaker part,
  Fanatic named, and fool, yet well content
    So he could be nearer to God's heart,
And feel its solemn pulses sending blood
Through all the wide-spread veins of endless good.”

Looking from his office-window on 21 October, 1835, he saw the crowd of “gentlemen of property and standing” gathered in Washington and State streets to break up a meeting of anti-slavery ladies and “snake out that infamous foreign scoundrel, Thompson,” and “bring him to the tar-kettle before dark”—the same Thompson of whom Lord Brougham said in the house of lords at the time of the passage of the British emancipation act: “I rise to take the crown of this most glorious victory from every other head and place it upon his. He has done more than any other man to achieve it”; and of whom John Bright said: “I have always considered him the liberator of the slaves in the English colonies; for, without his commanding eloquence, made irresistible by the blessedness of his cause, I do not think all the other agencies then at work would have procured their freedom.” The mob, disappointed in its expectation of getting possession of the eloquent Englishman, “snaked out” Garrison instead, and Phillips saw him dragged through the streets, his person well-nigh denuded of clothing, and a rope around his waist ready to strangle him withal, from which fate he was rescued only by a desperate ruse of the mayor, who locked him up in the jail for safety. This spectacle deeply moved the young lawyer, who from that hour was an avowed Abolitionist, though he was not widely known as such until the martyrdom of Elijah P. Lovejoy (q. v.) in 1837 brought him into sudden prominence and revealed him to the country as an orator of the rarest gifts. The men then at the head of affairs in Boston were not disposed to make any open protest against this outrage upon the freedom of the press; but William Ellery Channing, the eminent preacher and writer, was resolved that the freedom-loving people of the city should have an opportunity to express their sentiments in an hour so fraught with danger to the cause of American liberty, and through his persistent efforts preparations were made for a public meeting, which assembled in Faneuil hall on 8 December, 1837. It was the custom to hold such meetings in the evening, but there were threats of a mob, and this one on that account was appointed for a daylight hour.

The hall was well filled, Jonathan Phillips was called to the chair, Dr. Channing made an impressive address, and resolutions written by him, fitly characterizing the outrage at Alton, were introduced. George S. Hillard, a popular young lawyer, followed in a serious and well-considered address. Thus far everything had gone smoothly; but now uprose James T. Austin, attorney-general of the state, a member of Dr. Channing's congregation, but known to be bitterly opposed to his anti-slavery course. He eulogized the Alton murderers, comparing them with the patriots of the Revolution, and declared that Lovejoy had “died as the fool dieth.” Mr. Phillips was present, but with no expectation of speaking. There were those in the hall, however, who thought him the man best fitted to reply to Austin, and some of these urged the managers to call upon him, which they consented to do. As he stepped upon the platform, his manly beauty, dignity, and perfect self-possession won instant admiration. His opening sentences, uttered calmly but with deep feeling, revealed his power and raised expectation to the highest pitch. “When,” said he, “I heard the gentleman [Mr. Austin] lay down principles which placed the rioters, incendiaries, and murderers of Alton side by side with Otis and Hancock, with Quincy and Adams, I thought those pictured lips [pointing to the portraits in the hall] would have broken into voice to rebuke the recreant American, the slanderer of the dead. Sir, for the sentiments he has uttered on soil consecrated by the prayers of Puritans and the blood of patriots, the earth should have yawned and swallowed him up.”

These stinging words were greeted with applause, which showed that the young orator had but expressed the conviction and the feeling of the vast majority of the assembly, and that it was not in the power of the dissidents to defeat the purpose for which it had been convened. Freedom of speech was vindicated and mobocracy and assassination were rebuked in Faneuil hall, while the hated Abolitionists rejoiced that they had found a champion fitted to maintain their cause in any presence or emergency. From that hour to the end of the anti-slavery conflict the name of Wendell Phillips was everywhere, and among all classes, the accepted synonym of the highest type of American eloquence. In no half-way fashion did he espouse the anti-slavery cause. He accepted without reservation the doctrines that Garrison had formulated—viz.: slavery under all circumstances a sin; immediate emancipation a fundamental right and duty; colonization a delusion and a snare; the blood-guiltiness of the church in seeking apologies for slavery in the Bible, and the spuriousness of the statesmanship that sought to suppress agitation and held that liberty and slavery could be at peace under one and the same government. He did the work of a lecturing agent, obeying every call so far as his strength permitted, without any pecuniary reward. When he could command fifty or one hundred dollars for a lecture on any other subject, he would speak on slavery for nothing if the people consented to hear him. It is hardly possible to estimate the value to the anti-slavery cause of services so freely rendered by a man of such gifts and attainments, in the years when that cause was struggling under a weight of odium which not even his eloquence sufficed to overcome. As a speaker he was above all others the popular favorite, and his tact in gaining a hearing in spite of mob turbulence was extraordinary. His courage lifted him above fear of personal violence, while his wit illuminated his argument as the lightning illumines the heavens. The Abolitionists were proud of a defender who could disarm if he could not wholly conquer popular hostility, who might be safely pitted against any antagonist, and whose character could in no way be impeached. In every emergency of the cause he led the charge against its enemies, and never did he surrender a principle or consent to a compromise. His fidelity, no less than his eloquence, endeared him to his associates, while his winning manners charmed all who met him in social life. The strongest opponents of the anti-slavery cause felt the spell of his power and respected him for his shining example of integrity and devotion.

In the divisions among the Abolitionists, which took place in 1839-'40, he stood with Garrison in favor of recognizing the equal rights of women as members of the anti-slavery societies, in stern opposition to the organization by Abolitionists, as such, of a political party, and in resistance to the attempt to discredit and proscribe men upon the anti-slavery platform on account of their religious belief. In 1840 he represented the Massachusetts Abolitionists in the World's anti-slavery convention in London, where he pleaded in vain for the admission of the woman delegates sent from this country. He took a prominent part in discussing the provisions of the constitution of the United States relating to slavery, and after mature reflection came with Garrison to the conclusion that what were popularly called the “compromises” of that instrument were immoral and in no way binding upon the conscience; and in 1843-'4 he was conspicuous among those who led the anti-slavery societies in openly declaring this doctrine as thenceforth fundamental in their agitation. This was done, not upon the ground of non-resistance, or on account of any objection to government by force, but solely because it was held to be immoral to wield the power of civil government in any manner or degree for the support of slavery. There was no objection to political action, as such, but only to such political action as made voters and officers responsible for executing the provisions that made the national government the defender of slavery. Of course, those who took this ground were constrained to forego the ballot until the constitution could be amended, but there remained to them the moral power by which prophets and apostles “subdued kingdoms and wrought righteousness”— the power of truth, of an unfettered press, and a free platform. And these instrumentalities they employed unflinchingly to expose the character of slavery, to show that the national government was its main support, and to expose the sin and folly, as they thought, of maintaining a Union so hampered and defiled. They accepted this as their clearly revealed duty, in spite of the odium thereby involved; and they went on in this course until the secession of the slave states brought them relief by investing the president with power to emancipate the slaves, under the rules of war.

Thenceforth Mr. Phillips devoted himself to the task of persuading the people of the loyal states that they were honorably released from every obligation, implied or supposed, to respect the “compromises” of the constitution, and that it was their right and duty to emancipate the slaves as a measure of war, and as a means of forming a regenerated and disenthralled Union. In this he was sustained not only by the whole body of Abolitionists of whatever school, but by a great multitude of people who had long stood aloof from their cause, and the effort was crowned with success in the president's proclamation of 1 January, 1863. From that moment the civil war became an anti-slavery war as well as a war for national unity, and thousands of Abolitionists who had followed the lead of Phillips hastened to enter the ranks.

In all these conflicts Phillips stood shoulder to shoulder with Garrison, and was followed by a body of people, not indeed very numerous, but of wide moral influence. In 1864 Mr. Phillips opposed, while Garrison favored, the re-election of President Lincoln. In the spring of 1865, when Garrison advocated the dissolution of the American anti-slavery society, on the ground that, slavery being abolished, there was no further need of such an association, Mr. Phillips successfully opposed him, contending that it should not disband until the negro had gained the ballot. This division led to some unpleasant controversy of no long continuance. Mr. Phillips became president of the society in place of Mr. Garrison, and it was continued under his direction until 1870.

In the popular discussion of the measures for reconstructing the Union he took a prominent part, mainly for the purpose of guarding the rights of the negro population, to whom he thus greatly endeared himself. He had previously won their gratitude by his zealous efforts in behalf of fugitive slaves, and to abolish distinctions of color in schools, in public conveyances, and in places of popular resort. He was at all times an earnest champion of temperance, and in later years the advocate of prohibition. He was also foremost among those claiming the ballot for woman. He advocated the rights of the Indians, and labored to reform the penal institutions of the country after the slavery question was settled. He espoused the cause of the labor reformers, and in 1870 accepted from them and from the Prohibitionists a nomination as candidate for governor. He advocated what has been called the “greenback” theory of finance. “The wages system,” he said, “demoralizes alike the hirer and the hired, cheats both, and enslaves the workingman,” while “the present system of finance robs labor, gorges capital, makes the rich richer and the poor poorer, and turns a republic into an aristocracy of capital.” He lent his aid to the agitation for the redress of the wrongs of Ireland. In 1881 he delivered an address at the centennial anniversary of the Phi Beta Kappa of Harvard college, which was pronounced, on very high authority, “an oration of great power and beauty, full of strong thoughts and happy illustrations, not unworthy of any university platform or academic scholar,” though containing some sentiments from which a portion of his audience strongly dissented. As an avowed critic of public men and measures, speaking year after year, almost always extemporaneously, and often amidst scenes of the greatest excitement, nothing less than a miracle could have prevented him from sometimes falling into mistakes and doing injustice to opponents; but it is believed that there is nothing in his record to cast a shadow upon his reputation as one who consecrated great gifts and attainments to the welfare of his country. His last public address was delivered on 26 December, 1883, at the unveiling of Miss Whitney's statúe of Harriet Martineau, at the Old South church, in Boston. A little more than a month after this the great orator passed from earth. The event was followed by a memorial meeting in Faneuil hall, and by appropriate action on the part of the legislature and the city government. After the funeral the remains were taken from the church to Faneuil hall, whither they were followed by a vast multitude. Mr. Phillips published “The Constitution a Pro-Slavery Contract” (Boston, 1840) and “Review of Webster's 7th of March Speech” (1850). A collection of his speeches, letters, and lectures, revised by himself, was published in 1863 in Boston. Among his lectures on other than anti-slavery topics were “The Lost Arts,” “Toussaint l'Ouverture,” and “Daniel O'Connell.” His life has been written by George Lowell Austin (Boston, 1888). Appleton’s Cyclopaedia of American Biography, 1888, Volume IV, pp. 759-762.


PHILLIPS, William, 1750-1827, Massachusetts, benefactor, philanthropist.  Founding officer, Vice President, American Colonization Society, 1816. 

(Appleton’s Cyclopaedia of American Biography, 1888, Volume V, p. 763; Dictionary of American Biography, Charles Scribner’s Sons, New York, 1936, Volume 7, Pt. 2, p. 548; Staudenraus, P. J. The African Colonization Movement, 1816-1865. New York: Columbia University Press, 1961)

Appleton’s Cyclopaedia of American Biography, 1888, Volume V, p. 763:

PHILLIPS, William, benefactor, born in Boston, Massachusetts, 10 April, 1750; died there, 26 May, 1827. He engaged in business with his father, of the same name, who was a benefactor of Andover theological seminary, and acquired a fortune. During the Revolutionary war he was an ardent patriot, and subsequent to 1800 he was frequently a member of the legislature, also lieutenant-governor in 1812-'23. At his death he bequeathed large sum of money to Phillips academy, to Andover theological seminary, and other institutions. Appletons’ Cyclopædia of American Biography, 1888.


PHILLIPS, William Addison (January 14, 1824-November 30, 1893), soldier, congressman from Kansas. In 1855 he went to Kansas as a special correspondent of the New York Tribune and became conspicuous as a radical anti-slavery journalist and politician. He wrote The Conquest of Kansas by Missouri and her Allies (1856) in the interest of Fremont's candidacy for president.

(Biographical Dictionary of the U.S. Congress 1774-1927 (1928)

Dictionary of American Biography, Charles Scribner’s Sons, New York, 1936, Volume 7, Pt. 2, pp. 548-549:

PHILLIPS, WILLIAM ADDISON (January 14, 1824-November 30, 1893), soldier, congressman from Kansas, author, was born at Paisley, Scotland, the son of John Phillips. He emigrated with his parents to the United States about 1838 and settled in Randolph County in southern Illinois, where he was reared in the strictest tenets of Presbyterianism. He went to the local schools and acquired some training in Latin and mathematics. He became editor of a newspaper at Chester, Illinois, studied law, and was admitted to the bar. In 1855 he went to Kansas as a special correspondent of the New York Tribune and became conspicuous as a radical anti-slavery journalist and politician. He wrote The Conquest of Kansas by Missouri and her Allies (1856) in the interest of Fremont's candidacy for president. He was a participant in many of the important political gatherings in Kansas Territory and became a member of the state legislature. In 1858 he and four associates founded the town of Salina. In 1859 he married Carrie Spillman, who died in 1883. They had four children. At the outbreak of the Civil War he became an officer in the Union Army, winning prominence as a commander of Indian troops in Indian Territory and Arkansas. He was mustered out as colonel of the 3rd Indian Regiment on June 10, 1865.

After the Civil War he returned to law and politics. While most of the anti-slavery radicals became conservatives, he merely transferred his radicalism to economic issues. His economic theories were given formal statement in a book called Labor, Land and Law; a Search for the Missing Wealth of the Working People (1886). Repudiating Henry George's single tax, he presented a program including: a graduated land tax for the purpose of reducing the size of holdings, preservation of public timber and reforestation of cut-over land, lease of grazing rights on public domain in tracts large enough to support a family, reservation in the public interest of subsoil rights to minerals, postal-savings banks through which the government might borrow from its people in national emergencies, organization of all labor, graduated taxation of large fortunes and inheritances, and regulation of public utilities. He was elected to Congress from Kansas in 1872, 1874, and 1876, and while there he was interested chiefly in land legislation, postal-savings banks, postal telegraphy, greenbacks, and silver. He was a Republican in politics, and, when he found it necessary to choose between his party and his principles, he supported the party. On questions that were not partisan issues he was independent. His Civil War experiences resulted in close association with problems relating to Indians, especially the Cherokee. After his retirement from Congress he became attorney for the Cherokee and engaged in law practice in Washington, D. C. In 1890 he was again nominated for Congress but was defeated by the candidate of the People's party. He wrote voluminously, fiction, verse, and essays, as well as economic and political discussions. From 1885 to 1887 he published several articles in the North American Review (November 1885, July, September 1886, August 1887). However, much of his writing was anonymous and can not be identified. He was survived by his second wife, Anna B. (Stapler) Phillips, to whom he was married in 1885 at Tahlequah in the Indian Territory.

[A few letters in the Library of Kansas State Historical Society, Topeka; papers in possession of nephew, A. M. Campbell, Jr., Salina, Kansas; Cherokee material in the collections of the University of Okla.; Kansas Historical Society Collections, volume V (1896); Biographical Directory American Congress (1928); A. H. Abel, The American Indian ... in the Civil War (1919) and The American Indian under Reconstruction (1925); Wiley Britton, Memoirs of the Rebellion on the Border (1882), The Civil War on the Border (2 volumes, 1890- 99), and The Union Indian Brigade (1922); Daily Republican (Salina, Kansas), December 1, 1893.]

J.C.M.


PHOENIX, Samuel F., Wisconsin, Territory, abolitionist, American Anti-Slavery Society, Manager, 1835-1837.



Sources:
Dictionary of American Biography, Volumes I-X, Edited by Dumas Malone, New York: Charles Scribner’s Sons, 1930.

Appletons’ Cyclopaedia of American Biography, Volumes I-VI, Edited by James Grant Wilson & John Fiske, New York: D. Appleton and Co., 1888-1889.