“It is not improbable that Plymouth was associated with the first claim made on a citizen of Massachusetts for the restoration of a slave to his master. Information concerning it I found among my grandfather’s papers. In 1808 the brig _Thomas_, Solomon Davie master, at some port in Delaware, received on board a slave who had deserted from his master, David M. McIlvaine, and until 1812 remained in my grandfather’s service, receiving wages as a hired man. In 1812 Mr. McIlvaine found the slave on board the brig in Baltimore, and a claim for his restoration being made, he was given up. In the meantime the slave who called himself George Thomson, bought a small house on the brow of Cole’s Hill, and in a settlement of a suit to recover wages, which my grandfather had paid to Thomson, Mr. McIlvaine, in consideration of the money paid, conveyed to my grandfather the house, and the following articles of personal property which were in the keeping of a colored woman, named Violet Philips, and were the property of Thomson--a blue cloth coat, fine; a black cloth coat, fine; one pair of ribbed velvet pantaloons; one black bombazet waistcoat; one black silk waistcoat; three yellow marseilles waistcoats; one pair white stockings; two checked shirts; one new fur hat; one chest, and one trunk in which were the title papers to his house, and one silver watch.” Wm. T. Davis recounts the role of Borne Spooner, 1790-1870, born in Plymouth, and founder of the Plymouth Cordage Company in 1824, in the anti-slavery movement.[32] Perhaps his younger days in New Orleans, learning the rope trade, had influenced him. Davis goes on to list the names of those citizens of Plymouth engaged in the movement. “The merchants, professional men, including ministers, and the politicians in both the whig and democratic parties, were either too timid to join the anti-slavery ranks, or were decidedly hostile to the anti-slavery movement. An anti-slavery meeting held on the evening of July 4, 1835, in the Robinson church, which was disturbed by an incipient mob which contented itself with breaking a few windows, and afterwards smearing with tar the dry goods sign of Deacon Ripley. Though the _Old Colony Memorial_ contained a paid advertisement of the meeting, its columns were silent concerning its doings and the disturbance. It is of little consequence how or when Mr. Spooner became interested in the movement. He became one of the most prominent men in the state, supporting it, and undoubtedly furnished to it material aid not exceeded in amount by the contributions of any others in its ranks. He was a constant friend and supporter of Garrison, Phillips, Quincy and Douglas, all of whom frequently enjoyed the hospitalities of his home.”