American Scenes, and Christian Slavery: A Recent Tour of Four Thousand Miles in the United StatesDavies, Ebenezer
History
American Scenes, and Christian Slavery: A Recent Tour of Four Thousand Miles in the United States
Davies, Ebenezer
Slavery -- United States; United States -- Description and travel
Captain Stone's was a
deed worthy of a golden inscription!
It is half-past 11 A.M., and we are now at the landing-place in the
harbour of New Haven, having accomplished the distance from New York,
about 80 miles, in five hours! We have a long wharf of 3,943 feet to
travel; and then we set foot for the first time on the soil of New
England. We have been invited to make our abode here with the Rev.
Leicester Sawyer, who makes his abode at Deacon Wilcoxon's, corner of
Sherman-avenue and Park-street. Thither, therefore, let us go. Mr.
Sawyer, whom we had before met in New York, is the author of several
books, comprising two on Mental and Moral Philosophy, and was also
lately the President of the Central College of Ohio. Deacon Wilcoxon
and his wife are plain, homely, kind Christian people. They make you
feel at home as soon as you have crossed their threshold.
Soon after our arrival the Rev. Dr. Bacon and the Rev. Mr. Dutton, the
pastors of the "first" and "second" Congregational Churches in this
city, honour us with a call. This is brotherly, and more than we could
have expected. Dr. Bacon regrets that he is going from home, and cannot
have us to spend a few days at his house. Mr. Dutton, however, presses
us to accept of his hospitality. We promise to do so in a day or two.
Dr. Bacon is one of the great men of New England. He is a living
encyclopaedia,--a walking library. He keeps fully up with the
literature and sciences of the day. I have not met a man, either in the
Old World or in the New, that so thoroughly understood the state of the
British West Indies at the present time as he does. He might have spent
years in that part of the world, and devoted himself to its exclusive
study. His position at home is high, and his influence great. The
estimation in which he is held in New England may be judged of by the
fact, that when, in August 1846, Dr. Theodore Dwight Woolsey had to be
installed as President of Yale College, Dr. Bacon, living within a
stone's throw of that institution, was the man chosen to preach the
inauguration sermon.
In the middle of the afternoon, my friend Mr. Sawyer presses me to
preach in his place of worship--the Howe-street Church--this evening. I
consent. By-and-by I observe him very busy with some slips of paper;
and I ask him what he is doing? "I am sending," he says, "notices to
the evening papers, to make it known that you are going to preach this
evening!" What a people the Americans are for newspapers! New Haven has
only a population of about 18,000; and yet it has six daily papers--all
having a weekly issue besides, two monthly periodicals, and two
quarterly ones! The daily papers are, I believe, none of them more than
5 dollars (a guinea) a year, or 2 cents (one penny) per number. No
paper duty, and no stamp. At the service in the evening several
ministers and students were present.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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