William Lloyd Garrison, whose name is indissolubly connected with the abolition of American slavery, was born in the seaport town of Newburyport, Mass., on December 10, 1805. His father, Abijah Garrison, was a sea-captain who came from New Brunswick to settle in Newburyport. Deserting his wife and children while the subject of this sketch was in infancy, his subsequent career is shrouded in mystery. Fanny Lloyd, the mother of William Lloyd Garrison, was a woman of remarkable character and personal attraction, with an intense religious nature. Dependent upon her own efforts for the support of the family, she cheerfully took up the calling of monthly nurse, and endeavored to rear her children with care and forethought, and with especial attention to their religious training. Upon her removal to Lynn, in 1812, Lloyd was left to the care of Deacon Ezekiel Bartlett and was sent to the Grammar School until, at the age of nine, he joined his mother in Lynn and was taught shoemaking in the shop of Gamaliel W. Oliver, a kind and excellent member of the Society of Friends, where his elder brother James was already an apprentice. In 1815, Mr. Paul Newhall, a shoe manufacturer of the same town, deciding to establish business in Baltimore, invited Mrs. Garrison and her two boys to accompany him. There Lloyd was employed as an errand-boy and James was again apprenticed at shoemaking. Mr. Newhall's venture proving unsuccessful, Mrs. Garrison was constrained to resume nursing and Lloyd was sent back to Newburyport, his brother betaking himself to the sea. From Newburyport he was sent to Haverhill to learn cabinet-making; but, in spite of kind treatment, he disliked the occupation and ran away from his master, returning to Newburyport to live again with his mother's old friend, Deacon Bartlett. In 1818, Ephraim W. Allen, proprietor of the Newburyport _Herald_, accepted Lloyd, then thirteen years of age, as an apprentice and taught him the printer's trade. Here at once he found a vocation suited to his tastes and became a rapid and accurate compositor. The printing-office proved an excellent school for the young man, developing his literary taste and ambition. He was fond of reading, and delighted in poetry and fiction. Politics especially attracted him, and at the age of sixteen he wrote anonymous articles for the columns of the _Herald_. His first contribution was over the signature of "An Old Bachelor." He was an ardent Federalist and his political articles attracted attention by their forcible reasoning and direct style. Caleb Cushing, then editor of the _Herald_, discovering the lad's abilities, encouraged and befriended him. In 1826, Mr. Garrison, closing his apprenticeship with the _Herald_, became editor and publisher of the _Free Press_ (Newburyport), within a few months of his majority. [Illustration: William Lloyd Garrison.]