Memoir of Samuel Joseph May

Front matter

I F E OF

Samuel J. May.

S. G. & E. L. ELBERT

Preface

IN July, 1871, Mr. May's family asked George B. Emerson, Samuel May, and Thomas J.

Mumford to attend to the preparation of a suitable Memoir; and this committee intrusted the editing of the work to its youngest member.

A considerable portion of the volume consists of a partial autobiography. To this is added some extracts from a diary. The succeeding chapters have been furnished by members of the committee, assisted by many kind friends, including Messrs. C. D. B. Mills, Joseph A. Allen, William Lloyd Garrison, A. Bronson Alcott, W. P. Tilden, G. W. Hosmer, Edgar Buckingham, T. W. Higginson, and Joseph May.

The story of Mr. May's antislavery career is now presented in a condensed form, because it was given to the public some years ago in his " Recollections of the Antislavery Conflict."

The chief purpose of the compilers of this book has been to impart such a truthful impression of its subject's character as shall make young men see the beauty and feel the power of a noble life.

Contents

CHAPTER PAGE

I. Childhood 1

II. Childhood Concluded 13

Chapter I. Childhood

Ancestors. — Death op his Brother Edward. — Heavenly Visions. — A Colored Playmate. — A Kind Colored Woman.

T WAS born in Boston, Massachusetts, on the twelfth day of September, 1797.

My father was Joseph — widely known as Col. Joseph — May, who was the son of Samuel May of Boston, by his second wife Abigail Williams of Roxbury.1

1 Joseph May was born in Boston, 1760, and died there, 1841, at the age of eighty-one. In his youth, the family were members of the Hollis Street Church and Society; but, owing to dissatisfaction with the ministry of Dr. Mather Byles, — or, more likely, with his political attitude, — they ceased attendance there for a season, and joined themselves to the Old South congregation, where Joseph, who to his latest day was a good singer and especially fond of sacred music, sang in the choir at the early age of twelve years. When the Old South people were driven from their house of worship by the British troops stationed in Boston, they met, for about five years, at King's Chapel, the use of which was granted to them. On their return to their own house in 1783, Mr. May, then in his twenty-third year, preferred to remain at the Chapel, of which church he continued an active and devoted mem-

1 A

LIFE OF SAMUEL J. MAY.

My mother was Dorothy Sewall, daughter of Samuel Sewall of Boston, by his wife Elizabeth Quincy, niece

ber and officer (one of the wardens) during his life. In 1785 lie was one of the twenty who voted to make those alterations in the Liturgy which separated King's Chapel from the Trinitarian communion and from the Episcopal Church ; and in 1787 he was one of the small but resolved congregation who ordained Dr. James Freeman by their own authority to be their minister, — a relation which continued upwards of forty years with uninterrupted respect and benefit .* His later pastor, Dr. Greenwood, and his life-long associate and friend, William Minot, Esq., have both spoken in published notices of his character and worth. " He considered it," they say, " most unworthy of a rational and moral being to seek after riches as the chief good. . . . His integrity has never been questioned. Important trusts were confided to him, and held until advancing age warned him to resign them. ... He might be traced through every quarter of the city by the footprints of his benefactions. . . . His piety was practical, his religion was life-religion. His belief in the sure mercies of God and promises of the Saviour was as firm and deeply rooted as the mountains. His faith in a future and better life was as sight. It was not his lot to influence the destinies of whole communities ; but, in the duties of a peacemaker, in reforming guilt, in relieving suffering, in protecting the orphan, and in raising weakness from despondency, he was actively engaged during his whole life. . . . He proved that wealth and fashion are not essential to the highest respectability ; and his friends will agree that they have rarely known his superior in virtue or wisdom/' He was of a continually cheerful spirit, and of unusual social gifts ; an easy and witty talker, with a fine sense of humor and a fund of personal anecdotes and illustrative stories, which he told with spirit, and always to the delight of listeners. He was a great reader, but not a miscellaneous one ; having for his favorite authors the best English historians, such poets as Pope and Addison, and the theologians of most advanced thought, — Priestley especially.

On his mother's side, S. J. May was related to the Se walls and

* Sermon on the Death of Joseph May, Esq. By F. W. P. Greenwood, D.D. Boston, 1841.

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of Josiah Quincy of Revolutionary memory, and sister of Dorothy, the wife of John Hancock, for whom my mother was named.

Quincys, — families whose private worth and public eminence are well known, not in New England only, but far beyond its bounds. His great-grandfather was Rev. Dr. Joseph Sewall, of the Old South Church (born 1688, died 1769). His direct ancestor (the father of Rev. Dr. Sewall) was Chief Justice Samuel Sewall (born in England, 1652, died, Boston, 1730). He it was, who, having in middle life participated (as a junior judge) in the trial and condemnation to death, at Salem, of many persons accused of witchcraft, afterwards strove in so many ways to atone for that early wrong. " He observed annually, in private, a day of humiliation and prayer, during the remainder of his life, to keep fresh in his mind a sense of repentance and sorrow for the part he bore in those trials. On the day of the general fast, h,e rose in the place where he was accustomed to worship, — the Old South, in Boston, — and, in the presence of the great assembly, handed up to the pulpit a written confession, acknowledging the error into which he had been led, praying for the forgiveness of God and his people, and concluding with a request to all the congregation to unite with him in devout supplication, that it might not bring down the displeasure of the Most High upon his country, his family, or himself. He remained standing during the public reading of the paper. This was an act of true manliness and dignity of soul." * Whittier has commemorated in verse the " sad and touching tale "

"Of the fast which the good man life-long kept With a haunting sorrow that never slept,"

and of his deep and yearning desire, for his country as well as himself,

"That the sin of his ignorance, sorely rued, Might be washed away in the mingled flood Of his human sorrow and Christ's dear blood! "

Those who knew Samuel Joseph May will recognize, in these brief portraits of his ancestry, traits which had strong resemblances in him, and will see, as the common phrase is, that he came honestly

* Upham's History of Witchcraft, vol. ii. p. 442.

LIFE OF SAMUEL J. MAY.

My name was to have been James Freeman, after the late Dr. Freeman, minister of King's Chapel, Boston, my father's pastor and very intimate friend. But, although my parents had lost two sons named Samuel Joseph, the second dying the week after my birth, yet the name was so comprehensive of the family names both on my father's and my mother's side, that they concluded to confer it upon me. Samuel was the name of my father's only brother, and of his father. It was also the name of my mother's oldest brother, the late Chief Justice of Massachusetts, Hon. Samuel Sewall ; of their father, and of their great-grandfather, who was the Chief Justice in the time of the Salem witchcraft, and was among the first to suspect, and afterwards to expose, the delusion. Joseph was the name of my father, and of his mother's father, and her favorite brother. It was also the name of my mother's second brother, the late Joseph Sewall of Boston ; and of their venerated grandfather, Dr. Joseph Sewall of the Old South Church, in whose family my mother lived a number of years.

Thus denominated, I started upon the journey of life, in a very frail body, which so continued until my twelfth or fourteenth year. I was a very^puny boy. The joys and sorrows of my childhood were, I suppose, very similar to those of other boys. But there was one

by his genial and cheerful nature ; by his freedom from concealment and pretence ; by his promptness to avow his convictions ; by his courage to stand for the right ; and by his sympathy with all forms and cases of human suffering and wrong. S. M.

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great grief that probably made the deepest religious impression that my soul ever received.

I had a brother, Edward, two years older than myself. He was a fair-haired boy, with blue eyes, bright, playful, affectionate, and particularly fond of me. "We slept together, we ate together ; and he taught me all the sports I was old enough to take part in. He had recently commenced going to school, and I every day awaited his return, in the assurance that he would bring me something to gratify or do something to amuse me. One day, when he was six years and eight months old, he came home at early noon, full of glee, and summoned me to the yard to partake of his sport. He climbed the fence against the barn, pretending to sweep chimney; and, when the imaginary work was done, he attempted to get down by resting his weight upon the slender post of a chair, the top of which was broken off. The post gave way, and its splintered point penetrated his body, several inches, under his arm. Screams from the servants, who were near by, brought our fond mother to the spot. She, not knowing what had happened, supposed he had fainted or been stunned by a blow, and ordered a warm bath. But on raising his arm to remove his clothes, blood gushed out and revealed the deadly wound. She fainted on the floor by his side. The servants ran for some physician; neighbors came in offering assistance ; all was confusion and dismay. My father and the doctor arrived as soon as possible. But the dear, beautiful boy was dead. The agony of my

LIFE OF SAMUEL J. MAY.

parents, the crying of my elder brother and sisters, assured me that something dreadful had happened ; and there my beloved Edward was, eyes shut, body cold, giving no replies to the tender things that were said to him, taking no notice of all that was being done to him or about him. I gave myself up to a passion of grief, knowing not what it was, — but that some strange, awful change had come over him. Then they put grave-clothes upon him, and laid him upon the mattress in the best chamber, and straightened out his limbs, and folded his beautiful hands upon his breast, and covered him only with the clean, cold, white sheet. I saw it all, — for they could not keep me away, — and when father and mother and the kind assisting friends had darkened the room, and were about to withdraw, I besought them to let me lie down with Edward. My importunity was so earnest, so passionate, that my parents were almost afraid, and quite too tender, to withstand it. When left alone with him, or rather it, I well remember how I kissed his cold cheek and lips, pulled open his eyelids, begged him to speak to me, and cried myself to sleep because he w^ould not.

At tea-time I was carried to the table; but the weeping of all about me, added to my own dismay, destroyed ' my appetite. I ate but little, and only asked that I might be permitted to go back to the chamber and lie by the side of Edward. My request was granted ; and there I lay, until my grief was forgotten again in sleep, when I must have been removed, for I found myself next morning in the bed where I had usually slept with my brother, in my mother's chamber. But I hurried back to the corpse of Edward ; and kept with it almost all the time until I was taken from it forever. I saw my father put the body into the coffin, in order, as he told me, that it might be laid away in the ground, and then we should see Edward no more. But he and my mother, and my brother and sisters, continually assured me that Edward was still living, — that he had become an angel, and had gone to heaven, to dwell with the good and the happy in the presence of God and Christ.

Two days after the death, the house was filled with weeping relatives and friends, with whom Edward had been a particular favorite. Our good minister read the burial service. I could not understand it ; but it was solemn, impressive, and I listened with awe.

Then we went slowly, in solemn procession, to the burial-ground : all was new, strange, awful, to me. But when the carriages stopped at the gate, and I saw them taking the coffin off towards the tomb, I insisted upon seeing what they were going to do with Edward. So my uncle, Samuel May, took me in his arms, descended with me into the family vault, and showed me where the sextons had put away my brother. Then he pointed out the little coffins in which were the remains of several of my brothers and sisters, who had lived and died before I was born, and the coffin in which my grandfather was buried eight years before. My kind uncle opened one of the coffins and let me see how decayed the body had become, told

LIFE OF SAMUEL J. MAY.

me that Edward's body was going to decay in like manner, and at last become like the dust of the earth. But he again most tenderly assured me that Edward was still living, that his spirit was not in the coffin, that it was clothed with another more beautiful, glorious body, and that he had gone to live in heaven with God and Christ and the angels. Then he lifted once more the lid of Edward's coffin, and let me kiss again and for the last time his cheek, his lips, his forehead. I went home in a sort of maze, crying, and asking questions which the wisdom of man could not answer.

My only brother, Charles, then a lad fourteen or fifteen years of age, tenderly took me up to his chamber, lay down with me on his bed, and tried to comfort me and himself by telling me all that he imagined to be true about heaven and God and angels, and assuring me again, as others had done, that Edward had gone to live in that blessed place, in that happy and glorious company. Of course I believed all that such dear, good friends told me.

When night came, I was put to bed in the room where I had so often lain and slept with Edward. Sleep soon came to relieve my young spirit wearied with grief and strange excitement. And I dreamt — dreamt of Edward. All that had been told me was proved true by what I saw and felt. The ceiling of the room opened, over where I was lying : a bright, glorious light burst in, and from the midst of it came down my lost brother, attended by a troop of little angels. They left him. He lay by me as he used to

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do, his head on my arm or my head on his. He told me how happy he was, what a beautiful place heaven was, how kind God and Christ were to him, and how all the angels loved one another. There he lay until morning, when the ceiling above opened again, and the troop of angels came to bear him back to heaven. He kissed me, sent messages of love to father and mother, brother and sisters, and gladly rejoined the celestial company.

So soon as I awoke and was dressed, I hurried down to tell the family what I had seen, and to give them the kisses and messages that dear Edward had sent them. All day long I thought and talked of what I had seen ; often, as I have since been told, expressed impatience to have night come ; and when it came, went eagerly to bed, in the confident expectation that the heavenly vision would be granted me again. And it was. The next night, and for several nights afterwards, I enjoyed the felt presence of my brother, and morning after morning came down with the same or slightly varied messages of love. Until by degrees my grief abated, the loss of my brother was in some measure supplied by other playmates, new things attracted my attention and 'occupied my thoughts. But I have never forgotten my Edward, and the events of his death and burial ; and the scenes that I witnessed, and the heavenly vision that I had, are vivid in my memory, although most of my life for several years afterwards is very indistinct.

I have been thus particular in narrating this part of 1*

LIFE OF SAMUEL J. MAY.

my life, because I believe it had the greatest influence in awakening and fixing in iny soul the full faith I have in the continuance of life after death. Indeed, it sometimes seems to me that I do not believe more fully in the life that now is than in the life that is to come, and, moreover, that the future existence commences immediately after the close of the present.

In the fall of 1852, I received a letter from Mrs. H. B. Stowe, requesting me to inform her how much and how intimately I had been acquainted with negroes ; what incidents in my life had j>robably prepared me to embrace the cause of the colored people so early and so earnestly as I had done. Of course, her request impelled me to look back, with an eager, searching eye, through the whole of my life, especially the early part of it, when biases in one direction or another were most easily taken. I was surprised at the many things which no doubt have had some influence in predisposing me to perceive and abhor the great injustice and cruelty of our country towards those whose only peculiar fault is that they are " guilty of a skin not colored like our own." Two of these things I will record here.

It has been a benefit to me, through life, that when a little boy, from five to seven years of age, I attended a Ma'am school, kept by a good old lady, — Mrs. Wallcut, — in company with boys and girls of various conditlon of life, some from the richest and others from the poorer fimilies in the neighborhood. I well remember that I sat upon the same bench, and recited

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in the same class, with a boy whose skin was as dark as a starless night, but whose spirit was as bright and joyous as a cloudless noon-clay. He was certainly more witty, if not more wise, than any of my school-fellows, and therefore was the favorite of us all. He was as good as the best in reading, spelling, repeating the Catechism, and in counting, which was the extent of our literary exercises ; and in all our plays few were his equals.

About the same time, when six or seven years of age, I was going on an errand for my mother. A dog sprang after me, I ran, often looking backward as I was going forward. I fell, struck my temple upon a stone, and lay senseless. On recovering my consciousness, I found myself in the arms of a large black woman. As soon as I opened my eyes, she said very soothingly, " Don't be afraid, little boy. I know who you are. I'll carry you to your mamma." On reaching home, — my face, bosom, and hand smeared with the blood which had flowed freely from the wound, — the sight of me filled the family with alarm. My mother was agonized with the fear that, like Edward, I had met with some fatal accident. In her concern for me, she forgot every thing else. She stripped off my bloody clothes, washed my face and my hands, examined carefully the gash upon my temple, and found the injury to be not so serious as she feared. Then she thought of the kind woman who had picked me up, and looked around gratefully to thank and to offer her some reward. But my benefactress had dis-

LIFE OF SAMUEL J. MAY.

appeared. She remained long enough to be satisfied that I had not sustained much harm, and then quietly withdrew, not lingering to be thanked, or to receive any compensation, as very many poor white women would have done. Nor did she ever come to the house to "get her pay." Nor could we find out where she lived, or who she was, though my mother made much inquiry, wishing to make some return for the good deed she had done.

Chapter II. Childhood Concluded

Visit at Marblehead. — A Severe Master. — The Jews. — First Sin. — Loss or Eden. — Rev. Dr. Channing. — A Lesson of True Benevolence.

QOO¥ after my recovery from this disaster, I was v^ sent to Marblehead to stay several months in the family of my uncle, Chief Justice Sewall. My uncle, aunt, and the children were each and all devoutly religious persons. Three of his five sons — Samuel, Edmund, Charles Chauncy — became ministers of the Gospel. One of the other two, Joseph, — who died while in college, — meant to be a minister ; and Henry D., who was a merchant, — first in Montreal, afterwards in New York, partner of Arthur Tappan, — ought to have been a minister. I never knew children so early and so deeply imbued with the spirit of piety. I well remember their morning and their evening prayers, their shrinking horror of every profane or obscene word, and their practical, active charity. I gratefully record my indebtedness to them and their pious parents.

My uncle thought it best for me to attend school with his boys. So I went to the Marblehead Academy, then kept by Master Cole. He was a severe man, — believed in the rod, promptly, and not sparingly, applied.

LIFE OF SAMUEL J. MAY.

That was the doctrine of the day. But to his treatment of me I ascribe my early conversion to the methods of moral suasion.

I was a little boy, able to learn — it was then supposed — only to read and spell. Twice each half-day, I was exercised, live or ten minutes, in reading and spelling lessons. All the rest of the three hours I was required, with other little boys, to sit upright upon a hard bench, doing nothing but thinking how irksome it was, and wishing that I had something to do. At length, one day, I set myself to work. I got a thread four or five feet long, tied it to a pin which I bent into a hook ; I tore up a paper into small pieces, which I rolled into forms that it pleased me to regard as fishes. These I scattered upon the floor; and then, throwing down my hook, attempted to catch them and draw them in. I had not captured more than two or three, when I received several smart boxes upon my ears, and heard from the voice of my master the sharp reproof, — "You naughty boy, I'll teach you to behave better in school time ! " He taught me what he little intended to do. He taught me to regard and fear him as a harsh, cruel man. I felt (though I do not suppose I clothed the feeling in these words) that he ought to have given me something- to do, or else let me occupy myself as best I could.

Marblehead was then a queerer place than it is now. The people were almost wholly engaged in the fisheries, and in other kinds of navigation. A very large

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proportion of the men were sailors or sea-captains or mates, often absent from home on long voyages ; so that the women were left to take care of the children, and manage their own affairs. They consequently became very self-sustaining and independent ; and the feminine graces were not much cultivated. Then, being ignorant and used to frequent excitements caused by tales of hardship and fearful catastrophes, they were superstitious. There were fortune-tellers, and several weird women amongst them. Several houses in the town were haunted, and stories of ghostly apparitions were often current. Of course these things had some effect upon the imaginations of my cousins and myself. We dreaded the influence of the moou, and preferred to see the new one for the first time over the right shoulder rather than the left. But their parents and mine were very careful to assure us that there were no beings, out of the body, who would or could injure good little boys, and that we need be afraid of nothing but sin.

If the children of my day were taught, among other foolish things, to dread, if not despise, Jews, a very different lesson was impressed upon my young heart. There was but one family of the despised children of the house of Israel resident in Boston, — the family of Moses Michael Hays : a man much respected, not only on account of his large wealth, but for his many personal virtues and the high culture and great excellence of his wife, his son Judah, and his daughters, — especially Catherine and Slowey. His house, far down

LIFE OF SAMUEL J. MAY.

in Hanover Street, then one of the fashionable streets of the town, was the abode of hospitality; and his family moved in what were then the first circles of society. He and his truly good wife were hospitable, not to the rich, alone, but also to the poor. Many indigent families were fed pretty regularly from his table. They would come especially after his frequent dinnerparties, and were sure to be made welcome, not to the crumbs only, but to ampler portions of the food that might be left.

Always, on Saturday, he expected a number of friends to dine with him. A full-length table was always spread, and loaded with the luxuries of the season ; and he loved to see it surrounded by a few regular visitors and others especially invited. My father wras a favorite guest. He was regarded by Mr. Hays and his wrhole family as a particular friend, their chosen counsellor in times of perplexity, and their comforter in the days of their affliction. My father seldom failed to dine at Mr. Hays's on Saturday, and often took me with him ; for he was sure I should meet refined company there.

Both Uncle and Aunt Hays (for so I called them) were fond of children, particularly of me ; and I was permitted to stay with them several days, and even weeks, together. And I can never forget, not merely their kind, but their conscientious care of me. I was the child of Christian parents, and they took especial pains that I should lose nothing of religious training so long as I was permitted to abide with them. Every night, I was required, on going to bed, to repeat my

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Christian hymns and prayers to them, or else to an excellent Christian servant woman who lived with them many years. I witnessed their religious exercises, — ■ their fastings and their prayers, — and was made to feel that they worshipped the Unseen Almighty and Allmerciful One. Of course I grew up without any prejudice against Jews, — or any other religionists, because they did not believe as my father and my mother believed.

I was accounted a good little boy, and well remember that I used to love to be so, and to be so considered. And, notwithstanding ill health, I was a very happy, joyous child. I had many friends, and was rather a favorite among them.

But, when I was eight or nine years old, an event happened that expelled me from Eden, and made me very wretched. I think my recollections of it have helped me to understand and to expound, as I do, the account in Genesis of the fall of our first parents.

I had a sister Eliza, a year and a half younger than myself, to whom I was much attached. One day I saw at a toy-shop a doll, which I was sure it would delight her to have ; but I possessed not money enough to buy it. While I was pondering in my mind how I should raise the means to gratify her and myself, I went with my mother to spend the afternoon and take tea with an aunt. Going about the house in search of amusement, I chanced to find, in the chamber of the maid-servant, lying upon the table, just the little sum