Identifier: lifetimesoffrede1882doug (find matches)
Title: Life and times of Frederick Douglass
Year: 1882 (1880s)
Authors: Douglass, Frederick, 1818-1895
Subjects: Douglass, Frederick, 1818-1895 Antislavery movements Slavery
Publisher: Hartford, Conn. : Park
Contributing Library: Wellesley College Library
Digitizing Sponsor: Boston Library Consortium Member Libraries

View Book Page: Book Viewer
About This Book: Catalog Entry
View All Images: All Images From Book
Click here to view book online to see this illustration in context in a browseable online version of this book.

Text Appearing Before Image:
s. This was soondone, for Mr. Nathan Johnson not only received me kindly,and hospitably, but, on being informed about our baggage, atonce loaned me the two dollars with which to square accountswith the stage-driver. Mr. and Mrs. Nathan Johnson reacheda good old age, and now rest from their labors. I am undermany grateful obligations to them. They not only took mein when a stranger, and fed me when hungry, but taughtme how to make an honest living. Thus, in a fortnight after my flight from Maryland, I wassafe in New Bedford,—a citizen of the grand old common-wealth of Massachusetts. Once initiated into my new life of freedom, and assured byMr. Johnson that I need not fear recapture in that city, a com-paratively unimportant question arose, as to the name by whichI should be known thereafter, in my new relation as a freeman. The name given me by my dear mother was no lesspretentious and long than Frederick Augustus WashingtonBailey. I had, however, while living in Maryland disposed of
Text Appearing After Image:
At the Wharf in Newport. GETS A NEW NAME. 235 the Augustus Washington, and retained only Frederick Bailey.Between Baltimore and New Bedford, the better to concealmyself from the slave-hunters, I had parted with Bailey andcalled myself Johnson; but finding that in New Bedford theJohnson family was already so numerous as to cause someconfusion in distinguishing one from another, a change in thisname seemed desirable. Nathan Johnson, mine host, wasemphatic as to this necessity, and wished me to allow him toselect a name for me. I consented, and he called me by mypresent name,—the one by which I have been known for threeand forty years,—Frederick Douglass. Mr. Johnson had justbeen reading the Lady of the Lake, and so pleased was hewith its great character that he wished me to bear his name.Since reading that charming poem myself, I have often thoughtthat, considering the noble hospitality and manly character ofNathan Johnson, black man though he was, he, far more thanI, illustrated th

Note About Images