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William H. Seward |

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Frances Seward
1844 |

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Frances Seward
1862 |

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Fanny, Lazette, and Mrs. Perry at Pisgah |
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In the "emancipation business":
William and Frances Seward's Abolition Activism |
By: Peter Wisbey, Seward
House Executive Director - February 2004 |
William Henry (1801-1872) and Frances (1805-1865) Seward
devoted themselves to reform and social justice causes, especially the abolition
of slavery. Their home has a clear history as a hub of activism in Auburn.
William Seward was born in Florida, New York. His parents,
like many homeowners in the Hudson River Valley, owned several slaves. Young
William, the fourth of six children, found relief from the severity of his
parents, in the company of the family slaves. He noted that they were "vivacious
and loquacious, as well as affectionate, toward me. What wonder that I found
their apartment more attractive than the parlour, and their conversation
a relief from the severe decorum which prevailed
there?"1 Soon
however, the young boy discerned the inequity between the races living within
his own home. "I early came to the conclusion," he wrote, "that something
was wrong. . . and [that] determined me, at that early age, to be an
abolitionist."2
Shortly after his graduation from Union College, Seward moved to Auburn and
joined Judge Elijah Miller's law practice. In 1824, he married the judge's
youngest daughter, Frances, and they moved into Judge Miller's 1816 home
(now Seward House) on South Street.
Frances, although a practicing Episcopalian, had received a Quaker education
in Cayuga County and at the Troy Female Seminary. Abolition of slavery was
the core principle that drew the couple together.
Six years after his marriage, William Seward began a
career in politics. He served as a state senator (1830-1834) and ran
unsuccessfully for governor in 1834. In 1838, as a member of the new Whig
Party, Seward won election as governor. During his two gubernatorial terms
(1839-1843) he established himself nationally as an outspoken abolitionist.
Governor Seward carried on a public (and prickly) correspondence with the
Governor of Virginia following his refusal to allow the extradition of three
sailors who had assisted in a fugitive slave's escape attempt. In 1840, he
oversaw the passage of legislation empowering state agents to return persons
kidnapped into
slavery.3
In 1846, once again a private citizen, Seward became
the defense counsel for William Freeman, a mentally-ill Auburn resident of
African American and Native American descent, who murdered a white farmer
and his family. Seward's argument that Freeman's mental state should exculpate
his actions is one of the first uses of the "insanity defense" in the United
States. Although his argument failed to sway the jury, Seward's defense was
widely reprinted and circulated by capital punishment reform
groups.4
William Seward returned to the political arena in 1849
as a United States senator. In January 1850, Seward, now a recognized leader
of the abolitionist faction of the Whig Party, was thrust into the debate
over California's admission into the Union as a free or slave state. In a
speech to the Senate, Seward reminded his listeners that there was a "higher
law" than the Constitution and warned of the effects of expanding slavery
into the new territories of the west. The mood of the country was too strong
to tackle the issue of slavery. In the Compromise of 1850, legislation granted
statehood for a free California but included the bitter pill of the Fugitive
Slave Law.
Although supportive of her husband's political career,
Frances Seward did not choose to move with him to Washington. Ongoing health
problems, the care of her aging father and a general dislike for the
responsibilities of being a politician's wife, kept Frances in Auburn. Senator
Seward's travel, speechmaking and legal activity suggest that it was Frances
who played a more active role in local Underground Railroad activities. In
the excitement following the "Jerry Rescue" in Syracuse on October 1, 1851,
Frances wrote, "Last evening Mr. May the Unitarian clergyman from Syracuse
called with Mr. Austin to enquire the fortune of the letter from Mr. Wheaton
and was very desirous that I should forward it immediately. He expects with
Mr. Wheaton to be arrested today. . . . There is considerable excitement
here. 2 fugitives have gone to Canada - one of them was our acquaintance
John."5
According to secondary sources, there are two areas of
Seward House that are associated
with Underground Railroad use. An oral history from the Sewards' granddaughter,
Frances Messenger, recalls that Mrs. Seward referred to the area over the
woodshed as her
"dormitory."6
Also, an 1891 newspaper article reports "it is said that the old kitchen
was one of the most popular stations of the Underground Railroad, and that
many a poor slave who fled by this route to Canada carried to his grave the
remembrance of its warmth and
cheer."7 On
November 18, 1855, writing from Auburn, William Seward noted "the 'underground
railroad' works wonderfully. Two passengers came here last night. Watch [the
family dog] attacked one of
them."8
Mrs. Seward was also an advocate for education and
advancement of African Americans. In 1849, Miss Elizabeth Parsons, headmistress
of the Samuel S. Seward Institute, a school founded in Florida, NY, responded
to a letter from Frances regarding "whether I can in any way take a pretty
little colored girl into my school & give her the benefits of instruction
&c."9 In
another instance, Mrs. Seward enrolled an African American boy named John
in the primary school associated with the McGrawville College in Cortland
County. While it is unclear whether these children were fugitives or not,
they were living within the Seward household for periods of
time.10 In
July of 1852, Mrs. Seward, after a visit to the Auburn Orphan Asylum, reported
to her husband "I was greatly interested in the Orphans. . . . One of them
has died & is to be buried this morning. As he was a poor colored child
placed there by my advice, I am going round and shall defray the funeral
expenses."11
Having inherited money from both sides of their family,
the Sewards used their personal wealth to support the abolition movement.
They were financial backers of Frederick Douglass' North Star newspaper in
Rochester. On July 1, 1852, Frances wrote to her husband, "A man by the name
of William Johnson will apply to you for assistance to purchase the freedom
of his daughter. You will see that I have given him something by his book.
I told him I thought you would give him more. He is very desirous that I
should employ his daughter when he gets her which I have agreed to do
conditionally if you
approve."12
In addition to Frances' work, there is an indication
that William Seward, while a senator in Washington, DC, worked with African
American hotelkeeper, James Wormley, to transport fugitives to freedom. A
c. 1870 manuscript by Francis B. Carpenter in the Seward Papers notes: "Among
the visitors in the evening was Mr. Wormley, the well known colored landlord
of Washington. Greeting him cordially and introducing him to his other guests,
Mr. Seward said: 'Wormley and I went into the emancipation business a year
and a half before Mr. Lincoln did, down on the James River. How was it Wormley
- how many slaves did we take off on our steamer?' 'Eighteen,' replied Mr.
Wormley."13
Finally, the Seward's support and patronage of Harriet
Tubman is well known and
documented.14
In 1859, William Henry and Frances conveyed seven acres of land to Tubman
as a home. The property, the nucleus of the present day Harriet Tubman Home
museum, was not paid off until after William Seward's death in 1872, emphasizing
what Sarah Bradford recorded as the Sewards' "very favorable terms" to Tubman.
The Seward account books do record occasional payments on the debt and additional
loans to Tubman over the next several decades.
The striking roles played by both William and Frances Seward in abolition
activism have been largely overshadowed by William Seward's career as Civil
War Secretary of State and his purchase of the Alaska Territory in 1867.
The inclusion of their home as part of the Underground Railroad Heritage
Trail would be a welcome recognition of the cause for which they passionately
worked. |