71

HISTORICAL ANNOTATION 369

by such well-known women as Harriet Beecher Stowe, Catharine Beecher, and Su-
san B. Anthony. In 1847 Ruggles advertised the cost of his establishment to be
$5.50 per week. Jane B. Donegan, "Hydropathic Highway to Health": Women and
Water-Cure in Antebellum America (Westport, Conn., 1986); 3–4, 185, 195; Susan
E. Caleff, Wash and Be Healed: The Water-Cure Movement and Women's Health
(Philadelphia, 1987), 80, 86, 102, 143, 148, 152.
197.2/342.3 Mr. Nathan Johnson] Owners of a confectionery shop and a thriv-
ing catering business. Nathan Johnson (?–1880) and Mary Page Johnson (?–
c. 1870) were two of the most prominent blacks in New Bedford, Massachusetts.
They had helped and housed black fugitives on many occasions, and Nathan had
long been an active abolitionist, serving at one point as a manager of the American
Anti-Slavery Society. In 1832 Johnson represented New Bedford at the National
Negro Convention in Philadelphia, and in 1837 he was one of three local African
Americans chosen to question all county political candidates about their views on
slavery and the slave trade. Johnson left New Bedford for California in 1849 and
did not return until 1871 after his wife, who had remained behind, died. New York
Colored American, 18 November 1837; Henry H. Crapo, ed., The New Bedford Di-
rectory [for 1838] (New Bedford, Mass., 1838), 77; Vital Records of New Bedford,
Massachusetts, to the Year 1850, 3 vols. (Boston, 1932), 2: 309, 396; Barbara
Clayton and Kathleen Whitley, Guide to New Bedford (Chester, Conn., 1979),
134–35; Merrill and Ruchames, Garrison Letters, 2: 712; McFeely, Frederick
Douglass, 76–78, 84.
197.23–24/343.2–3 Johnson family in New Bedford] According to the 1840
population census, there were eleven black families in New Bedford with the sur-
name Johnson. The members of those households totaled forty-one. 1840 U.S.
Census, Massachusetts, Bristol County, 357–465.
197.32/343.15 "Lady of the Lake."] Sir Walter Scott (1771–1832) published
The Lady of the Lake in Edinburgh in 1810. Ellen Douglas and her father, Lord
James of Douglas, a medieval Scotish chieftain, are the principal characters. Com-
plete Poetical Works of Scott, 152–208; Drabble, Oxford Companion to English
Literature, 542, 875–76.
197.37–38/343.23 "stalwart hand."] Probably a reference to canto 1, stanza
XXVIII lines 565–67 of Sir Walter Scott's The Lady of the Lake: " 'I never knew
but one,' he said. / 'Whose stalwart arm might brook to wield / A blade like this in
battle-field.' " Complete Poetical Works of Scott, 162.
198.12–13/344.10 "poor white trash." I Derogatory term pertaining to the poor
white population of the South. Mathews, Dictionary of Americanisms, 2: 1283.
198.16–18/344.15–18 laboring population . . . Maryland] The living conditions
of laborers, and especially of free blacks, was only marginally better in northern
states than in the South. Blacks living in northern cities were just a bit more likely
to own property than their southern counterparts, but were more likely to have dif-
ficulty finding a job that suited their occupation, if skilled. In some southern cities,