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834 HISTORICAL ANNOTATION

emigration that was used by George T. Downing and Charles L. Reason at a New
York City mass meeting considering Henry Highland Garnet's African Civilization
Society. Proceedings of the Colored National Convention, Held in Franklin Hall,
Sixth Street, Below Arch, Philadelphia, October 16th, 17th and 18th, 1855 (Salem,
N.J., 1855), 3, 8; Proceedings of the Colored National Convention, 1853, 46; FDP, 1
December 1854; Lib., 4 May 1860; Bell, Survey of the Negro Convention Movement,
232-35.

240.35 till "all ashore" was ordered] "All ashore" is an abbreviation of the origi-
nal order, "All ashore that's going ashore," a warning issued facetiously by sailors for
anyone lingering too long on the boat before the gangplank was pulled up. George
Davis Chase, "Sea-Terms that Have Come Ashore," NEQ, 14:272-91 (June 1941).

240.38 Barclay street ferry] Established in 1775, the ferry from New York City
to Hoboken, New Jersey, was purchased by engineer and inventor John Stevens in
1789, who maintained the ferry in its original New York location at Vesey Street.
Stevens ceased ownership of the ferry in 1791 but repurchased the lease in 1811,
thereafter utilizing the ferry to experiment with his innovative steamships until 1817.
Because of the crowded nature of Vesey Street, the ferry's New York location was
moved to Barclay Street on 8 June 1818. John H. Morrison, History of American
Steam Navigation (New York, 1908), 525-27; DAB, 17:614-16.

240.39 Hoboken] Hoboken is a city in northeastern New Jersey on the Hudson
River. Seltzer, Gazetteer of the World, 790.

240.39 Marks] Clara B. Marks, a woman of German descent, was well acquainted
with both Douglass and feminist Ottilie Assing. Assing resided in Marks's home on
Washington Street, Hoboken, from 1856 to 1865. Douglass often visited Marks and
Assing during this period, and he stayed in touch with Marks following Assing's
suicide in 1884. Clara B. Marks to Frederick Douglass, 26 October 1886, General
Correspondence File, reel 4, frames 420-21, FD Papers, DLC; Maria Diedrich, Love
across Color Lines: Ottilie Assing and Frederick Douglass (New York, 1999), xv,
143, 260-61.

241.8 Ottilie Assing] Ottilie Assing (1819-84) was born to Rosa Maria Antoinette
Pauline Assing, a Christian, and Assur David Assing, a Jew, in Hamburg, Germany.
Assing received an accelerated education from her mother and was generally
described as bright and vivacious. After the death of her mother in 1840 and father in
1842, Ottilie and younger sister Ludmilla spent time with relatives, but she grew
depressed and attempted suicide in 1843. After returning to Hamburg, Assing began
writing reviews of local culture. In 1851 she became a correspondent for the German
periodical Morganblatt fur gehildete Leser. Assing first met Frederick Douglass when
she came to America in 1855, supposedly inspired to make his acquaintance after
reading My Bondage and My Freedom. She arrived in Rochester and interviewed him
for an article that subsequently appeared in Morganblatt. Thereafter Assing published
numerous articles about Douglass for her German readership, and also translated My
Bondage and My Freedom into German, contributing an introduction. The two began

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