Alumni Reminiscences 1878 of Anti-Slavery Rebellion

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the luckless blunderer to "sit down & digest it."

Mr Johnson was at this time in very poor health & it is only doing justice to one of the noblest & kindest of woman, whom many an Andover student remembers with gratitude more, to say that the world is indebted to the unremitting and assiduous care of his wife, for the prolongation through many of his most fruitful years, of his great usefulness.

It may inerest some to know that Mr Johnson derived his name Osgood, from a quaint but sturdy old gentleman, who lived in the next Parish, near to Mr Johnsons birth place. Mr Osgood was my step grandfather & through the circumstance I came more in contact with Mr Johnson, than the boys generally did. Mr Osgood was a strong Unitarian, or rather he was a strong Protestant against the Lufore - Laplarian Colonisations, which he supposed who taught in Andover Seminary & which was the only Colonism he ever heard of. Mr Osgood, by the way, harboured James Otis, after his injury from the musket of an English soldier until his death by a strike of lightning. The curious can still see the door ^way in which Otis was killed & the mark of lightning along

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the timber of the house. Mr Johnson constantly You ask for some account of the great Anti Slavery Rebellion. This occured during] and most tenderly warned me against adopting the fatal [??], as they were then regarded. of my grandfather this namesake for whom, notwithstanding, he had the sincerest respect.

You ask me for some account of the great Anti Slavery rebellion. This occurred during the administration of Mr Johnson. Its immediate occasion was the advent of Georgt Thompson M.P. - the eloquent English agitator, and of Rev A. A Phelps, the predecessor of Prof. Austin Phelps in the pastorate of Rowe St Church in Boston - the latter as full of logic as the former was of fire. Garrisons Liberator was then recently started in Boston. It was about that time that he was led through the streets to Leverill St Jail to protect him from a mob. The whole community was in a state of ignition. It is impossible for the men of our times to conceive of the intensity of the conviction which was thus taking hold upon the conscience of Massachusetts, and stirring her heroic soul. Those millions of men in bonds & me responsible for it all. The Poerter Rhetorical Society expended its enloquence hearing on the theme. The Social Fraternity and

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the Philomathiaw fired their guns, week after week. But that was not enough. We must have an Anti Slavery Society. A Society was the universal solvent for all wrongs. With a society we could make ourselves felt in the tremendous issue. Without a society we were nothing. We did not remember those in bonds as bound with them. Mr Johnson did not see it in that light. Mr Median who was a Southern man, was believed to be the hereditary far of freedom. Mr Taylor did not share our enthusiasm. So the Society was forbidden. Instantly the story was told in the Liberation. Appeals to the public signed by the students were published in the Boston papers. Mrs Thompson & Phelps applied, I believe, for the use of the Chapel & The South Chh, but were refused. The Methodist Chh, was opened, and there they planted their batteries. Night after night an eloquence, really of a very high order was powered forth; And all about an Anti Slavery Society in Phillips Academy. No wonder we were excited. Were we not plaed in the very [??] of this great war. between liberty & slavery. Were not the Southern bondmen all turning their eyes to Andover hill, in hourly expectation of the news, that the Society had been formed, and the dean of freedom began?

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That is what the orator said. Then the arguement why it was all one way! When Geo. Thompson gave an [??] of this first chapter of Isiah in the light of his volcanic eloquence, hour insignificant Prof. Stuart appeared, leading up [??], & Philmon, with a sring of Greek verbs, in opposition to the grand old prophet. When Mr Phelps gave us a half hour of clean cut logic, hour like a mathematical demonstration it seemed, that we ought to have that Society, that we must have that Society, and that we would have that Society.

But Mr Johnson was not the man to be frightened, by the Anti The Society was forbidden. At last the students in large numbers resolved to withdraw from the school. A public statement was prepared, the names of the retiring students were appended, after the fashion of the Declaration of Independence. As they could not enter college without a regular dismission, and as many of them were too poor, to man the expense of a change of school, the act was really one of great self arrival. However mistaken the young men were in regard to the real importance of the issue they made, it is certain that was never acted with poorer motions, or from a higher sense of duty. Long was the consultations with the Anti Slavery

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Evangelists, and with sympathising students in the Seminary, most earnest were the prayers for Divine guidance. It was eminently a religious rebellion. The majority of them engaged in it were mature men. Some of the leaders must have been from twenty five to thirty years of age. You speak of their being expelled. I do not remember any act of that kind. They withdrew, and were refused the usual dismissions which would entitle them to admission to other institutions. That I think was all. The number I do not remember. I should say from thirty to fifty. Their address to the public, if a copy of it could be found, would be a very curious & interesting document. - I may not have told the story with perfect convictions, as it its details. But the main facts I cannot be mistaken about. The fault in the whole matter was undoubtedly largely with the teachers. There was no need of precipitating such a crisis. Such motives & such men could have been easily conciliated. If the Society desired, could do little god, it was equally true, that it could have done lesser harm.

But those were grand old days. Phillips Academy was not then, a school for boys, but