Frederick Douglass
The peaches were ripe when Susan returned to the farm. The orchard which her father had planted, now bore abundantly. Restless and eager for hard physical work, she discarded the stylish hoops which impeded action, put on an old calico dress, and spent days in the warm September sunshine picking peaches. Then while she preserved, canned, and pickled them, there was little time to long for pioneering in the West.
She enjoyed the active life on the farm for she was essentially a doer, most happy when her hands and her mind were busy. As she helped with the housework, wove rag carpet, or made shirts by hand for her father and brothers, she dreamed of the future, of the work she might do to make her life count for something. Teaching, she decided, was definitely behind her. She would not allow her sister Mary's interest in that career to persuade her otherwise, even if teaching were the only promising and well-thought-of occupation for women. Reading the poems of Elizabeth Barrett Browning, she was deeply stirred and looked forward romantically to some great and useful life work.
The Liberator, with its fearless denunciation of Negro slavery, now came regularly to the Anthony home, and as she pored over its pages, its message fired her soul. Eagerly she called with her father at the home of Frederick Douglass, who had recently settled in Rochester and was publishing his paper, the North Star. Not only did she want to show friendliness to this free Negro of whose intelligence and eloquence she had heard so much, but she wanted to hear first-hand from him and his wife of the needs of his people.
Almost every Sunday the antislavery Quakers met at the Anthony farm. The Posts, the Hallowells, the De Garmos, and the Willises were sure to be there. Sometimes they sent a wagon into the city for Frederick Douglass and his family. Now and then famous abolitionists joined the circle when their work brought them to western New York—William Lloyd Garrison, looking with fatherly kindness at his friends through his small steel-rimmed spectacles; Wendell Phillips, handsome, learned, and impressive; black-bearded, fiery Parker Pillsbury; and the friendly Unitarian pastor from Syracuse, the Reverend Samuel J. May. Susan, helping her mother with dinner for fifteen or twenty, was torn between establishing her reputation as a good cook and listening to the interesting conversation. She heard them discuss woman's rights, which had divided the antislavery ranks. They talked of their antislavery campaigns and the infamous compromises made by Congress to pacify the powerful slaveholding interests. Like William Lloyd Garrison, all of them refused to vote, not wishing to take any part in a government which countenanced slavery. They called the Constitution a proslavery document, advocated "No Union with Slaveholders," and demanded immediate and unconditional emancipation. All about them and with their help the Underground Railroad was operating, circumventing the Fugitive Slave Law and guiding Negro refugees to Canada and freedom. Amy and Isaac Post's barn, Susan knew, was a station on the Underground, and the De Garmos and Frederick Douglass almost always had a Negro hidden away. She heard of riots and mobs in Boston and Ohio; but in Rochester not a fugitive was retaken and there were no street battles, although the New York Herald advised the city to throw its "nigger printing press"[32] into Lake Ontario and banish Douglass to Canada.
As the Society of Friends in Rochester was unfriendly to the antislavery movement, Susan with her father and other liberal Hicksite Quakers left it for the Unitarian church. Here for the first time they listened to "hireling ministry" and to a formal church service with music. This was a complete break with what they had always known as worship, but the friendly Christian spirit expressed by both minister and congregation made them soon feel at home. This new religious fellowship put Susan in touch with the most advanced thought of the day, broke down some of the rigid precepts drilled into her at Deborah Moulson's seminary, and encouraged liberalism and tolerance. Although there had been austerity in the outward forms of her Quaker training, it had developed in her a very personal religion, a strong sense of duty, and a high standard of ethics, which always remained with her. It had fostered a love of mankind that reached out spontaneously to help the needy, the unfortunate, and the oppressed, and this now became the driving force of her life. It led her naturally to seek ways and means to free the Negro from slavery and to turn to the temperance movement to wipe out the evil of drunkenness.
These were the days when the reformed drunkard, John B. Gough, was lecturing throughout the country with the zeal of an evangelist, getting thousands to sign the total-abstinence pledge. Inspired by his example, the Daughters of Temperance were active in Rochester. They elected Susan their president, and not only did she plan suppers and festivals to raise money for their work but she organized new societies in neighboring towns. Her more ambitious plans for them were somewhat delayed by home responsibilities which developed when her father became an agent of the New York Life Insurance Company. This took him away from home a great deal, and as both her brothers were busy with work of their own and Mary was teaching, it fell to Susan to take charge of the farm. She superintended the planting, the harvesting, and the marketing, and enjoyed it, but she did not let it crowd out her interest in the causes which now seemed so vital.
Horace Greeley's New York Tribune came regularly to the farm, for the Anthonys, like many others throughout the country, had come to depend upon it for what they felt was a truthful report of the news. In this day of few magazines, it met a real need, and Susan, poring over its pages, not only kept in touch with current events, but found inspiration in its earnest editorials which so often upheld the ideals which she felt were important. She found thought-provoking news in the full and favorable report of the national woman's rights convention held in Worcester, Massachusetts, in October 1850. Better informed now through her antislavery friends about this new movement for woman's rights, she was ready to consider it seriously and she read all the stirring speeches, noting the caliber of the men and women taking part. Garrison, Phillips, Pillsbury, and Lucretia Mott were there, as well as Lucy Stone, that appealing young woman of whose eloquence on the antislavery platform Susan had heard so much, and Abby Kelley Foster, whose appointment to office in the American Antislavery Society had precipitated a split in the ranks on the "woman question."