All Boston, all America, was moved at the death of the great leader—patrician born, yet the people's advocate. The funeral was held at eleven o'clock Wednesday, Feb. 6, at Hollis-street Church, and then the body was borne to Faneuil Hall, two colored companies forming a guard of honor.
There, where he had won his first fame in youth at the Lovejoy meeting, where he had stirred the whole land by his eloquence in the cause of the oppressed, it was fitting he should sleep at last.
The Irish National League of Boston sent a mound of flowers, three feet by four, with the word "Humanity" in the centre, in violets on a bed of carnations. The Irish-American Societies of Boston sent a harp four feet high of ivy leaves and japonicas, with the word "Ireland" in the centre. One of the harp strings was broken. Others sent a sheaf of ripened wheat, a crown of ivy and roses, and a wreath of laurel.
From one o'clock till four, thousands passed the form of their beloved dead; rich and poor, Irish and American, black and white, children and adults. One old colored woman, with tears flowing down her cheeks, said, "Our Wendell Philips has gone." Another said, "He was de bes' fren' we ever hed. We owes him a heap!"
Frederick Douglass looked on in sorrow. "I wanted to see this throng," he said, "and to see the hold that this man had upon the community. It is a wonderful tribute."
Thousands were unable to enter Faneuil Hall, and filled every available inch of space in the street, and windows and balconies of buildings. A vast crowd followed up State Street to Washington, up School to Tremont, to the old Granary burying-ground, where the body was laid in the family vault.
Mrs. Phillips died Saturday, April 24, 1886, two years after her husband. She had been closely confined to her home for the greater part of fifty years. "She lay as if asleep," says Francis J. Garrison, "with all the purity and guilelessness of her youthful face ripened into maturity. It seemed transfiguration."
The body of Wendell Phillips was carried with that of his wife to Milton, a beautiful suburb where they had often spent their summers; and both were buried in the same grave, side by side, in a lot which he had purchased a year or two before his death. A noble pine-tree stands near the spot. On a plain slab at the head of the grave are the words, "Ann and Wendell Phillips."