Nothing had prepared them for the cold—the silent, thick, gray cold that shut down like a vise over the land. The tiny house on a back street, which had seemed the fulfillment of their dreams, now was a porous shed. It had none of the Northern conveniences, and each trip through the snowdrifts to the distant well with its frozen buckets was a breath-taking effort.
Each morning Anna got her husband’s breakfast by candlelight, and Frederick set out for work. Odd jobs were not as easy to find nor as steady as he would have liked. Many cotton mills in New England were still that winter, and many ships lay idle all along Cape Cod. Down in Washington a new President was proving himself weak and ineffectual. Banks were tottering and business houses were going down in ruins. This was the year Susan B. Anthony’s father lost his factory, his store, his home; and the eighteen-year-old Quaker girl, with Berkshire hills mirrored in her eyes, went out to teach school.
During the hardest part of the winter, Frederick’s wages were less than ten dollars for the month. He and Anna were pinched for food. But they were never discouraged: they were living in a new world. When he could, Frederick attended the meetings of colored people of New Bedford. These meetings went far beyond the gatherings of the East Baltimore Mental Improvement Society, and once more Frederick sat silent, listening and learning. He was constantly amazed at the resolutions presented and discussions which followed. All the speakers seemed to him possessed of marvelously superior talents.
Two events during his first months in New Bedford had a decisive effect upon his life.
“Among my first concerns on reaching New Bedford,” he said years later, “was to become united with the church, for I had never given up, in reality, my religious faith. I had become lukewarm and in a backslidden state, but I was still convinced that it was my duty to join the church.... I therefore resolved to join the Methodist church in New Bedford and to enjoy the spiritual advantage of public worship. The minister of the Elm Street Methodist Church was the Reverend Mr. Bonney; and although I was not allowed a seat in the body of the house, and was proscribed on account of my color, regarding this proscription simply as an accommodation of the unconverted congregation who had not yet been won to Christ and his brotherhood, I was willing thus to be proscribed, lest sinners should be driven away from the saving power of the Gospel. Once converted, I thought they would be sure to treat me as a man and a brother. Surely, thought I, these Christian people have none of this feeling against color....
“An opportunity was soon afforded me for ascertaining the exact position of Elm Street Church on the subject.... The occasion ... was the sacrament of the Lord’s Supper.... At the close of his (Mr. Bonney’s) discourse, the congregation was dismissed and the church members remained to partake of the sacrament. I remained to see, as I thought, this holy sacrament celebrated in the spirit of its great Founder.
“There were only about a half dozen colored members attached to the Elm Street Church, at this time.... These descended from the gallery and took a seat against the wall most distant from the altar. Brother Bonney was very animated, and sung very sweetly, ‘Salvation, ’tis a joyful sound,’ and soon began to administer the sacrament. I was anxious to observe the bearing of the colored members, and the result was most humiliating. During the whole ceremony, they looked like sheep without a shepherd. The white members went forward to the altar by the bench full; and when it was evident that all the whites had been served with the bread and wine, Brother Bonney—pious Brother Bonney—after a long pause, as if inquiring whether all the white members had been served, and fully assuring himself on that important point, then raised his voice to an unnatural pitch, and looking to the corner where his black sheep seemed penned, beckoned with his hand, exclaiming, ‘Come forward, colored friends!—come forward! You, too, have an interest in the blood of Christ. God is no respecter of persons. Come forward, and take this holy sacrament to your comfort.’ The colored members—poor, slavish souls—went forward, as invited. I went out, and have never been in that church since, although I honestly went there with the view of joining that body.”[2]
The second event was happier. Not long after they moved into the little house a young man knocked on their door. Frederick had just come in from a particularly hard and unproductive day. Anna, turning from the stove where she was about to serve the evening meal, listened attentively. She wanted to say something. Then she heard Frederick’s tired voice, “Subscribe? the Liberator?”
“Yes,” the young man spoke briskly, “You know, William Lloyd Garrison’s Abolitionist paper. Surely we ought to support him!”
Anna moved to the doorway, but Frederick was shaking his head.