who are members, trustees. fund, but the women who were in thank you. i just want to say thank you and salute you for all of your support because as a nonprofit, boston were not happy with this. you.n't do it without they thought all the money should go to boston. so there was a big issue over for those of you who aren't members, i don't know what you are waiting for. this between the women in new can go online and join the york city and the women in boston. however, today, i found this statement -- in consequence of a recent decision of the new york party any time. ok? we are here tonight, it is part of a celebration on -- a black anti-slavery fair association, history month. we had a program at the you will receive a check for the beginning of the month with, which are hand, joyce gold, did a program on little africa. net proceeds of the sales made out -- with three months [applause] that was good. interest thereon. tonight, we are going to present also $16 proceeds of sales made an author who's a is about the more recently. underground railroad. this is what is significant. did you know there were stopped it has been agreed by the on the underground railroad in society that louis napoleon greenwich village? what doesn't greenwich village should receive $100 for his have? services in aid of fugitives during the present year, 1857. i want to introduce you to our speaker tonight, don papson. of this sum, he has received he is co-author of "secret lives of the underground railroad in new york city: $16. now, i wanted to share those two things with you because i could he is founder of the north star underground railroad museum. possibly not remember. if you have never been there, it is beautiful. remark, butepared he is an independent scholar and we are limited on time, so i am a member of the american going to do the best i can to organization of historians. include everything of after his talk tonight, he will take a few questions and then significance that i want to share. his book be available for purchase and signing in the back put it a little bit of panic of the room. on me on the phone because he before don comes out, we have a special guest tonight. said, i want you to put a berger. [applause] greenwich village twist on your presentation. i thought, oh my goodness, how am i going to do that? my book is about new york city. it is not about greenwich village. then i remembered that there was a letter that sydney wrote to his friend edmund quincy in come over here. lets nature sure the microphone is good for you. boston after he and elizabeth were married. you may have to move donna's and he told him that they had notes -- we may have to move ,ented two rooms on 12 street don's notes a bit. and he said they were living with the craig family. can everyone here? and that they were kind unitarians, and they were berger.am otis favorable to anti-slavery. i was born in staten island. so, otis did a little research and she found out that where craig lived was probably were and about 50 years ago, my new york university is today. the problem is that the woman mother sold my who lived there was a widow, but great-grandfather's papers to the butler library where two people eventually found them. it was not a family. i found in 1846, there was a man one was eric who published a book. named thomas craig who lived at 122 12 street with his wife the other was don papson. they both came out last year and isabella and son william. don papson is more like my i suspected that was the family that elizabeth and sydney had great-grandfather. their rooms from. it doesn't really tell us about the underground railroad because out in the audience is my great, we don't have evidence that the great granddaughter named after my great grandmother elizabeth involved with the who was married to sydney underground railroad. , we have a little howard gay, who i heard an awful lot about him. bit of a story which we did not fully research. don, tell people more if we had researched everything about all of this. totally, we would have never [applause] published the book. at some point, you have to say, ok, we are going to stop that -- stop it and get the book out. it is a story of a woman who escaped from richmond, virginia [laughter] in 1855 in april. the story was in the newspaper thank you, otis. first through the offices of the one of the best things that has evening post. happened in the last year is meeting otis. they said, that the woman had been owned by someone who had hired her out and that the woman and otis's cousin. i only wished i had known them said, i wanted to come and see when i was working on the book. but i was so engrossed in me, and the woman was on her way to see her, but since there were looking through her great-grandfather's papers at free black people on the columbia university, i did not get out of the library. what happened is when eric came jamestown steamer, and at that one of them induced her to stay out with his book a month before on the steamship and to come all hours, there was an article in the waiting or exceeding -- come the new york times and comments and beth made one all the way to new york city. she was taken to a colored family on sullivan street. of those comments. neil made another. repeated the gay i said, i am point to contact these ladies. so we have become best friends story that was in the evening post of the standard, but he and it's a wonderful experience added a few corrections because a man may mr. drop was the because things i have found in second steward on the jamestown letters contain stories that visited gay in his office. otis heard as she was growing and he said, that the woman's up. so we have had a wonderful time comparing. name was harriet. i am still in the research and that she had a child with her. process. he also said that when the some of the things i am going to share are not in the book. captain discovered harriet had ideagoing to give you an escaped, that he hired the same of the significance of the book. i cannot take everything that is driver quit taken her to sullivan street to take him to in it. it is way too much. but today, every time i come to sullivan street. but he also went to see a deputy new york city, i do more marshal, so he took the police research. today, i found something really with him. house,n they got to the wonderful, which will give you an idea of the significance of what otis's great-grandfather and try to persuade her to go back to the ship and pay for her passage, the people who were in was doing with the underground the building surrounded her and railroad. would not let her go. this was a letter that was sent to the national anti-savory in order to get away from paris, standard. she leaped out of a window into the yard. sydney was the editor of that newspaper for 14 years. he started working there in 1845 now that is very interesting, but who were the people who in on march 22, 1846, a man lived in the house and where was the house? so i did some research, and i dayton, alabama, wrote a know to found there were a number of people living at 78 sullivan sydney, and it says, sirs, your national anti-savory standard has reached us. street. the man who owned the house, it we have looked in it enough to was worth $4000, his name was know that you are working very moses shepherd. he was a black man and he was a busily about which you know nothing about. steward. your zeal for humanity is misdirected. and there was a man living in we say to you, let other the building whose name was john napoleon. i have seen john napoleon many other times and i don't know his relationship to lewis. if there was a relationship. at their want that many people named the polling in the directories in new york city, so i suspected they were related. it could have been lewis's sun. i don't know. ok. to say something about the james town because it was built in 1853. i found an article in a richmond newspaper, which gave the name -- the last name of the man who escorted. off the jamestown. name of the man who escorted. off the jamestown. the captain saw her go ashore at her destination. the steamer came on to new york and shortly after, a negro named johnson, who was employed as a cook, was seen escorting her up the street which was driven off before the captain could interfere. a pursuit was made and the parties traced to her house on sullivan street. ok. this does not give his first name. but i did find a man named henry johnson that lived on sullivan street at another address. so, it could have been him. so that is a little underground railroad twist for greenwich village. i don't know if any of you have heard that story before, but it is a wonderful story. and it is yours. ok. um. i am going to talk about the unlikely alliance between sydney howard gay and napoleon. i say it is unlikely because her background for totally different. this is a cover of our book. we have the subtitle, secret lives of the underground railroad in new york city. but sydney howard gay and louis sydney howard-- gay wrote the accounts of people who came through his office in 1855 and 1856. there are accounts of over 200 people. the last time a record was published of this significance was 140 years ago. and nobody had ever written about sydney howard gay or louis napoleon. what louisow napoleon looked like because there are different accounts of him. man ande a fair skinned the silhouette of a dark skinned man because he was described both ways. this is either copper. hooper. he was sydney howard gay's underground railroad mentor. assisted louis napoleon on a case. it was a very important case, even the louis napoleon was not an educated man, he cannot read or write, he had to sign his on legal a x documents. but he knew the people to go to for help. in 1846 and when a man 18 years stowed away on a boat to new york city, louis napoleon found out and he went to isaac and said, i need help with this man. isaac hopper said i want to to .o to see elias smith he was working at the anti-slavery office with sydney howard gay. so napoleon tells him about george kirk. his name was george. he did not take the name kirk until after the case. he asked him later, why is it that you took the name? he said, it was my father's name. elias said we are going to see hopper. so they both went back to see hopper and he said you need to judge jed edmonds -- edmonds. you could start a legal procedure and then the person would be declared a free person. that is what happened with george kirk. he was free.lared but, the captain of the boat did not like that. so he went to the mayor of new york city, whose name was nickel, and he said he will have him rearrested. so there was a case in lower manhattan to try to the arrest george kirk. smith and an architect name william johnson, pretended like they were part of a mob, and they steered george into the anti-savory building, which was on nassau street. gay was really in charge of this whole operation. by the time it was over, he was totally exhausted. he was really in charge of the operation. how in the world with a going to get him out of the building? they came up with the idea of putting him in a box. onthere was a sugar refinery duane street owned by dennis harris. dennis harris sent over a box. they had george climate of the box. they nailed it shut and put a tag on it to reverend manley in essex, new york. thrilling because that is in the champagne valley with the museum is. apparently, they were attempting to send him to essex, new york. signed, "these handle with care -- "please handle with care." and foundd the box georgian side. so george was put back into the tunes. that was the detention center located with the civic center is today in the five points area. it was an ominous building. anyway, edmonds declared he was free again and he was in the tunes and the abolitionists were concerned about how they were going to have out. so, they went together and they had him go out a side door because it was a mob waiting at the main entrance. they got him out beside entrance and put them in a carriage and it took them off to boston, where he learned to be a shoemaker. this is oliver johnson. i have him in here because he was a congregationalist minister. oliver johnson was a close associate of day and a congregationalist. -- sinceaid something someone to harrisburg, vermont. i am suggesting that it is possible that oliver johnson suggested sending george kirk up to the champagne valley. this is an image of the tunes. --toombs. i am going to talk about napoleon because he became and-known to isaac hopper his daughter, abigail gibbons and her husband. james were both involved in underground railroad work. in our book, you have some records that were after -- that were the record of fugitives. napoleon was given some money, -- and thebons gibbons were involved in that. i want to share the story about a woman and a man or married in the gibbons' home in 1845. her name was sarah and she was a fugitive from slavery. abigail wrote a wonderful letter, which we have in our book, about how excited she was to be a free woman. and how wonderful the wedding was. well, 10 years later, james jacob,s word that sarah's husband, had betrayed and the slave catchers were after her. so napoleon was engaged to have sarah and the children taken to syracuse, new york. lucy, on the left, -- ok, this is lucy. she is on the left. her brother william, william died at a very young age. abigail and their other two daughters and james givens. the reason i am showing you these images is because lucy wrote a romantic novel called racial's stanwood." a story of the 19th century. .he used her married name it was published in 1893. is a disguised biography of the underground androad work of her parents louis napoleon. this is where the confusion comes in about what he looked like because in the book, she says, she said he was a light .ilano -- mulatto then, in another passage, she said he was dark skin. -- but he had a underground railroad friend name john. john and napoleon used to work together. this is probably the most accurate description because he said he was cold, -- cold blood african. in rachel stanwood, it suggested that his name was napoleon lewis and he had reversed the words. i don't know if that is a fabrication of lucy's, or if that was really the case. there is no way for me to know that. ok, i am want to talk about sydney howard gay. sydney howard gay one-time said that my ancestry is the best part of me. and he and his descendents are of their new england ancestry. on his father's side, he was descended from a clinic colony. on his mother's side, he was a descendent of john otis. napoleon and day grew up in very different worlds. you see, napoleon was born to a woman who was enslaved. he was born in 1800. new yorkbefore that, passed a law saying that children born to enslaved women would have to become indentured servants if it was a female child, until she was 25 years old. for a male child, it was until he was 28. to polling was indentured mrs. miller at a tobacco factory. a philanthropist purchased his services and immediately sold it to napoleon's first wife for $50. so he lost $200 on the deal in order to free this man. a napoleon said he immediately started rescuing people from slavery. napoleon knew slavery, but sydney howard gay did not. come to an understanding of the evil of the system. which he did. sensitive a very constitution. he was ill quite frequently. his father wanted him to become a lawyer and take over his legal practice, so he sent them to harvard university when he was 15 years old. he became very ill and had dropped out. his father expected that he would go back to harvard, but he refused. he did not want to go back. he wanted to be a businessman. he borrowed money from his father and went to st. louis, missouri where he squandered the money. thinking that a man who said, hey, let's go to st. louis and started trading business. between st. louis and new orleans. they went out to new orleans. on the way, down to new orleans, he observed, i think he was influenced by the slave owners who were on the voyage because he wrote a letter to his mother, which was a letter of apology for slavery. it is not what you would expect from an abolitionist. bookletter is not in our because i did not know about it until last year after i met otis's cousin, beth. she inherited letter she never read. i spoke at the old ship church in massachusetts. beth came and we stayed up until 11:00 looking at these letters and one of them was really powerful. this is bad, my wife is on the right, and the minister of the old ships church. what i want to share with you is something from this letter. andey road to his mother said, morally and physically, the phase were a better class of people and happier, too than their freight brother and in the north and east. they are better clothed, fed, lodged, and in every way, more comfortable than even the low class. -- they are well trusted by their masters. it makes my blood boil. a northerner as i am by birth, by education and by feeling, to look upon the cause these mathematics are pursuing which may -- these mad fanatics are pursuing. the downfall of their country. this is pretty powerful. coming from somebody who became one of the most significant agents of the underground railroad in the united states. old.very young, 24 years he is very naive. he really does not understand what is going on. he did not get one client in new orleans. i guess the southerners did not trust him because he was a northerner. whether he said he was in favor of slavery or not. yet to beg his father for money to get back to massachusetts. today, it is hard to believe, but he actually kept the receipt. it is in the collection at columbia university. $60. they got -- it costs $60 to get back to massachusetts from new orleans and that is in the records. the polling -- napoleon was illiterate. but he knew from birth that slavery was an evil system. but sadie had to come to that idea and learn the truth. 1844, sydney fell in love with elizabeth johns neil and courted her with beautiful letters. tom told me, my collaborator said, you have to cut some of that because it is too much. he loved her so much. and the letters are just wonderful. he had to prove himself to her. came to and i slavery as part of her inheritance because her father, daniel neal, was veryrailroad. then she had a grandfather who was a quaker. freed some of the first people to quaker said free in the history of the united states. anti-slavery was her birthright. she went to london in 1840 four world conference on slavery. what happened is she returns home -- he returns home and is very depressed. he has failed himself and he is failed his father. he told the family i'm going to make a success in portland -- in new orleans that it will -- but he came back further and penniless. he started teaching a school. of the notebooks accounts of the students he was teaching. he became very depressed and he wrote to elizabeth and explained the transformation he went through. i want to share that with you. home, arose and a satisfied with the world, and saw nobody. and went nowhere. 1839, i wasof 19 -- removed from the temptations of the world, its vanities, and i thought much of the severe discipline and cultivation which my mind was undergoing medical responding change in my views of life and duty. the change was very great. among other things, i was led to think of abolition. that spring i announced myself to the astonishment of all the family and everybody else who had known me for years but had not known whether the going on within the those few months. somebody tong for adopt somebody else's way of life. but when somebody looks within themselves and comes to their own realization of what they need to do, that is when it really sticks. gay never stopped having this commitment he started having in 1839. tis has reminded me -- you sent me an e-mail and said this was most powerful thing in the book for you, this transformation of your great, great-grandfather. i have e-mail. rate city had a difficult time persuading gaynell neil to agree to elizabeth marrying him. finally daniel did agree and they had a quaker wedding, although according to quaker tradition she had actually leave the faith when she married outside of the religion. 1844, he was sent by the american anti-slavery society to new york to become editor of the slavery standard. he started writing articles for the newspaper and he joined the anti-american -- american anti-slavery society. he was proving himself so they invited him to come to new york city. he did not really like new york city. they were able to buy a house on staten island. they wanted to be more of a country. as i said earlier we have had wonderful conversations. one story we have both heard, that she heard and i found in my research, is a story about the time when elizabeth came to the national anti-slavery office and sydney, who smoked a pipe, motioned with the pipe and said look under the table. there was a table that had a green cover over it. elizabeth lifted the cloth. she saw two men and a woman huddled underneath the table hiding. daughter, maryir wilcox, hired a servant. she asked the woman to tell her something about herself. she said she had escaped from slavery. they had been hidden underneath the table. mary said, did it have a green cloth on it? he said yes. mary hired the woman that her father had hidden years before. those kinds of things you cannot make up. it's too thrilling when you come across something like that. heards a story that otis and it was given to the descendents and it is at columbia university. mary wilcox also wrote something. city -- sydney's proslavery letters. he wrote the usual attitude of -- newes and even orleans brought doubt into his mind. he was invited to make a visit to a plantation and was startled on being given a loaded pistol before starting as protection against the negroes. he asked if they were content and happy, why was it necessary to arm for self-defense? mary was a little bit in error on this. this is actually from a short dey worked on. the incident occurred in charleston, s.c.. i looked at that again today and yes, it was charleston. carolinant to south when he was ill when he was very young disabled relatives and recover. it is possible that was where the germ of this idea came from. he was often exhausted from the stress of putting out the standard on a weekly basis. he operated on a shoestring budget. there was never enough money. he never knew at what time of night or day more fugitives would arrive at how he would come up with the money in order to take care of them. his health was a constant worry for his wife. there were other abolitionists in new york city who are assisting people. here is an image of oris -- otis. i want to say a little anecdote. he recently celebrated her 92nd birth date. [applause] and she was amazed they came all the way from new york to the party. i said it's not that often i'm invited to somebody's 92nd birthday party. she said it's not often i have one. [laughter] this is lewis tappin. he operated another underground railroad depot in new york city. we don't really know -- we don't have a record of all the people they worked with. that are records of people they worked with. they worked with a significant number of people. gay had nothing good to say about lewis. they were three of the founders of the american anti-slavery society in 1833. lefty0, the tappans organization has started a rival organization. they did not like garrison's dislike of politics. they did not like how he was raising women in the movement so they would be a look to speak in public. did not like his anti-clericalism. that means that garrison was sensitive to the fact that many churches and clergymen supported slavery. he wanted nothing to do with the religion but the tappans were very religious. they were presbyterians. louis napoleon was a free agent. j even though sidney howard and lewis tappan did not get along, napoleon was able to work with both men. there was a case in 1853 when napoleon was with lewis tappan and a police officer, rose porter, was arrested for allegedly kidnapping a nine-year-old black child named trainer. he had a girl returns to her father. this is an image that sidney howard gay published. the returnation of of james hamlet. man who hadck escaped from the south. he was working as a porter in new york city. offas arrested and whisked -- i said the marilyn, back to maryland. his wife and children knew nothing about this. after the first person the fugitives slave bill that was passed that was arrested under that law. wife was a rumor that his had died of a stroke out of shock. black folks in new york city had a big meeting and they started to say, is it really true? did she really got? --die? is there anyone from williamsburg to tell us? turns out she did not die. he reprinted something from another newspaper she had died but she had not. at the meeting they said, alive or dead, the money we raise is going to her. purchaseed $800 to james hamlet and he was brought back to new york city. trial --cized this triumph in the standard. lewis tappan listed louis napoleon as one of the organizers of the celebration for hamlet's return. this was when napoleon started getting a little bit more recognition. i'm going to talk now about the lemon case. it was in 1852. it was a significant case. this is the other major case we know that louis napoleon was part of. it was against a new york law for slaveowners to bring the people that they owned into the state. initially there had been a law that people can bring their slaves and the new york up to nine months. then that law was abandoned. napoleon knew the limits were not supposed to have brought people that they owned into new york. signed for a writ of habeas corpus. the judge ruled that the lemon slaves were free. force greenlee announced that napoleon placed the liberated slaves and coaches amid great cheering and waving of handkerchiefs and shouts of "thank god." a black woman was overheard saying that the judge never had to pay anybody to clean his house again. there was another faction in new york city. those with a businessman we did business with southerners. within a matter of days they raised $5,000 so that they can be reimbursed of the people that have lost. the state of virginia appealed the decision. they would have taken their appeal to the supreme court if it was not for the beginning of the civil war. this is juliet lemon. she owned the slaves that her husband -- her husband was the agent in the matter. this is a history of the case those published by horace greeley. it's very possible that sidney howard gay was involved because he was working for horace greeley at that time. the lemon case may napoleon famous. but his correspondence we learn how gay and napoleon collaborated. they began the first entry of the record on january 20 1, 18 85 these were. l.o men sent forward by napoleon." he found a man who concealed himself on a schooner from savanna. napoleon sentiment once the syracuse en route to canada. -- ane 23 an apostate or imposter visited the office. she claimed to be a fugitive but they suspected her and found she was really a destitute woman from vermont. they arrangedat, for her to get a hartford, connecticut. napoleon had some trouble with her and she was dismissed. every once in a while they would be an imposter. 1855, he wrote a letter to philadelphia agent william stills. he was a man sending many the people to new york city. still to send fugitives directly to his office. napoleonin a few days will have a room downtown and at all times they can be sent there. i am not willing to put anymore the family where i have hitherto sometimes sent them. gay wrote he1856, had been at napoleon's home and it spoken with three fugitives of lost his notes. that tells us he would take notes and some time later he would write the record of the stories of the people. there are 79 boxes of his materials at columbia university. that is an astounding collection. we have nothing that napoleon wrote because he was not able to write. he was not able to read. he had to read people. that they bothle trusted with john jay, the descendent of the john jay who try to have slavery abolished after the american revolution and was not able to do that. office,nti-slavery napoleon was the conductor and gay cap the records. the record of the cost of watching the people and transporting them to the next stop. when his fugitive fund ran low, he gets into his own pockets. he was poorly paid. there was one letter in which he says $100 cases are going to break me. when he was able to keep replayed -- repaid himself. and 1856 he get the accounts of the over 200 people that i mentioned earlier. it's an amazing document because he included their enslaved names, their assumed names as free people, the circumstances of their escape, who owned them, why they had escaped, where they were sent, and how much money was spent to assist them. you do not find records like this very often. this is the first page of the record. this is harriet tillman. harriet tubman came to the office several times. the longest passage in the record is of her work. she continued to come to the resigned hisgay post as the editor of the standard. his successor, oliver johnson assisted her. still it wasam sending many the people to sidney howard gay and louis napoleon. my co-author was able to look at still's records and gay's records and annotate them. sometimes our differences and names. it appears that sometimes a person to change their name between philadelphia and new york city. jane johnson was owned by the ambassador to nicaragua. they were coming through philadelphia. abolitionists talked with her. she had always wanted to be free so she took that as an opportunity to declare she was going to be a free woman. wheeler did not like that and he went to court. he lost the case. johnson settled in boston. this is an image from still's book about thomas jones. it's one of my favorite stories in the book. because he escaped at christmas time. christmas was a good time for people to escape. even though it was cold weather people were given a little bit of time off. gay says he really was not as any with his condition enslaved person until his wife and children were sold. then he was desolate. all he had were -- of his wife were to gear a type images of her, a locket of her hair, and the lockets of the hair of his children. that is what he had when he got to canada. he said he wanted to come back and defined them and take them to canada. we had no idea if he was ever able to do that. i also like the story of when he -- she was afraid that her master would sell her. she fled with her three and a half-year-old child, her daughter. in a space that was dug underneath a slave cabin. i like this because it tells us that the underground railroad started on the plantation. wrote it was entered by a trap door covered by a piece of carpet on which stood a bedstead. it had no windows and no means of light or ventilation except by the trapdoor. into this the mother and child were put. that has been their home for the last five months. she was fed at the expense of a society among the slaves organized to eight persons in her circumstances. -- aid persons in her circumstances. he was somewhat wry when he wrote these accounts. john overheard his master say when he got his corn crop that he meant to put some of the dark ease -- darkies in his pocket. he took the hint and put himself in his own pocket. charlotte guiles was not allowed sheave a beax, and asserted her right to the -- right to happiness. in 1872 -- gay never released his records to the public or took any credit for his underground railroad work. otis' cousin and inherited this eloquent artifact. i would love to talk to mr. gay and asked him how he obtained menacle.n medical -- two books came out in spite of the record of fugitives. freedom" came out one month before our book. is very different book. it's an overview of the anti-slavery history. he highlights some of the cases from the record, but we have every single word in the record and we have this records annotated. our books are very different. you can only do as well as the information you have. it is good that both books are aired --se dr. foner erred in one significantly. he said there was not much on the was napoleon. i found out there was a lot about him. it just took forever to find it. because of the louis napoleon. when you do research online, you are going to find things about the emperor. there was one newspaper article that said louis napoleon, not the emperor. [laughter] i will say something about the draft riots. sidney howard gay left the anti-slavery standard. he was sick and exhausted. he left because oliver johnson, the associate editor and they said we cannot afford an associate editor anymore. he could not continue helping the fugitives, the in charge of the newspaper, so he resigned. it took him a while to recover his health. then he went to work for the tribune for horace greeley. mobsg the riots of 1863 ransacked and burned houses, they attacked innocent people, and they started fires on the first floor of the tribune building. reely said i want no armaments in the building and then he went to dinner. gay and the men he was working with got guns and ammunition to protect the building. meanwhile, elizabeth was at home in staten island. she had somebody teacher to use a pistol. she was a nonresistant -- quakers were nonresistant, nonviolence. there was a mob outside their house. she was there with two of the children. one was staying with somebody else. she had to protect the home so she learned to fire a pistol. fortunately there was a tavern keeper at the corner of davis street. he steered the mob in another direction so she did not have to use the gun. it was a horrible, horrible time. you don't think about lynchings in the north, but there was lynchings in new york city during the draft right. -- riot. i would be remiss if i did not mention frederick douglass. he is a threat throughout our book. originally douglas and gay were friends. they lectured together. one-time douglas asked gay to help him in a matter of wills that he had with someone in boston. that douglasas wanted to be an independent man. he decided to publish his own newspaper. garrison did not want that. douglas went ahead and did it anyway. decided that the constitution was not a proslavery document. garrison believed it was. that was another big issue. interestingly enough, douglas does not mention gay's underground railroad work and gay never mentions douglas' underground railroad work. in one of his narratives frederick douglass mentions louis napoleon. when napoleon died at the age of 81, his death certificate was listed his occupation as underground railroad agent. the underground railroad had been over for years but that was his badge of honor. when gay died in 1888 he was working on a biography of his friend edmund quincy. when abolitionists closed ranks to defeat slavery, they never forgot the days when the differences for them apart. -- tore them apart. this is otis' great-grandmother. in 1893 philadelphia abolitionists mary broome referred to the schism between garrison and the tappans when she wrote elizabeth gay. " your last letter i will destroy as you wish. yes, it is very -- better to bury some the expenses of 1840 the on the power of memory to revive them." and so it is that some things shall remain a secret, and now i will take questions. [applause] yes? >> wonderful presentation. mr. papson: is this for questioners? -- brown who made a miraculous escape in 1849 from richmond to philadelphia. were there others who escaped similarly? andpapson: zuli said he napoleon shipped a lot of people in boxes. i did not mention every -- henry box brown, but he was sentenced -- sent to sidney howard gay. he was forwarded to massachusetts. there were other cases of people being shipped in boxes. it is possible. napoleon started very early. it is possible. we don't have those accounts. -- you were the letter to city howard gay about henry box brown said don't publish this. otherlet this out because people may try this than it will be found. but it was an incredible case. another question? yes? >> thank you. ground --he other underground railroad start? mr. papson: as soon as people came, there were some who escaped. it only got a name in the 1830's and 1840's. people escaped even from the dutch. it's interesting because you had some people escaping from new york into canada. canada had slavery too. you had some people escaping from canada into the united states. underground means secret, and railroad because the railroad was becoming very big in the 1840's. they used the terms conductor. that calls account napoleon and engineer. not a conductor. it's the same thing. the engineer of the train. we see this today in the world. wherever people are oppressed, people will find a way to get out. initially people would escape to the native american communities. my wife and i know tom porter, a traditional chief of the mohawk people. he now lives in the mohawk valley. britishus once that the would always insist they were the passage in the treaties of the people who escaped from them would have to be returned. they would agree to that but they would not do it. he said there was one time when a person was returned. they immediately escaped back to the native americans. another question? i think it's wonderful you came out in this weather. ted had me a little worried. he said i don't know if anybody's going to come to -- because of the weather but you are here. >>. thank you very much mr. papson: you are welcome. [applause] >> please stay in your seats for just one moment so don can make his way to the book sale table. you are watching american history tv. american history tv, 48 hours of programming on american history every weekend on c-span3. twitter, for more permission on her schedule, and to keep up with the latest history news. >> this year marks the 215th anniversary of chief justice john marshall appointment to the u.s. supreme court by president john adams. up next on american history tv, law professor jeffrey rosen lectures on the influence of john marshall. with opening remarks by chief justice john roberts. talks about the ideological differences between marshall and president thomas jefferson, and marshall's influence on later supreme court justices. the supreme court historical society and john marshall foundation cohosted the event in the supreme court chamber. this is about an hour. >> we are delighted to welcome you here to join us in celebrating the 215th anniversary of the appointment of john marshall to the supreme court of united states. this evening is a joint venture between the supreme court historical society and the john marshall foundation. this is not the first time that those two organizations have partnered. as an example, they joined forces to celebrate the 200th anniversary of the appointment of john marshall to the supreme court. the capstone of that particular evening was a rousing lecture by justice scalia about the importance of john marshall to the history of the court and the history of the country. justice scalia was a grand friend of both the marshall foundation and the supreme court historical society.

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