John Quincy Adams

John Quincy Adams was the sixth president of the United States, and son of the second President, John Adams.  A brilliant young man, at fourteen he went to Russia as secretary to the U.S. envoy.  His family had never been fond of slavery, however, his political life required some circumspection, so he picked his battles carefully. However, in 1839 he accepted the call to defend the African captives who had taken over the Amistad ship, and he won their freedom. As a MA congressman, J Q Adams used the motion to censure him as an opportunity to speak out against slavery and against the “gag rule”. Weld helped him with the research.

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Louisa Adams

Louisa Adams, Adam’s wife and daughter of an American merchant, was born in England and educated in France. Although she and John Quincy had a somewhat challenging relationship, she supported him in many ways, and was a celebrated Washington, DC hostess.  An author herself, she supported abolition of slavery and women’s rights.  She corresponded with Sarah Grimké after Sarah’s publication of her Letters on Equality.

 

Bronson Alcott

Bronson Alcott was a transcendental philosopher and teacher, best known for his progressive approach to education, and for his novelist daughter, Louisa.

 

Abigail May Alcott

Abigail May Alcott, wife of Bronson Alcott, was from an abolitionist family. She was a sister to Samuel May.  Of their four daughters, Louisa, (author of Little Women) was the second oldest and May was the youngest. For a brief time the family sheltered runaway slaves at their home in Boston before moving to Concord. The family was close to their Concord neighbors, Ralph Waldo Emerson, Henry Thoreau and Nathaniel Hawthorne. Bronson Alcott’s educational philosophy would have resonated closely with Weld's approach.  Alcott’s co-teacher at the Temple School in Boston, Elizabeth Peabody, taught at Eagleswood. 

 

Catherine Beecher

Catherine Beecher, daughter of the prominent minister, Lyman Beecher, and sister of Harriet Beecher Stowe, was head of the Hartford Female Seminary.  Angelina spent several months there seeking further education.  She admired Catherine for her commitment to women’s education, but later she wrote letters opposing Beecher’s advocacy of “separate spheres” for women and men. 

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Harriet Beecher (Stowe)

Harriet Beecher Stowe, sister of Catherine Beecher, wrote Uncle Tom’s Cabin, using a great deal of material from the Weld-Grimkés’ American Slavery as It Is.  Uncle Tom’s Cabin sold more than 300,000 copies in the first year and helped to turn American opinion against slavery

 

Edward Bettle

Edward Bettle, from a conservative Quaker family, pursued a courtship with Angelina, but never formally proposed.  He seemed to object to her going to spend time at the Beecher’s Hartford Seminary.  Before they could be formally engaged, he contracted cholera and died. His parents blamed Angelina for his “broken heart.”

 

Catherine Birney

Catherine Birney, James Birney’s daughter, attended Eagleswood School and was the Grimké sisters original biographer. Four of her brothers fought in the Civil War.

 

James Birney

James Birney was originally an Alabama slaveholder, then a colonizationalist.  But after becoming a prominent lawyer, and spending time in the North, he was convinced by Theodore Weld and others of the need for immediate emancipation.  In Ohio in 1836, where he edited an anti-slavery paper, his press was destroyed by a mob.  He was a presidential candidate of the Liberty Party in 1840 and 1844. James died at Eagleswood in 1857 surrounded by the Welds and Sarah Grimké. Four of James’ sons fought in the Civil War.

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Ellen (Nelly) Bradford (Stebbins)

Ellen (Nelly) Bradford (Stebbins), daughter of abolitionists John and Jane Bradford, was a direct descendant of William Bradford of the Mayflower pilgrims and Governor of the Plymouth Bay Colony. The romantic friendship between Nelly and Archibald was interrupted when her family moved to western Pennsylvania. She was present at Archie’s wedding to Sarah Stanley, and the following year married Solomon Stebbins who was over 20 years older.  They remained friends and supporters of Archie over the years.  Nelly lived to be 99 years old, dying in 1950.

 

John Brown

John Brown was the radical abolitionist who, with his small band, attacked the armory in Harpers’ Ferry, VA, hoping to lead a slave uprising to free the slaves.  He was arrested, tried and hanged, as were two of his fellow conspirators, Hazlett and Stevens.  The latter were brought by their wives to Eagleswood to be buried there. Gerrit Smith seems to have been a financial supporter of Brown, but it is not clear how much he knew of his violent intentions.  Smith was depressed and nearly suicidal when Brown and his colleagues were hanged. Thoreau was an admirer and defender of Brown, seeing him as the catalyst of the Civil War.

 

Mary P. (Mamie) Burrill

Mamie Burrill was a fellow student of Nana’s in Washington D.C. and a close friend. It has usually been assumed that Nana’s letter referring to wanting Mamie to “become my wife” was written to Mamie Burrill, who later publicly identified as a lesbian.  However, in The Grimkés: The Legacy of Slavery, Greenidge indicates it was to a different “Mamie”, Mary Edith Karn, with whom Nana had a close relationship while at Northfield Academy. Nana and Mamie Burrill were later colleagues at the M Street School and shared many interests.  They were both playwrights of the Harlem Renaissance, but it does not appear that there was an intimate relationship between them as adults. Burrill was a partner with Lucy Diggs Slowe from around 1915 for about twenty-five years, until Slowe’s death.  Burrill lived her last two years in New York City.

 

Elizabeth Cady (Stanton)

Elizabeth Cady Stanton came from a well-to-do family and managed to get an excellent education for her time.  She was a cousin to the Gerrit Smith family and spent considerable time at their home.  It was there she met Henry Stanton, the abolitionist agent, friend and colleague of Theodore Weld.  While Elizabeth also promoted abolitionist ideas, her focus for most of her long life was on women’s rights and women’s suffrage.  In partnership with Susan B. Anthony, she organized, spoke and wrote to promote equality for women.  However, her decision to oppose the 15th amendment unless it included the right to vote for women as well as African Americans, caused a long-lasting rift in the women’s movement.  She was also known to make condescending remarks about Africans Americans and other immigrant men, implying that they were less worthy of  the right to vote than educated women.  Her daughter, Harriot Stanton Blatch, joined her mother’s efforts and carried on after her mother’s death in 1902.  Elizabeth is considered one of the foremost among the 19th century advocates for women’s rights. 

 

Lillie Buffum Chace (Wyman)

Lillie Buffum Chace (Wyman) had been a student at Diocletian Lewis’ school in Lexington when the Welds taught there.  She was two years older than Archie, but they became good friends.  It is not clear that they ever had a romantic relationship.  She married in 1878 and continued to be a social activist and women’s rights advocate for most of her life.  She wrote on the condition of factory workers in the textile industry.

 

Lydia Maria Child

Lydia Child was an abolitionist, novelist, journalist, women’s rights advocate and advocate for Native American rights. She and her husband sheltered fugitive slaves at their home in Wayland, MA.  She was also the author of the familiar American poem, “Over the River and through the Wood…”

 

Harry and Mary Cole

Harry and Mary Cole were friends of Archie’s prior to his being enslaved by Montague.  He did hide with their family in their cellar, for much of the period after his escape, although he may have stayed with others nearby for part of that time, as he tried to avoid recapture.

 

Anna Julia Cooper

Anna Julia Cooper was a longtime friend of Frank and Lottie Grimké and participated in their Friday evening “Art Club” gatherings.  She also hosted a similar Sunday evening gathering at her home on 17th Street. She described these evenings in her “Reminiscences.” Highly educated, Anna graduated from Oberlin, and received an MA in mathematics.  She taught Latin, math and science at the M Street School.  She left there after a controversial period as principal, partly due to the perceived impropriety of having a male boarder, John Love, who lived in her home along with his sister, Percy Love.  Around 1910 she returned to teach there for many years.  During that time she was Nana Grimké’s (older) colleague. She eventually earned a Ph.D. from the Sorbonne, and became president of Frelinghuysen University, a night school for African American adults.  She died in 1964 at the age of 105. 

 

Betsy Dawson

Betsy Dawson was a household slave of the Charleston Grimkés who was inherited and freed by Anna Grimké Frost. She worked for Anna for many years, but after Mary Anna’s marriage, Anna sent her to live with the Weld’s in New Jersey.

 

Frederick M. Douglass

Frederick M. Douglass was born into slavery, but escaped in 1838.  He was the most prominent mid-19th century leader, writer,  and orator for abolition of slavery and for African American Civil rights. He was also an early proponent of suffrage for women. He participated in the 1848 Seneca Falls Convention for women’s rights and was the only African American attendee.  After his long-time wife, Anna, died in 1882, Douglass married Helen Pitts, who was white, causing much controversy.

 

Haley George Douglass and Joe Douglass

Haley George Douglass, and Joe Douglass were friends mentioned in Nana’s diary when she was teaching at M Street High School. The references provide minimal clues to their identities, especially since Nana sometimes reverses first and last names.  It is likely that Joseph (Joe) Douglass was the grandson of Frederick Douglass.  He was a highly accomplished concert violinist. About nine years older than Nana, he taught at Howard University for a time, so would have lived in D.C.  Haley Douglass was also a grandson of Frederick Douglass, and a brother to Joe.  He taught science and history at the M Street School (later Dunbar High School) for 46 years, from 1906 to 1952. He was a year younger than Nana.

 

Sarah Mapps Douglass

Sarah Mapps Douglass, an eminent member of the large free colored community in Philadelphia, was an educator and abolitionist. From at least 1835 on, she was a close friend of Sarah Grimké.  She and her mother,  Grace Douglass, attended the Arch Street Quaker Meeting, where they were required to sit on a back bench.  Sarah Douglass taught with the Forten sisters and ran her own school for young women. Along with her mother, the Fortens and Lucretia Mott, she co-founded the biracial Philadelphia Female Anti-Slavery Society.

 

Grace Douglass

Grace Douglass, Sarah Douglass’ mother, had attended the Arch Street Meeting with her parents and with her daughter for many years.  She taught health and hygiene classes to adults in her community.

 

W.E.B. DuBois

W.E.B. DuBois was a Harvard-educated sociologist, historian and writer who led the Niagara Movement of black civil rights activists.  He took issue with the “Bookerites” focus on manual education, and insisted on full civil rights and access to higher education for African Americans.  He believed that advanced education for “the talented tenth” would lead the way to full civil rights.  As a founder of the NAACP, along with the Grimkés and many white supporters, DuBois hoped to end the divisions within the black community going forward.  DuBois continued his efforts through the first half of the 20th century, traveling the world, investigating socialism, and teaching at Atlanta University. Because of his interest in socialism he was a target of the anti-communist fever of the McCarthy era.  Eventually he moved to Ghana where he died in 1963.  His one surviving child, with his first wife, Nina, was Yolande Du Bois.  After Nina’s death in 1950, he married Shirley Graham DuBois.

 

Jonathan Evans

Elder Jonathan Evans was a presider at the Orange Street Meeting and a vocal opponent of the Hicksite Quaker faction.  The Hicksites were reformist and believed in speaking out on issues such as slavery, while Evans’ more conservative faction emphasized non- involvement in “worldly affairs.”  Known as “Pope Jonathan” for his severe, autocratic ways, he did indeed silence Sarah, contrary to usual Quaker practice. Evans had a son named Thomas.

 

Thomas Evans

Thomas Evans in this novel is described as Evans’ nephew, and he is a fictional character.  As a journalist, he stands for all those who plagued and opposed Sarah and Angelina’s speaking career, leading up to the (very real) Pastoral Letter of the New England Clergy.

 

Charlotte Forten (Grimké)

Charlotte (Lottie) Forten, was the niece of Harriet, Sarah, and Margaretta Forten through their brother, Robert.  Her mother died when she was very young, but she was raised among the Philadelphia Fortens.  She became a teacher, then traveled to the Sea Islands to teach the ex-slaves as part of the “Port Royal Experiment.” Her account of her life there, “Life in the Sea Islands'', was published in the Atlantic magazine.  She was working with the Boston Freedmen's Bureau when Archie and Frank arrived in Boston and she helped them get to their intended apprenticeships.  In 1879, thirteen years later,  she married Frank, by then a pastor at the 15th Street Presbyterian Church, although he was nearly 14 years her junior.  Their one daughter, Theodora, born in 1880, died at around 5 months of age.  Lottie worked tirelessly with Frank to provide aid to “refugees” from the South, and was active in a variety of women’s clubs and groups in D.C.  She died in 1914, apparently after several years of increasing dementia.

 

Harriet, Sarah, and Margaretta Forten

Harriet, Sarah, and Margaretta Forten were three of the daughters of James and Charlotte Forten. Harriet Forten married well-to-do Robert Purvis and Sarah married his brother, Joseph Purvis.  The sisters ran several schools and were founders of the Philadelphia Female Anti-Slavery Society.  They were aunts to educator and author, Charlotte Forten, who later married Francis Grimké.

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James Forten

James Forten ran a successful sail-making business in Philadelphia. His wife was Charlotte Vandine Forten, and Harriet, Sarah, and Margaretta Forten were among their children. The Fortens were the most prominent of the free colored families of Philadelphia. James and Charlotte would have been great aunt and uncle to Charlotte Forten Grimké.

 

William Lloyd Garrison

William Lloyd Garrison was among the most prominent abolitionists.  He was the editor of the anti-slavery newspaper, the Liberator as well as a founder of the American Anti-Slavery Society.  He was a pacifist until the outbreak of the Civil War when he supported the armed struggle to end slavery.  Because of his support of the immediate emancipation of slaves without compensation he was considered a radical, burned in effigy and nearly killed by a Boston mob.  He was a supporter of women’s rights and helped to publish Sarah and Angelina’s works on women’s rights.  He spoke at Sarah’s funeral. Although more uncompromising and fiery in temperament and tone than Theodore Weld, Theodore was among those who eulogized Garrison at his funeral. He died the same year as Angelina.

 

William Lloyd Garrison, Jr.

William Lloyd Garrison, Jr., son of abolitionist William Lloyd Garrison, was a friend of the Grimkés.  He attended Angelina’s funeral and delivered the main eulogy at Theodore’s funeral in 1895.  He followed his father’s lead as  a journalist and an activist for civil and women’s rights.  He married Ellen Wright, a niece of Lucretia Mott. 

 

Joshua Giddings

Joshua Giddings, influenced by Theodore Weld’s early speaking, became an effective abolitionist in Ohio.  He served over 20 years as a U.S. Representative from Ohio, and with the help of minister Joshua Leavitt and Theodore Weld he aided J. Q. Adams in overturning the gag rule against anti-slavery speech in the House. 

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The Grimké Family

Please see the Grimké Family Tree page on this website. Names below appear mostly in birth order.

 

John Faucheraud  and Mary Smith Grimké

John Faucheraud Grimké fought in the Revolutionary War, and was a lawyer, judge, and plantation owner of considerable wealth.  With his wife, Mary Smith Grimké, he had 14 children, 11 of whom survived to adulthood.  Judge Grimké appears to have been a well-educated and moderate man who valued education for his children.  His wife, however, was often a harsh mistress.  Although somewhat chastened by her more temperate husband and her anti-slavery daughters, she died a slave-holder.

 

Thomas Smith Grimké

Thomas Smith Grimké was the oldest son of John and Mary Grimké.  He was Sarah’s oldest brother with whom she was very close.  He attended Yale University and was a lawyer, author and orator with a high reputation.  He supported the federal Union over states’ rights and he seems to have struggled with how to resolve the issue of slavery.  His death from cholera in 1934 affected Sarah deeply. 

 

Sarah Moore Grimké

Sarah Moore Grimké, was the fourth child of John and Mary Smith Grimké.  Her father recognized her intellectual abilities but bowed to social expectations in restraining her desire to learn Latin and Greek.  However, when his final illness forced him to seek care in the North, it was Sarah whom he asked to accompany him there, and who remained with him until he died in Longbranch, N.J.  Her experience in the North and her encounter with the Quaker, Israel Morris, on her return voyage to Charleston, contributed to her recognition of the evils of slavery and her decision to leave Charleston for Philadelphia in 1821, along with her recently widowed sister, Anna Grimké Frost and Anna’s two year-old daughter, Mary Anna Frost. 

 

Anna Grimké (Frost)

Anna Grimké Frost, Sarah and Angelina’s sister, was younger than Sarah by less than three years, and older than Angelina by about nine years. Widowed with a two-year-old daughter, she chose to leave Charleston for Philadelphia along with Sarah.  She set up her own household there, and when Angelina arrived in 1829, she lived occasionally with Anna and her daughter,  Mary Anna.  Anna and her daughter were not Quakers and didn’t share the sisters’ journey to abolitionism.  However, Anna’s home was the site of the wedding of Angelina and Theodore Weld, and it was attended by many prominent abolitionists.

 

Henry Grimké

Henry Grimke was the ninth of the surviving children of John and Mary Grimké.  When his younger sister, Angelina, remonstrated with him over his treatment of his personal slave, John, Henry would have been about 27 years old and recently married to his white wife, Selina Simmons.  Angelina writes in her diary of a conversation with Selina about slavery and about Henry’s behavior towards John.  With Selina’s death in 1843, Nancy Weston takes over the full management of Henry’s household and their three white children.  She eventually becomes his mistress and together they have three children, Archibald, Francis and John.  However, Henry died in 1852 prior to John’s birth. 

 

Selina Simmons (Grimké)

Selena Simmons, was Henry’s white wife. With Selina, Henry had three children: Henrietta, Montague, and Thomas Grimké.  According to Angelina’s diary, she expressed some agreement that slaves should be treated well, but she did not agree to their equal status and rights. 

 

Angelina Emily Grimké (Weld)

Angelina Emily Grimké was the youngest of the fourteen children born to John and Mary Grimkè.  She was twelve years younger than Sarah, who was her godmother and quasi-parent.  Like Sarah, Angelina was horrified by the slavery she saw all around her.  She left the Episcopal church to join a Presbyterian church in Charleston, and then briefly joined a very small Quaker gathering there.  She left Charleston in 1829 to join her sisters, Sarah and Anna in Philadelphia.  After six years struggling to be useful as a good Quaker, Angelina gradually came to embrace the abolitionist cause.  When Sarah eventually reached the same convictions, they joined the abolitionists and became highly effective anti-slavery speakers.  Angelina and her abolitionist husband, Theodore Weld, had three children: Charles, Theodore (Thodie) and Sarah (Sissy).

 

Nancy Weston (Grimké)

Nancy Weston, was a slave woman of African, white, and possibly  Native American ancestry.  She seems to have entered the Henry Grimke household as a housekeeper and nanny before his wife Selina’s death in 1843.  She may have been there “on loan” until she was purchased by Henry.  In the notes to Stony the Road We Trod, Volume I, there is a discussion of her relationship with Henry.  It is not known exactly when their relationship began.  Her first child with Henry, Archibald, was not born until 1849.  Francis was born in 1851.  Nancy was pregnant with John when Henry died in the fall of 1852.  After Selina’s death, and particularly after they moved from Charleston out to the Cane Acre plantation, Nancy was the defacto mistress of the household.  A woman of strength and faith, she lived through the re-enslavement of her and Henry’s sons, survived the Civil War, and eventually joined her elder sons in the North.  She died in Francis’ household in 1895. 

 

Archibald H. Grimké

Archibald (Archie), was born in 1849, the oldest son of Henry Grimké and Nancy Weston.  While he spent his childhood with his mother and brothers among the free colored community of Charleston, he and his full brother, Francis, were re-enslaved by his white half-brother, Montague, when they reached about 10 or 11 years of age.  He and Frank separately managed to escape from Montague’s oppressive household and to survive the Civil War by fortitude and resourcefulness.  Eventually sent North to seek education, Archie succeeded at Lincoln University and at Harvard Law School, and became a prominent lawyer, author, journalist and advocate for Negro rights.  He served as the U.S. Consul to Santo Domingo for about five years, and he was a founding member of the NAACP.  His daughter, Angelina Weld Grimké, was a teacher, poet and playwright of the early Harlem Renaissance. 

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Francis J. Grimke

Francis (Frank) Grimké was born in 1851, the second son of Henry Grimké and Nancy Weston.  Like his brother, Archibald, Frank spent his childhood with his mother and brothers among the free colored community of Charleston.  He and his full brother, Archie, were re-enslaved by his white half-brother, Montague, when they were about 10 or 11.  Escaping Montague’s household, he was attached to several Confederate lieutenants.  Re-captured, he spent several times in the Charleston workhouse, but he managed to survive the Civil War.  Eventually sent North to seek education, Frank did well at Lincoln University, attended the newly-founded Howard University Law School briefly, then chose to attend Princeton Theological Seminary to become a Presbyterian minister.  He served as the pastor of the Fifteenth Street Presbyterian Church for over 50 years, was a founding member of the NAACP, and an outspoken advocate for the rights of Negros.  With his wife, Charlotte Forten, he helped resettle southern negroes who migrated to the D.C. area to escape the injustices of the Jim Crow south. 

 

Mary Anna (Grimké) Frost

Mary Anna Frost was Anna Grimké Frost’s daughter, born just shortly before her father died.   In about 1839, Mary Anna married Llewellyn S. Haskell and had nine children with him.  They lived in New Jersey not far from the Welds. Haskell was the developer of the first gated suburban community in the U.S., named Llewellyn Park.   It appears that Mary Anna eventually divorced Haskell because In 1868 she married Joel Hall.  Haskell lived until 1872.

 

John (Grimké family slave)

John was Henry’s personal slave. In her diary, Angelina speaks of chiding Henry about his treatment of John.  John was probably close to Henry in age.

 

Stephen (Grimké family slave)

Stephen was a household slave of the Grimké family. According to Kerry Greenidge’s recent study, Henry Grimkè and his younger brother Charles (about whom we have little information) were troublesome teens, whom she claims mocked and brutally beat Stephen who may have already been somewhat disabled.  It seems that Stephen had fits, perhaps due to brain damage from the beatings or from an original disability.  Greenidge states that this abuse, particularly the head injury, took place prior to Henry’s departure for college “in the mid-1810s” when Henry was still a teenager.  Due to his significant disability and erratic behavior, Stephen was eventually freed by the Grimké family and came north to live with Anna Frost and then with Angelina and Sarah in the 1840’s.

 

(End of first and second generation of the Grimké family)

 

Angelina (Nina) Weld Hamilton

Angelina (Nina) Weld Hamilton, Sarah (Sissy) Weld’s daughter, was born in 1872.  Her brother, Theodore Weld Hamilton was born  in 1884.  Nina became a physician and worked in Idaho until her mother’s death. She returned to Michigan and helped care for her young brother briefly as she earned an MD at the University of Michigan.  She worked as a psychiatrist in the Illinois State mental hospital system until her death in 1947.  Later in life, Angelina Weld Hamilton claimed to have “mixed” racial heritage, which she could only have had through her father.  There is no clear mention of his being of African or mixed-race heritage, but it is possible he was.

 

Llewellyn Solomon Haskell

Llewellyn S. Haskell was the first husband of Mary Anna Grimké Frost, with whom she had nine children.  He was a developer of the oldest planned gated community in America, located in New Jersey and known as Llewellyn Park.  It is not clear when they divorced but Mary Anna remarried in 1869 while Haskell was still living.

 

Cyrus Heizer

Cyrus Heizer was a classmate and friend of Archibald’s at Harvard Law., but unlike Cabot Lodge, Heizer had to work on farms and in factories to pay for his two years at law school. He was athletic and strong and kind.  When other Harvard students refused to sit with Archie in a dining hall, Cyrus joined him.  Along with Nelly Bradford, they took excursions together while students.  He remained friends with Archie for years and attended Archie’s wedding.  Heizer became a Unitarian minister in Ithaca, NY and went on to be a well-loved minister and civil rights activist

 

Harriot Hunt

Harriot Hunt was a practicing physician in Boston.  She was repeatedly refused entrance to Harvard Medical College. Eventually she received an Honorary Doctor of Medicine from  the Female Medical College of Pennsylvania, She was also a strong advocate for women’s rights, a participant at the Seneca Falls Convention, and a friend and confidante of both Grimké sisters.

 

Georgia Douglas Johnson

Georgia Douglas Johnson, was a poet and playwright. She was born in 1880, making her the same age as Angelina Weld

Grimké.   She was one of the earliest female African-American playwrights, and an important figure of the Harlem Renaissance. She and her husband had two children but her husband was not particularly supportive of her writing career.  From the time of her husband’s death in 1925, she held Saturday night soirees at her home on S Street in Washington, D.C. According to Wikipedia, “although black men were allowed to attend, it mostly consisted of black women such as May Miller, Marita Bonner, Mary  (Mamie) Burrill, Alice Dunbar-Nelson, Zora  Neal Hurston, and Angelina Weld Grimke. Johnson was especially close to the writer Angelina Weld Grimké. This Salon was known to have discussions on issues such as lynching, women's rights, and the problems facing African-American families. They became known as the ‘Saturday Nighters’ “

 

Abby Kelley (Foster)

Abby Kelley Foster, a Quaker, was one of the younger generation of abolitionist leaders (about six years younger than Angelina Grimke). She was a teacher, lecturer, fundraiser, and organizer in the fight for abolition and suffrage.  In 1850, she helped develop plans for the National Women’s Rights Convention in Massachusetts. After the Civil War, she focused her activism on women’s rights and suffrage.

 

The Lee Family

The Lee family hosted Archie and Nana often during their stays in Boston. Mr. Lee was a successful restaurateur in Boston. Tessa and Howard were his children.  Tessa was a little younger than Nana, but they were friends.  In her diary Nana mentions going to the 1903 Booker T. Washington lecture with them and her father, and also her and Tessa’s visit to their pregnant friend.

 

Percy and John Love

Percy Love and her brother John Love were boarders with Anna Julia Cooper for a time, and they sometimes sang together at the soirees that the Grimkés or Mrs. Cooper hosted.  Percy is mentioned in Nana’s diary as one of her close friends who was present at the restaurant meal with the Douglass boys.  Nana sometimes seemed to reverse first and last names (e.g. Love Percy and Douglass Haley).

 

Henry Cabot Lodge

Henry Cabot Lodge was the son of the union of two “Boston Brahmin” families.  He grew up on Beacon Hill.  He was Archibald’s classmate and friend at Harvard Law, from which he graduated in 1874. He served in the U.S. Senate from 1893 – 1924. Although he took some positive stands on civil rights, he also opposed immigration, especially by groups that were not northern European and held some racist views.  His grandson, Henry Cabot Lodge III, was also a Senator from 1937 – 44 and 1947- 53, and a Vice-Presidential nominee with Nixon in 1960.

 

Samuel May

Samuel May was a prominent Boston abolitionist.  He was a nephew of Lewis Tappan.  His sister, Abigail May, was married to educator and philosopher, Bronson Alcott, so he was the uncle of Louisa May Alcott and her sisters. 

 

Israel Morris

Israel Morris was a well-off Quaker merchant with a home, Greenhill, close to Philadelphia.  He had eight children by his deceased wife, Mary Hollingsworth. He befriended Sarah Grimké while they were both on the ship taking her back to Charleston after her father’s death.  He introduced her to Quakerism and urged her to move to Philadelphia.  His wife died shortly after that, and he twice proposed marriage to Sarah.  For much of her sojourn in Philadelphia Sarah lived with Israel’s sister, Catherine Morris, and she tutored his younger children. 

 

Catherine Morris

Catherine Morris was Israel’s sister with whom Sarah lived for some years prior to Angelina’s arrival in Philadelphia.  Angelina initially lived in Catherine’s townhome as well, but seemed to have lived more often with their other sister, Anna Grimké Frost.

 

Lucretia Mott

Lucretia Mott was from a prominent Quaker family.  She was among the first generation of  American women who were both abolitionists, and advocates for women’s rights. Her husband James, often joined in her efforts. They had six children. Elizabeth and Martha were among their youngest. She attended the World Anti-Slavery Convention in London in 1840 and the Seneca Falls Convention in 1848 and helped found Swarthmore College.

 

Mary S. Parker

Mary S. Parker was an abolitionist leader and president of the Boston Female Anti-Slavery Society from 1836 to 1838, during the period that Angelina and Sarah Grimké were speaking publicly in the Boston area.  She requested that Sarah write a series of articles for a newspaper, which were then published together as Letters on the Equality of the Sexes.

 

Amos Phelps

Amos Phelps was an abolitionist minister and an agent of the American Anti-Slavery Society. However, he was one of those who disagreed with Garrison’s more radical politics and in 1839 he helped found the Massachusetts Abolition Society that rejected Garrison’s leadership.

 

Samuel and Eliza Philbrick

Samuel and Eliza Philbrick were abolitionists who owned a gracious home on a large farm or estate in Brookline on Walnut Street.  The home was originally built by one of the Tappan brothers before being sold to the Philbricks in 1829.  Samuel was an officer of the Boston Anti-Slavery Society.  They hosted Angelina and Sarah during 1837-1838.  They also sheltered runaway slaves there. 

 

Wendell Phillips and Ann Greene Phillips

Wendell Phillips and Ann Greene Phillips were of the slightly younger generation of abolitionist leaders.  Phillips witnessed the near-lynching of Garrison and after that, became one of the most prominent abolitionist advocates. Close to the Weld-Grimké family, he mentored Archibald Grimké during his years in Boston.  Archie’s black classmate at Harvard Law, George Lewis Ruffin, stated that Phillips was "the one white American wholly color-blind and free from race prejudice."

 

Parker Pillsbury, Gilbert Pillsbury and Frances Pillsbury

The Pillsburys were Massachusetts abolitionists. Parker and Gilbert were brothers. Gilbert and his wife, Frances Pillsbury, traveled to the Sea Islands to work with the ex-slaves there, as did Charlotte Forten.  There they met Col. Robert Shaw and Frances helped nurse the wounded soldiers of the 54th Negro Regiment after their defeat at Fort Wagner.  After the liberation of Charleston in early 1865, Frances taught Archie and Frank at the abolitionists’ Morris Street School.  Recognizing their promise, she and her brother and brother-in-law helped them to go north for further education.  Gilbert was involved with restoring Charleston during Reconstruction, and served briefly as its Mayor. 

 

Lt. Col. Alfred Moore Rhett

Lt. Col. Alfred Moore Rhett was a notoriously vicious character, having killed one rival in a duel, and claiming to have killed a dozen fellow confederate soldiers. If Frank’s account is correct and he became attached to Moore Rhett’s unit, he was lucky to survive.  It is possible, however, that Frank was instead attached to his brother, Lieutenant Robert Woodward Rhett, who was killed in a battle in 1862.

 

George Ruffin

George Ruffin graduated from Harvard Law in 1869, several years before Archibald Grimké and James Wolfe.  He was the first African American to do so. However, Archie was the first formerly enslaved man to graduate. 

 

Robert Gould Shaw

Colonel Robert Gould Shaw and the MA 54th regiment.  Shaw, from a prominent Boston abolitionist family, became the commander of the first all-black regiment of the Civil War.  He promised his soldiers equal treatment and encouraged them to refuse pay until it was equal to that of white soldiers.  His inspiring leadership, as depicted in the 1989 film, Glory, brought more African Americans into the Union army.  He died while leading his regiment in the second battle of Fort Wagner in 1863.

 

Elizabeth Smith (Miller)

Elizabeth (Lizzie or Libbie) Smith Miller, daughter of Gerrit and Ann Smith and a close friend of the Grimké sisters, she was an advocate of women’s rights, and the first woman to wear “Bloomers”.  Along with her cousin, Elizabeth Cady Stanton, and later, her daughter, Ann Fitzhugh Miller, she continued to work for women’s rights throughout her long life. Lizzie’s son, Gatty, was a cattle-breeder, politician and sportsman, recognized as the founder of the first organized football team in America.

 

Gerrit and Ann Smith

Gerrit Smith, one of the wealthiest men in New York, was an ardent abolitionist, intellectual and philanthropist, although he began as a “colonizationist.”  He served one term in the U.S. House of Representatives and ran for President in 1848, 1856, and 1860 as a Liberty Party and Free Soiler Party candidate. He was also a supporter of fugitive slaves in upstate New York, an advocate of women’s suffrage, and a financial supporter of John Brown’s raid at Harpers Ferry.

He and his wife, Ann Smith, had two children, Elizabeth (Lizzie) Smith Miller and Greene Smith.  Their grandson was Elizabeth’s son, Gerrit Smith Miller, known as Gatty.  Greene and Gatty both attended Eagleswood.  They were close friends of the Weld-Grimké family and also supporters of women’s rights.

 

Jane Smith

Jane Smith was a member of the Quaker meeting and a lifelong friend of both Sarah and Angelina Grimké.  She lived with her widowed mother on Cherry Street in Philadelphia.  She corresponded regularly with the sisters and particularly with Angelina who was probably closer in age.  Jane seems to have followed the sisters’ journey to embracing abolitionism, although she doesn’t seem to have been an activist. The scenes of Jane and Angelina at the New Jersey beach house are fictional, but reflect their close friendship and correspondence.

 

Sarah Stanley (Grimké)

Sarah Stanley (Grimké), graduated from Boston University in 1878.  In 1879 she and Archie were married, against her parents’ wishes.  They seemed happily married for several years.  She accused Archie of not being sufficiently mindful of her need for companionship  (which he admitted, although he felt he had to work hard to support her and their child, Nana), but also of infidelity and of causing her frequent illness, both of which charges Archie denied.  It is unclear how much of a role race played in their separation, but it was clearly a consideration when she decided to send their seven-year-old child, Nana, back to Archie in 1887.  Although Sarah wrote occasionally to Nana, she never saw her again. Sarah went on to write and lecture on astrology and occult themes, Always dogged by illness, she committed suicide by poison in southern California in 1898.  

 

Rev. M. C. Stanley

Rev. M. C. Stanley was Sarah Stanley’s father.  A liberal Episcopal minister who had initially opposed Sarah’s marriage to Archie, he became an admirer of his son-in-law and a warm and supportive correspondent during the couple’s initial separation. 

 

Henry Stanton

Henry Stanton, close friend and colleague of Theodore Weld, was an abolitionist speaker and journalist, and along with his wife, Elizabeth Cady Stanton, an advocate for women’s rights.  They named their fourth son, Theodore Weld Stanton.

 

Lucy Stone

Lucy Stone, another of the younger generation of abolitionists and suffragists, was a prominent speaker for women’s rights after the Civil War.  She was the first woman from Massachusetts to earn a college degree (from Oberlin). She, Elizabeth Cady Stanton and Susan B. Anthony were the foremost activists for women’s rights in the late 19th century, building on the foundation laid down by Lucretia Mott, and Sarah and Angelina Grimké. Lucy provided a wedding dress to Sarah Stanley and attended her wedding to Archie.

 

Mrs. Penelope Stuart

Mrs. Penelope Stuart was a Hyde Park neighbor of Archie and Sarah who seemed to stir up Sarah’s discontent with Archie with subtle racist innuendo.  She is referred to in Archie and Sarah’s letters from the period of their separation, but there is little further information about her and her husband. Based on the small evidence in Sarah and Archie’s letters, the novel describes Mrs. Stuart as perhaps ten or fifteen years older than Sarah, with an ingratiating manner that is not immediately evident.  She is the type of woman who likes to inspire confidence but does so for her own purposes rather than out of genuine friendship. 

 

Lewis and Arthur Tappan

Lewis Tappan was the brother of Arthur Tappan and Benjamin Tappan, all well-to-do New York merchants. Arthur convinced Lewis of the abolitionist cause, and both were generous financial supporters of the movement.  Along with Weld and Garrison, they were founders of the American Anti-Slavery Society.  Lewis was an early advocate of racial intermarriage as a solution to the race issue. Lewis supported the court case to free and repatriate the Amistad captives. However, because of his religious beliefs he opposed the participation of women in public roles.

 

Susanna Tappan

Susanna Tappan was Lewis’ wife and Julianna was their daughter. Susanna was a cousin to other prominent abolitionists. Her nephew, abolitionist Samuel May, was the uncle of Louisa May Alcott, through her mother and his sister, Abigail May Alcott.

 

Mary Church Terrell

Mary Church Terrell was one of the first African American women to earn a college degree, Terrell helped found the National Association of Colored Women.  She was a suffragist and she helped desegregate restaurants in D.C.

 

Henry Thoreau

Henry Thoreau was the naturalist and essayist best known for his book, Walden, and his essay on Civil Disobedience. He was also a transcendentalist and an abolitionist, like his Concord neighbors, Emerson and Alcott, and a teacher and friend of Louisa May Alcott.  He practiced as a land surveyor for a time, and in that capacity he visited Eagleswood and the Welds. He “participated in….one of the Saturday dances, for which everyone—children, parents, teachers and guests—turned out.”

 

James Monroe Trotter

James Monroe Trotter was a veteran of the MA 55th regiment during the Civil War, a journalist and activist for Negro rights.  He and his brother later married the Isaac sisters and both couples settled in Boston. 

 

Virginia Isaacs Trotter

Virginia Isaacs Trotter, James’ wife, was descended from the Hemings family, and was most likely a descendant of Thomas Jefferson through his son.

 

(William) Monroe Trotter

(William) Monroe Trotter was born in 1872 to  James and Virgina Trotter. He  grows up to be an important activist and journalist for African American rights like his father, and a leader in the opposition to the conciliatory policies of Booker T. Washington.  Both he and his sister, Maud Trotter,  were arrested in the “Boston Riot” of 1903, and Monroe spent several months in jail. Although he was more than 20 years younger than Archibald Grimké, they were both colleagues and opponents in later years, as Archibald had been with his father.  Both were instrumental in the early years of the NAACP and in the various movements for colored rights in the early 20th century.

 

Booker T. Washington

Booker T. Washington, author and educator, was head of the Tuskegee Institute in Alabama, an institute for black higher education.  He urged African Americans to achieve success through education, including manual education, and entrepreneurship rather than through direct challenging of Jim Crow segregation. In his later years he was heavily criticized, especially by W.E.B. DuBois, for accommodating white supremacy and emphasizing manual education for most Negroes rather than higher education.  Although the Grimké brothers initially supported Washington, they gradually became disillusioned with his approach and aligned themselves more closely with leaders like DuBois.  Like him, they rejected any “cringing attitude” on the part of African Americans.  They urged higher education for more African Americans and political activism for civil rights, as envisioned by the founding of the NAACP in 1909.

 

The Theodore Weld Household (See Angelina Grimké Weld above)

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Theodore Dwight Weld

Theodore Dwight Weld was perhaps the most notable and powerfully persuasive of the early abolitionist orators.  He was a founding member of the American Anti-Slavery Society and author, along with the Grimké sisters, of American Slavery As It Is. His public speaking was hampered by the loss of his voice, but he became a successful and beloved educator.  He also spent two seasons at Congress helping John Quincy Adams with research for his anti-slavery arguments.  Theodore and his father, Ludovicus Weld, could trace their ancestry back to the earliest 17th century settlers in New England. They share ancestry with actress, Tuesday Weld, and former MA governor, William Weld as well as many others. Theodore’s mother, Elizabeth Clark Weld, was a direct descendant of Capt. Daniel Clark, a founding member of the Massachusetts Bay Company.  Theodore and his wife, Angelina, had three children: Charles Stuart (Charley), Theodore (Thodie), and Sarah (Sissy). 

 

Charles Stuart Weld

Charles Stuart (Charley) Weld, born in December 1839, known in later life as “Stuart Faucherau. Weld”,  Charley married Anna Harvell Weld and they had one child, Louis Weld.  Charley (or Stuart)  remained in the Weld home in Hyde Park until his death in 1901, just six years after his father, Theodore.  He graduated from Harvard, and although they argued when Charles refused to serve in the Civil War, he seems to have remained on good terms with his parents and with his aunt Sarah until their deaths.  He was the author of two books, one on Napoleon III and Romania, and another on the Panama Canal. 

 

Theodore (Thodie or Sodie) Weld

Theodore (Thodie or Sodie) Weld was born in January 1841, just 13 months after his brother, Charles.  He seemed like a healthy child growing up, but sometime in adolescence he developed a mysterious ailment that left him lethargic and apparently depressed.  It appears to have been more of a mental than a physical illness, and despite various, sometimes bizarre, efforts to treat Thodie, he never fully recovered.  He lived with the family off and on during his twenties and thirties but spent long periods of time on a farm in Maine.  Eventually he was confined to a hospital in Westborough, MA. He lived until 1917. His father, Theodore, often seemed to treat his illness as a moral failing.

 

Sarah (Sissy) Weld

Sarah (Sissy) Weld, born in 1844, after Angelina had had at least one miscarriage or stillbirth. Named for her aunt, Sissy seemed to grow up as a well-loved child.  She was eager for more education and studied in Boston, as much as was then possible for a woman, after her secondary education.  She worked with Lucy Stone and others in the Women’s Suffrage office in Boston.  She married a ministry student, William Hamilton, and followed him to posts in Springfield, Kansas, and finally Benton Harbor, Michigan.  Sarah and William Hamilton had two surviving children and two who died in infancy. Her daughter, Angelina (Nina) was born in 1872 and her son, Theodore, in 1884.  Sarah was deeply mourned by her family when she died in 1899. 

 

Lydia Anna (Harvell) Weld

Lydia Anna (Harvell) Weld married Charles Stuart Weld and managed the Weld household on Fairview Avenue where Theodore lived until his death in 1895.  Louis Dwight Weld, born around 1882, was their only son. Anna corresponded regularly with Sarah Weld Hamilton about family news, but there was tension between them, and she objected strongly when Sarah wanted to write Theodore’s biography. She outlived Charles by about 30 years. 

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Ida B. Wells (Barnett)

Ida B. Wells (Barnett), born into slavery and freed by the Emancipation Proclamation, she became a journalist and dedicated her life to fighting racial injustice in the South. She witnessed the lynching of a close friend and fought particularly for voting rights, and the end to racial violence. She founded the Alpha Suffrage Club for African-American women in Illinois. They traveled to join the 1913 suffrage parade in Washington DC. Fearing the reaction of southern women, Alice Paul did not welcome Wells and her marchers, but neither did she exclude them. Black women were asked to march in the back of the parade.  However, Wells moved up to march alongside the white women in her state (Illinois) delegation.  Apparently other

black women did as well.

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Maria Weston (Chapman) and Anne Weston

Maria Weston Chapman and Anne Weston were sisters, who along with another sister, Caroline, were leaders and fund-raisers among the Boston abolitionists.  Maria was also an author and editor of anti-slavery reports and books.

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John Greenleaf Whittier

John Greenleaf Whittier, was a celebrated American Quaker poet, abolitionist and editor.  Prolific in writing poems and humorous verses, Whittier was an ardent and effective abolitionist.  Several times he was stoned by violent mobs and run out of town.  Along with Theodore Weld he admonished the Grimké sisters to concentrate on speaking out against slavery rather than advocating for women’s rights.  He was a supporter of women’s right to speak, but feared any distraction from the anti-slavery message. 

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Rev. Daniel Wise

Rev. Daniel Wise was a Methodist minister who had recently arrived from England.  He was an anti-slavery advocate, so his characterization in Stony the Road We Trod is perhaps a caricature.  However, he wrote books on women’s proper role, such as The Young Lady's Counsellor: Or, Outlines and Illustrations of the Spheres, The Duties, and the Dangers of Young Women, which could mean that he would have objected strongly to the Grimké sisters’ public speaking. 

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James Wolff

James Wolff was the other African American classmate of Archibald at Harvard Law.  James and Archie were law partners briefly after passing the bar.  (In the novel, his “sister”, Helen, is a fictional character).

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Carter Woodson

Carter Woodson received a Ph.D.in history from Harvard University and was the pre-eminent black historian of the early 20th century.  He wrote extensively on African American history and initiated Black History month.  Woodson was a founder of the Journal of Negro History.  He taught briefly at the M Street School (later Dunbar) while working on his dissertation, and later joined the faculty at Howard University. He joined the Washington branch of the NAACP when Archibald was its chairman, but they parted company over Woodson’s decision to boycott racially discriminatory businesses.

Elizur Wright

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Elizur Wright was the mathematician, abolitionist and cofounder of the American Anti-Slavery Society.  He was among the first to urge Angelina and Sarah to join the abolitionist cause.  He remained a close friend throughout their lives, speaking at Angelina’s funeral.  His daughter, Ellie, attended the Weld’s Eagleswood School.

 

Ellen (Ellie) Wright

Ellen Martha (Ellie) Wright was the daughter of Elizur Wright, the Grimké sisters first sponsor at the American Anti-Slavery Society. Elizur and his wife Susan had 18 children. Born in 1839, Ellie would have been an age-mate of Charley Weld.  She attended Eagleswood and with her father, she was at Angelina’s funeral.