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| LEWIS TAPPJLN" Was one of the warmest friends of the slave and of the colored man. He •was very solicitous for their welfare, and that the colored people who were free should be enlightened and educated. He opened a Sunday-school for colored adults, which was numerously attended, in West Broadway, New York, and with a few others, devoted the most of the Sabbath to their teaching. When he and his brother Arthur, assembled the seventy anti-slavery agents, who were thereafter, like " firebrands," scattered all over the land, they held their meetings in this room. These agents were entertained by abolitionists in the city, and many of us had two or three of them in each of our families for a couple of weeks. They went out all over the land, and •were instrumental in diffusing more truth, perhaps, about the dreadful system of American Slavery, than was accomplished in any other way. He also aided in establishing several periodicals, brimful of anti-slavery truth; among which, were the " Anti-Slavery Record," the " Emancipator" the "Slave's Friend;" the latter, to indoctrinate the children in Anti-slavery. The American Missionary Society, originally begun for the support of a mission in Africa, on the occasion of the return of the Amistad captors to their native land, and now doing so much for the freedmen of the South, was almost entirely established by his efforts. During the continuance of Slavery, much was done by this Society for the diffnsion of an anti-slavery gospel. . The "Vigilance Committee," for aiding and befriending fugitives, of •which I was treasurer for many years, had no better or warmer friend than he. He was almost always at their meetings, which were known only to "the elect," for we dared not hold them too publicly', as we almost always had gome of the travelers toward the " north star" present, whose masters or their agents were frequently in the city, in hot pursuit. At first, we sent them to Canada, but after a while, sent them only to Syracuse, and the centre of the State. In 1834, I think, was the first rioting, the sacking of Mr. Tappan's house, in Rose Street. The mob brought all liis furniture out, and piling it up in the street, set it on fire. The family were absent at the time. Soon after, they stoned Rev. Mr. Ludlow's, and Dr. COT'S church, and the house of the latter. They threatened Arthur Tappan & Go's, store, in Pearl Street, but hearing that there were a few loaded musketa there, they took it out in threats. But their mercantile establishment was almost ostracised at this time, by the dry goods merchants; and country merchants in all parts of the country, north as well as south, did not dare to have it known that they bought goods of them; and when they did so, requested particularly, that the bundles or boxes, should not be marked " from A. Tappan & Co.," |