OBITUARY.

Lyttelton Times, Volume XCIII, Issue 10594, 1 March 1895, Page 5

OBITUARY.

FREDERICK DOUGLASS. [Special to Press Association.! NEW YOEK, Feb. 27. Frederick: Douglass is dead, setafc seventy-eight. A public funeral will be accorded him in honour of his efforts in the cause of slave emancipation. [Frederick Douglass was born at Tuckahoe, Maryland, about 1817. His father was a white man, and hia mother a negro slave. When he was about nine years old his master “ lent ” him to one of his relatives, from whom he received kind treatment, and learned to read and write. In 1832 he was purchased by a Baltimore shipbuilder, and employed first as a waiter on the workmen and afterwards as a shipcaulker, paying his owner three dollars a week and retaining the remainder of his earnings. After serving in this way for some years, he made his escape in 1838, and reached New Bedford, Massachusetts, where he assumed the name of Douglass. Not long after he became acquainted with William Lloyd Garrison, who encouraged him in his efforts at self-education. Ha soon developed such power as an orator, that the opponents of slavery felt that he could serve their cause as a public lecturer. In 1841 he was employed by the American Anti-Slavery Society as one of their lecturers, and soon drew crowds. In 1845 ho published " My Bondage and my Freedom,” an autobiography, which he rewrote and enlarged in 1855. In 1859 he went to England, where his eloquence attracted great attention. His friends there raised £l5O, which was sent to hia former master, and his legal emancipation thereby secured. After some years he removed to Eochester, New York, where he established a weekly newspaper, named Fred. Douglass’s Paper, and subsequently The North Star. He was often called to Washington to consult with President Lincoln in regard to the interests of the coloured race. In 1870 ho commenced at Washington the publication of a journal entitled The New National Era. He held several public appointments in America.]