Read before the Woman’s Political Club, Rochester NY

LADIES: You ask of me a short biographical sketch of your late honored friend and member, Mrs. Amy Post. If love and the most sacred friendship are the requisites for success in such an undertaking then I feel that you could not have chosen better. Notwithstanding, I must say I cannot hope to satisfy you all. I belong to a generation that left woman out from the educational privileges which most, if not all, of you who are today in middle life enjoy. I trust, however, that the matter that I shall bring to you will atone for any lack in the manner of its presentation.

Mrs. Amy Kirby Post was born in 1802 to Jacob and Mary Kirby of Jericho, Long Island, who were honorable members of the Society of Friends; she was of cheerful temperament, enjoying intensely the pleasures of out-door life, so that the restraints which the good mother felt called upon to put upon her child, lest she should be unfaithful to the customs and traditions of her people, were sometimes irksome and hard to bear; for this daughter of a quiet Quaker home would have liked to have danced and sung, for merry she must be; her spirits refused to droop, she loved flowers and would so imitate their form and color on canvas. She appreciated beauty everywhere, and I am sure she felt that her own charming presence would have lost nothing if only she were permitted to choose her own style of dress rather than be confined to the quaint fashion of the long ago. But none of these things, had they been allowed, would have been essential to her happiness very long, for, with a nature like hers, the more serious duties of life soon claimed attention to the exclusion of lighter fancies.

I think Mrs. Post inherited from her parents an active hatred of oppression and persecution. The Friends publications, though not many in the beginning of this century, must have recorded the infamous treatment which these simple and harmless people received, from magistrate and minister alike. Tied to a wagon, not only men but women were whipped naked through the streets of Boston, and admonished that if they returned their lives would be forfeited. They did return and paid the penalty. Amy Post was a descendant of these martyrs and surely knew it. She never evaded a duty through fear of consequences and always presented a brave front against all oppressions.

Our friend was the beloved wife of the late Isaac Post, born into, and member with her, of the Society of Friends. It is great praise, but justly merited, to say that Isaac Post was worthy to be the husband of our lamented friend, and that they walked together to the end of his long and useful life, each leaning upon and helping the other. When the Antislavery agitation put on renewed earnestness in 1842, or thereabouts, they became most earnest workers for the freedom of the blacks. Mrs. Post, in company with “the world’s people,” left her home for the purpose of holding bazars or fairs to raise funds to carry on the Antislavery work. This was a violation of the Friends discipline. A committee was appointed to reason with Amy, and one of the objects of this visitation was to advise her in regard to her duty towards her family ; also her attitude as working with the “world’s people.” According to their testimony it was not possible that she could have attended to all her family duties, which led our friend to exhibit the contents of her stocking-bag — the store on hand being sixty-four pairs. Mrs. Post rarely sat idle at social gatherings or public lectures. The only effect these proceedings had was renewed effort in behalf of the down-trodden and oppressed, and finally Isaac and Amy Post withdrew from the Society of Friends.

Mrs. Post had no need to discipline herself for her prejudice against color, she had not one bit in her nature, and when at last the infamous Fugitive Slave Law was passed by Congress, and President Fillmore signed it, the more serious work begun for the Abolitionists. At one time I went to Canada with Mrs. Post to see how those poor fugitive creatures were faring who had sought refuge there — it was said to the number of forty thousand — and I doubt, if in all that number, there were one thousand who were unacquainted with the name of Amy Post; and from how many of those once manacled hands, now freed, did this brave woman help strike off the chains none will ever know, as her home, the “central depot” of the underground railroad, was shelter and comforter to the African race for many years.

On one ever memorable Sabbath, when ministers of the city were preaching of a Saviour who nearly nineteen hundred years before was a hated, hunted fugitive from the Judea Church, Isaac and Amy Post, believing deeds not words were fittest sermons to His memory, took beneath their roof twelve hunted fugitives, hopefully watching for the curtains of night to close on Monday evening, to speed to freedom these children of the same Father.

And when we remember, friends, that even to give a cup of cold water to one of these meant imprisonment for not less than one year, and a fine of one thousand dollars, we can better understand how necessary it then was that all must be done in the darkness and silence of the night, if our friends, Isaac and Amy Post, were to be helpful to the slave to the end, and dawn of freedom’s morning. Are you not glad, my sisters of the Political Club, that no woman helped to make that law? O, remember, when you shall help to enact the laws by which you shall govern and be governed, that tyranny and cruelty be excluded from the law books. I cannot dwell longer here upon the Antislavery work of our beloved friend. She was known in all reforms. “Woman’s Rights” was a cause she advocated in its earliest stages. She believed with all her heart in the equality of the sexes and was willing to spend and be spent for that cause. It was not easy to bear all the opprobrium that was cast upon these early workers. Not every woman whose heart was in the work had the loving sympathy which dear, good Isaac Post gave to his wife. Our friend tried, also, to bring about a better condition for domestic help in our cities. When she first became a resident of Rochester she was visited by women whose business it was to ask her not to give her “help” too many privileges, as it made the girls discontented. “Why?” asked our friend. “I have been thinking to-day,” said she, “what I could do to improve their condition, as it seems to me the workers should fare better than the idlers.” The women found themselves discomfited and did not continue their work.

Mrs. Post felt that it was not well to prepare a more elaborate table than could be well afforded because of guests. A circumstance, in which I was interested, I think I will relate, as in it there is a lesson which has often been useful on similar occasions. I had not had an hour alone with my friend for a long time, and she had sent me word that a strange thing had occurred at her home (36 Sophia street) and she would like to see me and tell me about it. The strange happening was that only the immediate family of Mr. and Mrs. Post had slept under their roof the previous night (the first night for fifteen years), and we anticipated a quiet afternoon together. We went to Mrs. Post’s room, but were hardly seated when the bell rung. I felt mischievous and pushed her into a large closet, going in and closing the door after me. The girl failed to find us and so reported. The visitors gave their names, saying they would leave their wraps and go shopping and would be back to supper and spend the night. “What shall I get for supper ?” said the cook. “Thee must get a very nice supper, for these are not our best friends. We have not a hearty welcome for them, so must treat them as well as we can.” I have always remembered from that time that true friends need not be feted.

Some years since, some of the women of the churches of the city decided to try to close the houses of prostitution and to persuade their poor deluded inmates to lead a different life. A meeting was called in one of the churches to consider the matter. The first important subject which came up was to know where these “fallen women could go.” Few of these evangelical women could open their homes and say, ” Neither do I condemn thee; come with me and sin no more.” But our friend spoke up and said, “I will take one, and if there is no second place for the other, I wiil take her, too.”

My friends, you have just laid this noble woman into the silent grave, but do you not remember of whom it was said, “being dead, yet speaketh! “Let us listen, my sisters, possibly we may find echo in our own hearts.

Mrs. Post was hospitable in an eminent degree. She turned none from her door. The pleasant, “Won’t thee come in,” was the greeting, but it is of a higher hospitality I wish now to speak. She was hospitable, yea, reverent to one’s ideas, not always adopting them, but gave them audience. She never prejudged, knowing that every step in the world’s progress, as few of us can know, had bruised the feet of those who first broke the path, and was, therefore, careful to entertain those stranger thoughts, knowing that she might, by so doing, entertain diviner wisdom.

My pen almost refuses to stop until I write of her friendship. You who have enjoyed it know what it was. To me it was sacred; only in Spiritualism were we not agreed. But I loved her none the less, that to her conscious life was unending. ‘Tis not needful, my friends, that we think alike of the Infinite, or of infinite power, only let us use with all diligence what power we have for the good of Humanity to a higher evolution with the same persistence as opportunity offers, as did our friend, Amy Post.

With one or two incidents which give much insight into the gentle methods of our friend, and I have done. For some years a little beggar girl came to 36 Sophia street, not being turned away; oftener coming, became familiar, even to drumming on the piano, some of the family remonstrated, eliciting this reply: “She enjoys it so; perhaps this is the only pleasant time in her daily life, I do not want her checked.”

Another; when years ago an Indian came to borrow an ax, to chop out bows and arrows, when the woods were nearer Cornhill than at present, where he went daily for three weeks, borrowing and returning all this time the ax, until the Indian became a familiar visitor, too; and when sometime after his eyes became diseased, Isaac Post and Friend Frost procured medical treatment, trying to prevent, but in vain, his misfortune of coming blindness. This poor old blind Indian did not cease his yearly visits to our friend. When too dirty and objections became too strong for resistance, for entertaining him in the house, he was still made comfortable in the stable, and though not being able to look upon the face of his friend for nearly forty years, it is to be hoped when he reaches the “Happy Hunting Ground” blind John may be able to see once more the kind faces of his friends, Isaac and Amy Post, who for so many, many years ministered to his wants so faithfully on earth.

 Source: Reminiscences, by Lucy Colman (Buffalo: H.L. Green, 1891), pp. 83-86.