January 27, 1897 — Memorial Service for Harriet Beecher Stowe, Fleet Street A.M.E. Zion Church, Brooklyn NY

The trail of the serpent was over the land in 1850. A blast had swept over the Southern land, grinding and crushing beneath the heart of the black and the souls of the white people. The master class felt the pressure and made laws to crush down the rising sprit of freedom in the breasts of the negroes. It became the purpose of the South to make slavery national, while the North wanted to make freedom universal. In New York City, Philadelphia and many other cities the colored people were hunted down like wild beasts and their property confiscated. The underground railroad was then in full operation, having stations in the East and West, where the escaped slaves found a way to reach Canada in safety.

[Dr. Morton showed how Uncle Tom’s Cabin influenced the people not alone of America but of all the European nations. She traced the growth of the abolitionist movement from the small beginning to its culmination in the Civil War.]

Source: The Standard Union (Brooklyn, NY) January 28, 1897, p. 7.