Alfred H. Stone Collection
Volume: 27

13. Report of the Executive Board of Friends’ Association for the Aid and Celebration of the Freedmen, Read at the Meeting of the Association, Fifth Month 11th, 1864 (Philadelphia: Marrihew & Thompson, 1864). (16 p.)

Report of charity work carried out by the Association among Freedmen in the South with excerpts from letters written by agents working in the field. Mr. Stone has underlined the followed passage in this sentence from a letter written by Elizabeth Bond, a school teacher at Young’s Point, Louisiana. “I commenced with one hundred and thirty scholars, varying in age from four to forty years, and of every shade, from coal black to almost white, with light hair and blue eyes” (Mr. Stone’s emphasis). Ms. Bond continues. “They were wild, very destitute of clothing, and in personal appearance extremely filthy. But I am happy to say they are very apt; and it was surprising to see the change wrought within a few weeks—clean clothes, combed hair, and washed faces. It is astonishing, the eagerness they manifest for learning. I never walk out in camp but I see them busily engaged with book in hand, and as I pass the different huts, hear them conning over their lessons.”