25 February 1842

Smith, Gerrit, 1797-1874

Printed document

Title: To the Christians of Peterboro and its vicinity

Smith disagrees with removing a Baptist Church in Peterboro and building a Methodist Church. Argues against sectarianism. Contains cloth tape along left edge.

GLC04717.45

29 November 1843

Smith, Gerrit, 1797-1874

Printed document

Title: Church of Peterboro

Includes a creed and resolutions of the Church of Peterboro. Resolutions name an elder for the church, cite the church's opposition to sectarianism and slavery, and cover other pertinent issues.

GLC04717.46

15 July 1845

Smith, Gerrit, 1797-1874

Printed document

Title: To those ministers in the county of Madison, who refuse to preach politics

Believes that the continued enslavement of millions of citizens results from religious leaders' refusal to preach politics. Emphasizes the duty of religious leaders to preach against slavery.

GLC04717.47

4 April 1849

Smith, Gerrit, 1797-1874

Printed letter

Title: to President Green, Whitesboro

Addresses a chief difference: "You have none, whilst I have the utmost confidence, in the capabilities of the masses to take care of themselves."

GLC04717.48

1 June 1849

Smith, Gerrit, 1797-1874

Printed document

Title: [Resolutions passed unanimously by the Church of Peterboro]

Resolutions open fellowship to "christians of every name and type," uphold the Sabbath, etc.

GLC04717.49

7 July 1849

Smith, Gerrit, 1797-1874

Printed document

Title: At the meeting of the "Church of Peterboro," held July 7th, 1849, the following Resolutions were passed, without a dissenting voice...

Accuses a clerk and store owner who sell liquor as being "out of...place" for preaching the gospel. A second resolution attests that no members of the Church of Peterboro are guilty of voting for anti-abolitionists or drinking intoxicating liquors. The resolutions are to be read in a public assembly 8 July.

GLC04717.50

20 July 1849

Smith, Gerrit, 1797-1874

Printed document

Title: To the Church of Peterboro

Uses an allegory of a tea, coffee, and liquor merchant to illustrate that "the wickedness in one branch... taints with wickedness every other branch..."

GLC04717.51

9 August 1849

Smith, Gerrit, 1797-1874

Printed letter

Title: to Hiram P. Crozier, New York

Defends the Resolutions of the Church of Peterboro, which Crozier criticized. Chastises Crozier for running a store that sells liquor, declaring "iniquity, permitted in one of the branches of the store, stamps the whole store with iniquity." Crozier served as pastor of the church.

GLC04717.52

27 November 1849

Smith, Gerrit, 1797-1874

Printed document

Title: Proceedings of the Church of Peterboro, at their meeting held Nov. 27, 1849.

The Church of Peterboro substitutes several resolutions for one previously set forth. Resolutions regarding those who, though they do not consider themselves Christians, voted on the continuance of Hiram P. Crozier's pastorship.

GLC04717.53

14 January 1859

Smith, Gerrit, 1797-1874

Printed document

Title: [Hymns to be sung in connection with Gerrit Smith's discourse]

Smith will deliver the discourse 23 January at the Presbyterian Church of Peterboro, on the topic of the "New Religion." Contains four hymns. Includes a pencil note at the top of the page.

GLC04717.54

5 February 1873

Smith, Gerrit, 1797-1874

Printed letter

Title: Gerrit Smith to Susan B. Anthony

Smith writes to Anthony, the legendary activist and reformer: "Why men have the ballot and women hav'nt it, and why they have so much else in which they refuse to let women share, originates in the simple fact, that the superior physical strength is on the side of man. I confess that such things go somewhat toward making me ashamed of being a man. Nevertheless, I am consoled by the thought that when men shall have become wiser and better, and exchanged their barbaric pride in their stronger and rougher sex for a sense of what they owe to the weaker and gentler one, they will be glad to do…

GLC04717.55

15 August 1873

Smith, Gerrit, 1797-1874

Printed letter

Title: Woman suffrage above human law. Letter from Gerrit Smith.

Smith writes to Anthony, the legendary activist and reformer, discussing women's right to vote. Sends Anthony money to pay a fine, and declares that if she chooses not to pay the fine, she should use the money at her discretion "to promote the cause of woman suffrage."

GLC04717.56

13 April 1841

Smith, Gerrit, 1797-1874

Printed document

Title: To John Curtis, Preston Armour, Asahel C. Stone, and Geo. W. Ellinwood, Esquires, commissioners of excise of the town of Smithfield, County of Madison, and State of New York.

"Your petitioners implore your honorable body, in the name of the drunkard, his wife, and his children- in the name, too, of the sober, who, whilst tavern licences are granted, are exposed to become drunkards- to refuse to grant such licences. They implore you to do so, even though it should be at the probable loss of your popularity and your offices."

GLC04717.57

15 March 1843

Smith, Gerrit, 1797-1874

Printed letter

Title: To the people of the town of Smithfield

Smith writes "At the recent Town Meeting, you again refused to elect men for Commissioners of Excise, who are willing to license dram-selling. You did right... dram-drinking is morally wrong."

GLC04717.58

18 May 1857

Smith, Gerrit, 1797-1874

Printed letter

Title: to Edward C. Delavan

Smith, active in the temperance movement, declines Delavan's invitation to attend an approaching meeting of the New York State Temperance Society. Delavan was a leader in the temperance movement.

GLC04717.59

8 March 1871

Smith, Gerrit, 1797-1874

Printed letter

Title: Letter from Gerrit Smith on temperance. To the thoughful and candid of the County of Madison.

Discusses a local election, which was won by the Anti-dramshop ticket. Still feels despondent, writing: "Nothing, however, at the present time, stands so much in the way of the success of the cause of temperance as the fear cherished by tens of thousands of good men that quitting the Republican for the Anti-dramshop party would result in throwing the nation into the hands of the Democratic party..."

GLC04717.60

6 November 1872

Smith, Gerrit, 1797-1874

Printed document

Title: Gerrit Smith to the Anti-Dramshop Party. A mutual disappointment!

Smith, active in the temperance movement, discusses the Republican, Democratic, Anti-Dramshop, and Prohibition political parties.

GLC04717.61

14 February 1873

Smith, Gerrit, 1797-1874

Printed letter

Title: A letter from the Hon. Gerrit Smith, to the Cuban Anti-Slavery Committee, New York.

Smith writes, "As I view it, our Government should, long ago, have conceded belligerent rights to the Cubans struggling for freedom from the yoke of Spain and from the yoke of Slavery... The world is too far advanced in a rational civilization and in an all-comprehending fraternal religion, that it should any longer be allowable for the nations to stand still whilst one of them continues to indulge in the horrid crimes of which, if they were ever guilty, they have thoroughly repented." Notes that Samuel Raymond Scottron served as the committee's president, and H. H. Garnet as vice president…

GLC04717.62

4 July 1873

Smith, Gerrit, 1797-1874

Printed document

Title: Let crushed Cuba arise! Substance of the speech of Gerrit Smith, in Syracuse, July 4th 1873.

Smith writes, "In our Fourth of July celebrations there are two events, which, far above all other events, we come together to celebrate. One of these is the deliverance of our country, nearly a century ago, from political despotism, and the other is the practical recognition by our nation, a few years since, of the grand doctrine that 'all men are created equal.'"

GLC04717.63

1 December 1873

Smith, Gerrit, 1797-1874

Printed document

Title: Spain. --- Cuba.

Discusses Spain's history of slaveholding and the role of other nations to end slavery in Cuba.

GLC04717.64

4 January 1850

Smith, Gerrit, 1797-1874

Printed letter

Title: to John Cochran, Isaac T. Hopper, Daniel C. Eaton, George H. Evans, and William Kemeys

Smith writes to prominent men he chose to designate the distribution of gifts of land and money among five hundred males and females from New York. Notes that he will not give the females land, but will instead bestow $50 upon each of them. Declares, "Alas, that good men should be so slow to see, that the acknowledged right of every generation, and the whole of every generation, to the use of the earth, as well as to the use of the sea, the light, and the air, is necessarily preliminary to that state of universal comfort... for which good men labor and pray!" Notes that most of the land is…

GLC04717.65

13 March 1871

Smith, Gerrit, 1797-1874

Printed document

Title: The West Point mob.

Smith discusses recent mob activity at West Point, New York: "Nothing else is so frightful as a mob- that many-headed monster, whose every head refuses to be controlled. Mobs and their dramshop inspiration threaten the ruin of our country. Ours is emphatically the country of mobs. Slavery made it such." Judging from Smith's text, West Point cadets kidnapped and threatened to tar and feather several African Americans.

GLC04717.66

5 January 1855

Smith, Gerrit, 1797-1874

Printed letter

Title: Hon. H. C. Goodwin, M.C.

Smith writes, "I am happy to see, in the proceedings of the House of Representatives, the proposition to take up the Bill for the relief of the sufferers by French spoliations... We must remember the condition of our country in 1778, in order to estimate rightly the value to her of the Treaties, which she made with France, in that year..." Henry Charles Goodwin served as a United States Representative from New York 1853-1854 and 1857-1858.

GLC04717.67

1 February 1845

Smith, Gerrit, 1797-1874

Printed letter

Title: Hon. F. Whittlesey of Rochester

Criticizes Whittlesey for advocating a plan for higher rates of toll on the Oswego River than on the western part of the Erie Canal. Smith calls it "discrimination in tolls." Whittlesey served as a United States Representative from New York 1831-1834, and as a justice of the State supreme court in 1847 and 1848.

GLC04717.68

24 May 1844

Smith, Gerrit, 1797-1874

Printed letter

Title: To the persons who derive title from myself or my late father to land in Charlotte River and Byrne's Tracts, in the Counties of Delaware, Otsego, and Schoharie

Discusses the authenticity of land titles, possibly for land he previously gifted to African Americans in need. Suspects that Native Americans told residents that the land titles were inauthentic in order to obtain timber from the property.

GLC04717.69