Our Collection

At the Institute’s core is the Gilder Lehrman Collection, one of the great archives in American history. More than 85,000 items cover five hundred years of American history, from Columbus’s 1493 letter describing the New World through the end of the twentieth century.

Brown, Neill (fl. 1846) to a cousin

High-resolution images are available to schools and libraries via subscription to American History, 1493-1943. Check to see if your school or library already has a subscription. Or click here for more information. You may also order a pdf of the image from us here.

Gilder Lehrman Collection #: GLC09373 Author/Creator: Brown, Neill (fl. 1846) Place Written: s.l. Type: Autograph letter signed Date: 16 November 1846 Pagination: 3 p. Order a Copy

[Slavery] From Cleveland, Ohio to a cousin in North Carolina: "I am here surrounded by abolitionists, yea in the very hot bed of this class of people.… Three weeks since there was a negroe woman who said she was a fugitive slave from Mississippi, got up in the pulpit of one of the churches here and related her suffering while in slavery, more than three fourths of what she said of the usage or treatment of slave in the south I know to be false. A few nights after this in the same church 2 individuals who had been imprisoned in the penitentiary of some slave state for negro stealing or as they say, for aiding one of their brethren to obtain his liberty gave a history of their arrest trial sentence and sufferings in prison, after which there was a collection taken up to relieve their present wants. I fear the preacher who gives up his pulpit for such purposes instead of preaching himself must have but little Christianity at heart."

Citation Guidelines for Online Resources