Harriet and Thomas Truesdell
Harriet Lee and Thomas Truesdell owned the house from 1851-1863, at a time when Duffield Street was a hotbed of not just local abolitionist activity, but also the women’s suffrage movement. The Truesdell’s and their neighbors coordinated with these institutions, and their co-conspirators across the country, to help enslaved people reach freedom by any means necessary.
Thomas and Harriet Lee-Truesdell worked under the aegis of William Lloyd Garrison, who was the principal leader of the American abolitionist movement from 1831 to 1865. Garrison always mentioned the Truesdell’s fondly in his letters. Their friendship continued throughout the Truesdell’s living in Brooklyn. Both Thomas and Harriet were active in anti-slavery organizations in Providence, Rhode Island, attending national conventions as state representatives. Which continued in their Brooklyn years.
Harriet was born in 1786 in Providence, where her father, William Lee was the proprietor of a successful grocery business on Westminster Street, not far from the harbor. Which made it accessible for trade home and abroad.
Thomas born in 1789, moved from his near by home town of Woodstock, Connecticut and married Harriet in a ceremony at the First Baptist Church in 1811. They lived in Providence and carried out a very successful business after William Lee ( Harriet’s father) died.
Thomas Truesdell was expelled from the First Baptist Church in Providence July 3, 1823 because he became a Quaker. Quakers were known to be movers and shakers. In a private communication to Joy Chatel, Deborah Van Broekhoven, author of “The Devotion of these Women”, reached out to Stanley Lemons, historian of the First Baptist Church in Providence, and confirmed Ms. Chatel’s husbands statement, that Thomas was excommunicated.
Thomas Truesdell, a grocer and cotton broker, appeared to have been active in the Society for Abolishing the slave trade. His involvement seems to have been later on in the societies anti-slavery movement. Two of the original members were George Benson, who was the father-in-law of William Lloyd Garrison, and his former partner Moses Brown.
In 1829 and 1830, Truesdell is identified as the Rhode Island agent and distributor for the Genius of Universal Emancipation, Garrison’s first newspaper, published in Baltimore. As an agent he was authorized to receive subscriptions and monies for the editor.
Truesdell was a prolific advertiser, leaving an extensive record of his activities in The Providence Patriot, The Rhode Island Advertiser, The Rhode Island American, and The Providence Gazette until 1838 when he moved to Brooklyn New York.
Truesdell as a grocer and cotton merchant was involved in the Free Produce movement and apposed slave labor.
In 1836, Thomas Truesdell became a founding member of the Rhode Island State Anti-Slavery Society. It was a more radical body than the earlier Society for Abolishing the Slave Trade. Garrison was active in its founding. It was said Truesdell smuggled freedom seekers in bales of cotton on his ships.
Truesdell also a founding member of the New England Anti-Slavery Society. At a convention held in Boston May of 1836 he endorsed another Garrisonian position which stated “Slavery and Liberty can no longer dwell at peace within the same border”.
In 1850, the year the Fugitive Slave Act was made law, Harriet Lee-Truesdell purchased 227 Duffield Street. William Harned, the Quaker abolitionist from Philadelphia, purchased 123 Duffield Street the same year, from a mason and builders Bonnel and White.
Another title held by Mrs. Truesdell was delegate and committee organizer for the 1838 Anti-Slavery Convention of American Woman in Philadelpha PA. Other famous women on the committee were well known women abolitionists; Lucretion Mott, Angelina Grimkie Weld, Maria W. Chapman, Juliana Tappan and Sara Douglas.
The list of known abolitionist the Truesdells associated with read as a who’s who of the 1800’s. Abolitionists such as Garrison, the Tappens, Bowen, Benson, Harned, Batteris, Fredrickson and Reverand Peck just to name a few.
Charles Fredrickson, Truesdell’s son-in-law from Nova Scotia, had his sister start an abolitionist chapter in his home town.
Thomas Truesdell sent all his anti-slavery magazines and pamphlets to his office, 141 Pearl Street in Manhattan. It was said he wanted to keep the building (227 Duffield Street) safe. Tappen and others had offices on the same street.
