Private Frederick Douglass, Jr. (USA)

Frederick Douglass Jr. (March 3, 1842 – July 26, 1892) was the second son of Frederick Douglass and his wife Anna Murray Douglass. Born in New Bedford, Massachusetts, he was an abolitionist, essayist, newspaper editor, and an official recruiter of colored soldiers for the United States Union Army during the American Civil War.

Name: Frederick Jr. Douglass
Event Type: Death Event Date: 26 Jul 1892
Event Place: District of Columbia, United States
Gender: Male Age: 50 Birth Year (Estimated): 1842

Locals Date: Saturday, July 30, 1892 Paper: Washington Bee (Washington (DC), DC) Page: 3 Frederick Douglass, Jr son of ex-minister Douglass died Tuesday and was buried Thursday afternoon. The sage of Anacostia has the profound sympathy of the people.

Date: Thursday, July 28, 1892 Paper: Evening Star (Washington (DC), DC) Page: 8 Anacostia The Funeral of Frederick Douglass, Jr. The funeral of Frederick Douglass, Jr., took place at 3 o'clock today from his late home at Hillsdale. In conformity with the wishes of his father the ceremonies were brief and simple. The handsome casket was placed in the parlor, and a throng of friends gathered around. Rev. Dr. Francis Jesse Peck, Jr., conducted the services. "The Rock of Ages" was sung by four specially chosen members of Campbell A.M.E. choir. Rev. Dr. Peck delivered an address reviewing in appropriate terms the life of the deceased. Remarks were also made by several visiting dignitaries of the church. The remains were interred at Graceland cemetery beside the grave of his wife.

Frederick Douglas, Jr., was born at New Bedford, Mass., on March 3, 1841. He was the third child of Frederick Douglass, Sr., the first being Rosetta, the second Louis H. and the fourth Charles R. While quite young he removed with his parents to Rochester and entered a mixed school in that city.

After his schooling he learned the trade of a printer in his father's Rochester office. Immediately after the outbreak of the war he was commissioned a recruiting sergeant and during the conflict was engaged in mustering colored troops in Mississippi. His elder brother Louis and younger brother Charles were active soldiers in the fifty-fourth Massachusetts infantry.

About 1865 he removed to Denver, Col., and remained there two or three years. From the west he came to Washington and opened a small grocery store that stood for years in the grounds now occupied by the house in which he died.

When Frederick Douglass, Sr., became United States Marshal in 1877, Frederick, Jr., was made a bailiff and secured a clerkship in the office of the recorder of deeds during the incumbency of Mr. Douglass, Sr. He contributed much political literature to the press.

He was married to Miss Virginia Hewlett of Boston, sister to the Washington attorney, E. M. Hewlett, and daughter of the professor of gymnastics at Harvard University.
His wife died about three years ago and Mr. Douglass never recovered from the affliction.

In September last he was removed to Freedmen's Hospital for treatment, was operated upon and returned home about six weeks ago. The direct cause of his death was consumption.

Douglass, Frederick BATTLE UNIT NAME: 25th Regiment, United States Colored Infantry
SIDE: Union COMPANY: K
SOLDIER'S RANK IN: Private
SOLDIER'S RANK OUT: Private ALTERNATE NAME: FILM NUMBER: M589 ROLL 24 PLAQUE NUMBER: B-41 NOTES: none

Frederick Jr. was the third eldest of five children born to the Douglass family, comprising three sons and two daughters. As a youngster while still under his parents' roof he joined them as active members and conductors of the Underground railroad, receiving fugitives at their Rochester, New York home; feeding and clothing them, and providing safe, warm shelter as they made their way from bondage to freedom, which for many of these meant escape to Canada. Years later, his younger brother Charles would recall: “We have often had to get up at midnight to admit a sleigh-load and start fires to thaw the fugitives out. Every member of the family had to lend a hand to this work and it was always cheerfully performed.”
The first residence for his family was at the house of Nathan and Polly Johnson, who were African-Americans who regularly sheltered people seeking freedom from slavery at their home.
They stayed with the Johnsons in New Bedford, Massachusetts from 1838 to 1839.

Further information: Abolitionism in New Bedford, Massachusetts
Military service
During the American Civil War, Frederick Jr. joined his father as a recruiter of United States Colored Troops for the Union Army and was commissioned a Recruiting Sergeant, attached to the U.S. 25th Colored Infantry. Although he himself was never a combat soldier during the intrastate conflict, as were his two brothers, he was proud to have been a recruiter in behalf of the Union cause, especially regarding the famous 55th Massachusetts Infantry Regiment. As such, he worked closely with his renowned father who had been the foremost civilian recruiter for the 54th Massachusetts Infantry Regiment, and who had also served as a consultant and advisor to President Abraham Lincoln on the enlistment of men of color into the Union Army, in supporting the Commander in Chief's objective of reinforcing the North's armed forces to put down the rebellion of the break-away Confederate States. Both his older brother Lewis Henry Douglass and younger brother Charles Remond Douglass were among the first enlistees in that famed regiment. Charles, in fact, was the very first man of color to enlist from the State of New York.

Career
As was true of his world-renowned father, as well as his two brothers, Frederick Jr., lived many lives in one. He was both a printer and editor, having learned these skills while working as an apprentice on his father's newspaper The North Star, later known as Frederick Douglass' Paper. Together with his father and his brother Lewis, he became co-editor of the New Era or New National Era, a journal published specifically for freedmen, post–Civil War freed slaves between the years 1870 to 1874. This post-abolitionist journal shared much in common purpose with an earlier journal The National Era, also published in Washington, D.C., between the years 1847 to 1860. It was this paper that had serialized the stories that would become Uncle Tom's Cabin, written by Harriet Beecher Stowe. Like his older brother Lewis, he was also a trained typesetter, having completed formal training at Denver, Colorado. His younger brother Charles would later become the first typesetter employed by the U.S. Government Printing Office at Washington, D.C. When his father, Frederick Douglass Sr., was appointed United States Marshal by President Rutherford B. Hayes in the year 1877, Frederick Jr. was made a bailiff and later attained a clerkship in the office of the Recorder of Deeds during his father's tenure in that role for the District of Columbia. The senior Douglass had been nominated to this office by President James Garfield in 1881, serving in that office until his resignation following the inauguration of President Grover Cleveland in 1885.

Personal life

Virginia L. Molyneaux Hewlett Douglass
On August 4, 1869, Virginia Hewlett Douglass and Frederick Douglass, Jr. married in Cambridge, Massachusetts.
Together they had seven children:

1. Fredrick Aaron Douglass (1870–1886),
2. Virginia Anna Douglass (1871–1872),
3. Lewis Emmanuel Douglass (c.1874–1875),
4. Maud Ardell Douglass (1877–1877),
5. Gertrude Pearl Douglass (1883–1887),
6. Robert Smalls Douglass (1886–1910),
7. Charles Paul Douglass (1879–1895).

Death
Frederick Douglass Jr. died on July 26, 1892, and was initially interred at Graceland Cemetery, beside his beloved wife Virginia Hewlett who had preceded him in death on December 14, 1889.
This later changed with the closing of Graceland Cemetery in 1894; the remains were exhumed and removed to Woodlawn Cemetery in the Benning Ridge section of Washington, D.C.

links

• https://aaregistry.org/story/frederick-douglass-jr-abolitionist-and...
• https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Frederick_Douglass_Jr.
• https://ancestors.familysearch.org/en/2XLL-YDK/pvt-frederick-dougla...
• https://www.wikitree.com/wiki/Douglass-2174
• http://www.math.buffalo.edu/~sww/0history/hwny-douglass-family.html
• https://www.wikidata.org/wiki/Q80498556
• https://www.findagrave.com/memorial/142171560/frederick-douglass