Garrison, William Lloyd

Garrison, William Lloyd a leading abolitionist, was born at Newburyport, Massachusetts, December 12, 1804. His mother was early left a widow, and poor, so that the son, after various attempts at learning a trade, was at length apprenticed to a printer in his native town, where he soon began to write for the journals, and in 1826 became proprietor of the Free Press. This not succeeding financially, he started in 1827 the National Philanthropist, in the advocacy of moral reforms, and in 1831 the Liberator, a fierce opponent of slavery, which was continued till the act of emancipation during the civil war. He was often in personal peril by the violence of the friends of slavery. He visited England several times in furtherance of his principles, and was received there with great enthusiasm. He died May 24, 1879. He published Sonnets and Other Poems (1848), and a selection from his Speeches and Writings (1852).