Frederick Douglass in Galt

Before the American Civil War and almost a decade before Confederation abolitionist and former slave Frederick Douglass visited Galt (present-day Cambridge Ontario) Canada West. It was mid-December 1857 and he lectured about The Brotherhood of Nations. Douglass was a familiar figure on the lecture circuit having helped many fugitive slaves flee to Canada through the Underground Railroad. Although Douglass had been a close associate of radical abolitionist John Brown he also developed a friendship with President Abraham Lincoln that lasted until Lincoln's assassination by John Wilkes Booth. The lecture series that winter in Galt included other well-known speakers but all other speeches were free to the residents of the town except for the Douglass lecture for which there was a 12-and-a-half cent admission charge. Proceeds helped defray travel costs for Douglass and fund his anti-slavery newspaper in Rochester N.Y. When he died in 1895 he was one of the best-known men in America.