Letter from Joseph Parrish, Burlington, [New Jersey], to William Lloyd Garrison, 1838 [May] 23d

Joseph Parrish, Jr. writes to William Lloyd Garrison discussing the "mob in Philad[elphi]a on the 17th" of May that destroyed Pennsylvania Hall. Parrish asks Garrison to write him telling him "how he got along on thy way homeward," escaping from "a band of reckless rioters [who] were burning for the person of Wm Lloyd Garrison." He says he has encountered such threats himself and "witnessed more of the outrages of the mob" as he stayed in Philadelphia. Parrish also remarks that "today is the last day that the Cherokee .. is to make his foot mark on his own land" before they are driven from their ancestral lands. He argues that the country needs to ask for repentance and says that the ruins of Pennsylvania Hall now stand "as a monument of the disgrace of Philadelphia, which should cover the face of her citizens in shame. But no!" Parrish then asks to become a subscriber to the Liberator.
Courtesy of Boston Public Library