William Lloyd Garrison | Page 2

was not yet
clear of ice. Higher up the river the ice broke that morning and came
floating down with the current. The boat in which Mary Garrison and

her baby rode was overtaken by the fragments and wrecked. The
mother with her child sought refuge on a piece of ice and was driven
shoreward. Wrapping Abijah in all the clothes she could spare she
threw him ashore. She and the lad followed by the aid of an
overhanging willow bough. The baby was unharmed, for she had
thrown him into a snow-bank. But the perils of the river gave place to
the perils of the woods. In them Mary Garrison wandered with her
infant, who was no less a personage than the father of William Lloyd
Garrison, until at length she found the hut of a friendly Indian, who
took her in and "entertained her with his best words and deeds, and the
next morning conducted her safely to her father's."
The Palmers were a hardy, liberty-loving race of farmers, and Joseph
Garrison was a man of unusual force and independence of character.
The life which these early settlers lived was a life lived partly on the
land and partly on the river. They were equally at home with scythe or
oar. Amid such terraqueous conditions it was natural enough that the
children should develop a passion for the sea. Like ducks many of them
took to the water and became sailors. Abijah was a sailor. The
amphibious habits of boyhood gave to his manhood a restless, roving
character. Like the element which he loved he was in constant motion.
He was a man of gifts both of mind and body. There was besides a
strain of romance and adventure in his blood. By nature and his
seafaring life he probably craved strong excitement. This craving was
in part appeased no doubt by travel and drink. He took to the sea and he
took to the cup. But he was more than a creature of appetites, he was a
man of sentiment. Being a man of sentiment what should he do but fall
in love. The woman who inspired his love was no ordinary woman, but
a genuine Acadian beauty. She was a splendid specimen of womankind.
Tall she was, graceful and admirably proportioned. Never before had
Abijah in all his wanderings seen a creature of such charms of person.
Her face matched the attractions of her form and her mind matched the
beauty of her face. She possessed a nature almost Puritanic in its
abhorrence of sin, and in the strength of its moral convictions. She
feared to do wrong more than she feared any man. With this supremacy
of the moral sense there went along singular firmness of purpose and
independence of character. When a mere slip of a girl she was called

upon to choose between regard for her religious convictions and regard
for her family. It happened in this wise. Fanny Lloyd's parents were
Episcopalians, who were inclined to view with contempt
fellow-Christians of the Baptist persuasion. To have a child of theirs
identify herself with this despised sect was one of those crosses which
they could not and would not bear. But Fanny had in a fit of girlish
frolic entered one of the meetings of these low-caste Christians. What
she heard changed the current of her life. She knew thenceforth that
God was no respecter of persons, and that the crucified Nazarene
looked not upon the splendor of ceremonies but upon the thoughts of
the heart of His disciples. Here in a barn, amid vulgar folk, and uncouth,
dim surroundings, He had appeared, He, her Lord and Master. He had
touched her with that white unspeakable appeal. The laughter died upon
the fair girlish face and prayer issued from the beautiful lips. If vulgar
folk, the despised Baptists, were good enough for the Christ, were they
not good enough for her? Among them she had felt His consecrating
touch and among them she determined to devote herself to Him. Her
parents commanded and threatened but Fanny Lloyd was bent on
obeying the heavenly voice of duty rather than father and mother. They
had threatened that if she allowed herself to be baptised they would
turn her out of doors. Fanny was baptised and her parents made good
the threat. Their home was no longer her home. She had the courage of
her conviction--ability to suffer for a belief.
Such was the woman who subsequently became the wife of Abijah
Garrison, and the mother of one of the greatest moral heroes of the
century. Abijah followed the sea, and she for several years with an
increasing family followed Abijah. First from one place and then
another she glided after him in her early married life. He