ny Yates County Speech by Frederick Douglass July 4 1862 “Himrods Corners”
This July, as we were preparing to make Town Maps out of the 1865 Yates County wall map I came upon the odd-named “Himrod’s Corners” map. What was that about? A Google search yielded this interesting 4th of July info.:
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This village in Yates County New York was the site of a notable speech in the midst of the Civil War by Frederick Douglass. Himrods Corners (now just “Himrod”) was easily accessible by railroad to Douglass, who lived in Rochester, a few hours northwest of here by train.
Douglass is said to have spoken to 2000 people on “The Slaveholders Rebellion” a 90 minute narrative critical of the course of the Civil War. The map is 1865 – his speech was 1862.
We do not know exactly where he spoke, but common sense suggests it was a spot on this map near the railroad, for July days can be hot and 2000 people would not be expected to walk any distance,
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Below is the same map atop a larger section of the 1865 county map for context. Seneca Lake is to the right. We made this special map to highlight Douglass’ 1862 speech.
The railroad goes north to Pen Yan (about 1/2 hour) and then on to Canandaigua and to Rochester. The map above shows the village of Dundee (in Starkey Town) , where there was an active anti-slavery society per Tricia Noel in her 2021 article on this speech. Noel’s treatise is the best on-line narrative I have found on the Douglass speech.
NOTE: This 1862 Douglass speech was preceeded by his more famous “What to the Slave is the 4th of July” delivered ten years earlier in Rochester.
see also
https://frederickdouglasspapersproject.com/s/digitaledition/item/10537
The source of the maps above is the 1865 Map of Yates County, NY , a large wall map.
Prints are for sale on my web site in different sizes.
Also, we have “chopped up” the map into Town and Village sections for separate sale
see below
A typical “town chop-up is this map of Jerusalem Town . The full size of this map is 14″ x 17”
