in the facts to prove the statement at
the head of this article, which is but simple truth and historic
justice.

Mrs. Griffing was engaged in an arduous work for the Loyal League
in the Northwest in 1862, and foresaw the need of a comprehensive
system of protection, help, and education, for the slaves in the
trying transition of freedom. She sought counsel and aid from fit
persons in Ohio and Michigan, and came here only in 1863 to begin
her work of urging the plan of a Bureau for that purpose. Nothing
daunted by coldness or indifference she nobly persisted, until in
December, 1863, a bill for a Bureau of Emancipation was
introduced in the House of Representatives by Hon T. D. Elliott,
of Massachusetts. After some changes in the bill, and a committee
of conference of the House and Senate, and the valuable aid of
Sumner, Wilson, and other Senators, the bill for the Freedman's
Bureau finally passed in March, 1865, and was signed by President
Lincoln just before his assassination.

The original idea was Mrs. Griffing's; her untiring efforts gave
it life, and it is but just that the colored people, of the South
especially, should bear in grateful remembrance this able and
gentle woman, whose life and strength were spent for their poor
sufferers, and who called into useful existence that great
national charity, the Freedman's Bureau.

The following letter from William Lloyd Garrison to Giles B. Stebbins,
then in Washington, corroborates the above statements:

ROXBURY, MASS., _March 4, 1872_.

MY DEAR FRIEND: ... I was glad to see the well-merited tributes
paid by yourself and others to the memory of Mrs. Josephine S.
Griffing. She was, for a considerable period, actively engaged in
the anti-slavery struggle in Ohio, where by her rare executive
ability and persuasiveness as a public lecturer, she aided
greatly in keeping the abolition flag flying, enlightening and
changing public sentiment, and hastening the year of jubilee.
With what unremitting zeal and energy did she espouse the cause
of the homeless, penniless, benighted, starving freedmen, driven
by stress of circumstances into the national capital in such
overwhelming numbers; and what a multitude were befriended and
saved through her moving appeals in their be