or Colored orphans. Where individual sympathy or charity did not
intervene, they were left to die in the midst of squalid poverty, and
were cast into the common ditch, without having medical aid or
ministerial consolation. There was not simply studious neglect, but a
strong prohibition against their entrance into institutions sustained
by the county and State for white persons not more fortunate than
they. At one time a good Quaker was superintendent of the county
poorhouse. His heart was touched with kindest sympathy for the
uncared-for Colored paupers in Cincinnati. He acted the part of a true
Samaritan, and gave them separate quarters in the institution of which
he was the official head. This fact came to the public ear, and the
trustees of the poorhouse, in accordance with their own convictions
and in compliance with the complexional prejudices of the community,
discharged the Quaker for this breach of the law. The Colored paupers
were turned out of this lazar-house on the Sabbath. The time to
perpetuate this crime against humanity was indeed significant--on the
Lord's day. The God of the poor and His followers beheld the streets
of Christian Cincinnati filled with the maimed, halt, sick, and poor,
who were denied the common fare accorded the white paupers! There was
no sentiment in those days, either in the pulpit or press, to raise
its voice against this act of cruelty and shame.

Lydia P. Mott, an eminent member of the Society of Friends and an able
leader of a conscientious few, espoused the cause of the motherless,
fatherless, and homeless Colored children of this community. She
attracted the attention and won the confidence of the few
Abolitionists of this city. She determined to establish a home for
these little wanderers, and immediately set to work at a plan. The
late Salmon P. Chase was then quite young, a man of brilliant
abilities and of anti-slavery sentiments. He joined himself to the
humane movement of Lydia P. Mott, with the following persons:
Christian Donaldson, James Pullan, William Donaldson, Robert Buchanan,
John Liverpool, Richard Phillips, John Woodson, Charles Satchell, Wm.
W. Watson, William Darnes, Michael Clark, A. M. Sumner, Reuben P.
Graham, Louis P. Brux, Sarah B. McLain, Mrs. Eustis, Mrs. Dr. Stanton,
Mrs. Hannah Cooper, Mrs. Mary Jane Gordon, Mrs. Susan Miller, Mrs.
Rebecca Darnes, Mrs. Charlotte Armstrong, Mrs. Eliza Clark, Mrs. Ruth
Ellen Watson, and others. Six of the gentlemen an