s u m m e r g u i d e 2 0 1 7 1 6 7 PerSPeCtiveS darLene ta Lor Chasing Frederick Douglass y darLene tayL r the reo ening o the a m h C on ne bury street entices us to re e amine old rumors o a amous visitor. W ith access to freedom in Europe and Canada, both through its ports and railroad system, Portland was a strategic point on the Underground Railroad for African- Americans fleeing slavery, often aboard ships traveling to Maine from ports along the Atlantic coast. Frederick Douglass was a celebrated voice of freedom who ad- dressed Maine’s anti-slavery organizations many times between the 1840s and 1870s, according to Dr. Maureen Elgersman Lee, Chair of Hampton University’s Depart- ment of Political Science and History. A bronze marker along Portland’s Freedom Trail in City Park at the corner of Pearl and Federal Streets marks the site of the Quaker Friends Meeting House, where in 1847 Charlotte Thomas, a local abolition- ist, witnessed a pro-slavery mob smash the windows and throw rotten eggs inside the building to disrupt anti-slavery speeches by Douglass, William Lloyd Garrison, and Charles Lenox Remond. Douglass rose to prominence in the anti- slavery movement following the 1845 pub- lication of his Narrative of the Life of Fred- erick Douglass, an American Slave. “He of- ten wrote to leaders ahead of pending visits to assist him in establishing a robust itiner- ary,” says Lee. Douglass would have given several lectures around Portland and oth- er cities in Maine both before and after the t