Mary Newhall Green, September 30, 1841

In a long letter that John Collins sent to the Liberator describing the expulsions of Frederick Douglass from Eastern Railroad trains on September 8 and September 28, he also includes his firsthand account of an incident involving Mary Green on the same line just two days later. On various occasions, Mary Newhall Green, secretary of the Lynn (Massachusetts) Anti-Slavery Society, had ridden in a first-class railroad car, perhaps unnoticed because of her light complexion. She had also traveled in the Jim Crow car, where she had been severely frightened previously at least once.

On the evening of September 29 there was a meeting in Lynn to discuss the railroad’s mistreatment of people of color. The following morning Collins was at the Lynn depot when he heard a disturbance. He boarded the train and saw three men carrying a woman off, hitting her, and laying her on the ground “in no very gentle manner.”

Collins’s detailed description of the event was printed in the Liberator on October 15:

“This morning, she got into the cars, as usual, with her infant, only five months old. The conductor ordered her out, but she refused, not feeling at liberty to debase herself by voluntarily entering the proscribed negro car, and particularly after having paid a full price for her ticket. Five ruffians, with abundance of oaths and horrid imprecations, were ordered to carry her out. Mrs. Greene [sic] informed me that an attempt was made by one of these blood-hounds to wrench her infant from her arms, but she held on to it, and the consequence was, the side of the babe was hurt by the grip of the conductor. Mrs. Greene’s husband, learning that his wife and child were being roughly handled, and being moved with the feelings of a parent and husband, rushed to their rescue, but was repulsed from the car, and sent back with a bloody face! By this time, the mother of Mrs. Greene, learning what was going on, ran up to the aid of her daughter, and, though unable to write, left her mark upon the face of one of the mobocrats, which will not disappear by a month’s washing.”

Mary Green wrote a letter to the stockholders and directors of the Eastern Railroad, describing an experience she had had earlier when riding in the Jim Crow car:

“I will tell you the reason why I do not wish to ride in what is called the Jim Crow car. In the first place I have been grossly insulted in said car by one of the hirelings of the rail-road; and had it not been that the life of my babe would have been endangered, I would have jumped from the car, though the train was going at a rapid rate. In the second place, I do not think it is proper for a woman to go in that car, by herself, liable to be insulted by the servants in attendance. In the third place, I do not think that I have any more right in that car than any other person. It is a proscribed car, in which, for that reason alone, I do not wish to ride. I think I have a right, in common with others, to go in any car I choose. When I behave disorderly, it will be time to order me out.”

She then addresses rumors that grew up about the episode on September 30: “It has been said that the abolitionists prompted me to go into the car, from which I was ejected. It is not true. I am not aware that any of them knew I was going to Boston. I need no prompting. I hope I have intelligence and courage enough to assert my rights when I see them invaded.”

The editor of the Liberator, who published part of her letter on November 5, appends the following assessment:

“Mrs. Green adds, that, so ashamed are the miscreants who committed the outrage upon her person, they have circulated the story that she was a man dressed in woman’s clothing, and that her infant was a rag baby! This proves that they are ashamed of themselves, and that the moral outburst of manly indignation which has followed their barbarous conduct is producing a salutary effect. The most guilty persons, however, are not those who, at the bidding of their employers, did the deed, but those who have established a rule which violates the most sacred rights, and tramples under foot the claims of humanity:—we mean, the Directors of the Road.”

An Eastern Railroad train, 1840-41