first abolitionists

Ebenezer Dole, his brother Daniel and others, met here on November 18, 1833 and formed the first anti-slavery society in Maine known as The Hallowell Anti-Slavery Society.

A year earlier Dole contacted William Lloyd Garrison, publisher of the Boston abolitionist newspaper The Liberator, and invited him to speak at Old South Church in Hallowell. When Garrison was jailed in Baltimore for his anti-slavery activity, Dole sent $100 to pay his fine and support his work. Dole was also a founding member of the Maine Anti-Slavery Society. James Gow, another Old South Church Deacon, is said to have provided asylum to the first fugitive slave who passed through Hallowell.

(Excerpt from Historic Hallowell, museum in the streets.)