Death By Freezing. Noble Heroism of a Colored Woman.

Chatham, NY: Circa 1870s. Single leaf measuring 7.5 x 3.5", printed to recto only. A small, apparently unrecorded, broadside printing an anecdote about "A poor colored woman named Virgina, wife of Lott Barton" who ventured out into a winter storm and froze to death while saving the life of her young child. The text notes that "The annals of female heroism do not furnish many instances of maternal devotion exceeding this in real and touching grandeur. Yet Virgina Barton was an obscure woman of an oppressed race, from whom we are sometimes told the Creator has withheld the gift of mental and moral excellence!" We located in census records one Lott Barton, an African American laborer who lived in Chatham, New York, fought in the Civil War, and remarried in 1873, placing this broadside sometime before that date. Not in OCLC, and we were unable to find this text reproduced elsewhere. Some staining and foxing to paper. Item #12475

Price: $750.00