But somehow, unnoticed by his master, he managed to learn the alphabet from scraps of paper and patent medicine almanacs, and no limits could then be placed to his career.

He put to shame thousands of white boys.

He fled from slavery at twenty-one, went North and worked as a stevedore in New York and New Bedford.

At Nantucket he was given an opportunity to speak in an anti-slavery meeting, and made so favorable an impression that he was made agent of the Anti-Slavery Society of Massachusetts.

While traveling from place to place to lecture, he would study with all his might.