The Underground Railroad
Isaac T. Hopper
The distinctive characteristics of this individual were so admirably portrayed in the newspapers and other periodicals published at the time of his death, that we shall make free use of them without hesitation. He was distinguished from his early life by his devotion to the relief of the oppressed colored race. He was an active member of the old Pennsylvania Abolition Society, and labored zealously with Dr. Benjamin Rush, Dr. Rogers, Dr. Wistar, and other distinguished philanthropists of the time. No man at that day, not even eminent judges and advocates, was better acquainted with the intricacies of law questions connected with slavery. His accurate legal knowledge, his natural acuteness, his ready tact in avoiding dangerous corners and slipping through unseen loop-holes, often gave him the victory in cases that seemed hopeless to other minds. In many of these cases, physical courage was needed as much as moral firmness; and he possessed these qualities in a very unusual degree.
Being for many years an inspector of the public prisons, his practical sagacity and benevolence were used with marked results. His enlarged sympathies had always embraced the criminal and the imprisoned, as well as the oppressed; and the last years of his life were especially devoted to the improvement of prisons and prisoners. In this department of benevolence he manifested the same zealous kindness and untiring diligence that had so long been exerted for the colored people, for whose welfare he labored to the end of his days.
He possessed a wonderful wisdom in furnishing relief to all who were in difficulty and embarrassment. This caused a very extensive demand upon his time and talents, which were rarely withheld when honestly sought, and seldom applied in vain.
Mrs. Kirkland prepared, under the title of “The Helping Hand,” a small volume, for the benefit of “The Home” for discharged female convicts, containing a brief description of the institution, and a detail of facts illustrating the happy results of its operation. Its closing chapter is appropriately devoted to the following well-deserved tribute to the veteran philanthropist, to whose zeal and discretion that and so many other similar institutions owe their existence, or to a large degree their prosperity.
“Not to inform the public what it knows very well already, nor to forestall the volume now preparing by Mrs. Child, a kindred spirit, but to gratify my own feelings, and to give grace and sanctity to this little book, I wish to say a few words of Mr. Hopper, the devoted friend of the prisoner as of the slave; one whose long life, and whose last thoughts, were given to the care and succor of human weakness, error, and suffering. To make even the most unpretending book for the benefit of ‘The Home,’ without bringing forward the name of Isaac T. Hopper, and recognizing the part he took in its affairs, from the earliest moment of its existence until the close of his life, would be an unpardonable omission. A few words must be said where a volume would scarcely suffice.
“‘The rich and the poor meet together, and the Lord is the Father of them all,’ might stand for the motto of Mr. Hopper’s life. That the most remote of these two classes stood on the same level of benevolent interest in his mind, his whole career made obvious; he was the last man to represent as naturally opposite those whom God has always, even to the end of the world, made mutually dependent. He told the simple truth to each with equal frankness; helped both with equal readiness. The palace owed him no more than the hovel suggested thoughts of superiority. Nothing human, however grand, or however degraded, was a stranger to him. In the light that came to him from heaven, all stood alike children of the Great Father; earthly distinction disappearing the moment the sinking soul or the suffering body was in question. No amount of depravity could extinguish his hope of reform; no recurrence of ingratitude could paralyze his efforts. Early and late, supported or unsupported, praised or ridiculed, he went forward in the great work of relief, looking neither to the right hand, nor to the left; and when the object was accomplished, he shrank back into modest obscurity, only to wait till a new necessity called for his reappearance. Who can number the poor, aching, conscious, despairing hearts that have felt new life come to them from his kind words, his benignant smile, his helping hand. If the record of his long life could be fully written, which it can never be, since every day and all day, in company, in the family circle, with children, with prisoners, with the insane, ‘virtue went out of him’ that no human observation could measure or describe, what touching interest would be added to the history of our poor and vicious population for more than half a century past; what new honor and blessing would surround the venerated name of our departed friend and leader!
“But he desired nothing of this. Without claiming for him a position above humanity, which alone would account for a willingness to be wholly unrecognized as a friend of the afflicted, it is not too much to say that no man was ever less desirous of public praise or outward honor. He was even unwilling that any care should be taken to preserve the remembrance of his features, sweet and beautiful as they were, though he was brought reluctantly to yield to the anxious wish of his children and friends that the countenance on which every eye loved to dwell, should not be wholly lost when the grave should close above it. He loved to talk of interesting cases of reform and recovery, both because those things occupied his mind, and because every one loved to hear him; but the hearer who made these disclosures the occasion for unmeaning compliment, as if he fancied a craving vanity to have prompted them, soon found himself rebuked by the straightforward and plain-spoken patriarch. Precious indeed were those seasons of outpouring, when one interesting recital suggested another, till the listener seemed to see the whole mystery of prison-life and obscure wretchedness laid open before him with the distinctness of a picture. For, strange as it may seem, our friend had under his plain garb—unchanged in form since the days of Franklin, to go no further back—a fine dramatic talent, and could not relate the humblest incident without giving it a picturesque or dramatic turn, speaking now for one character, now for another, with a variety and discrimination very remarkable. This made his company greatly sought, and as his strongly social nature readily responded, his acquaintance was very large. To every one that knew him personally, I can appeal for the truth and moderation of these views of his character and manners.
“A few biographical items will close what I venture to offer here.
“Isaac T. Hopper was born December 3, 1771, in the township of Deptford, Gloucester county, New Jersey, but spent a large portion of his life in Philadelphia, where he served his apprenticeship to the humble calling of a tailor. But neither the necessity for constant occupation nor the temptations of youthful gaiety, prevented his commencing, even then, the devotion of a portion of his time, to the care of the poor and needy. He had scarcely reached man’s estate when we find him an active member of a benevolent association, and his volume, of notes of cases, plans and efforts, date back to that early period. To that time also, we are to refer the beginning of his warm Anti-slavery sentiment, a feeling so prominent and effective throughout his life, and the source of some of his noblest efforts and sacrifices. For many years he served as inspector of prisons in Philadelphia, and thus, by long and constant practical observation, was accumulated that knowledge of the human heart in its darkest windings, that often astonished the objects of his care, when they thought they had been able cunningly to blind his eyes to their real character and intentions. After his removal to New York, and when the occasion for his personal labors in the cause of the slave had in some measure, ceased or slackened, he threw his whole heart into the Prison Association, whose aims and plans of action were entirely in accordance with his views, and indeed, in a great degree, based on his experience and advice. The intent of the Prison Association is threefold: first to protect and defend those who are arrested, and who, as is well known, often suffer greatly from want of honest and intelligent counsel; secondly, to attend to the treatment and instruction of convicts while in prison; and thirdly, on their discharge to render them such practical aid as shall enable the repentant to return to society by means of the pursuit of some honest calling. The latter branch occupied Mr. Hopper’s time and attention, and he devoted himself to it with an affectionate and religious earnestness that ceased only with his life. No disposition was too perverse for his efforts at reform; no heart was so black that he did not at least try the balm of healing upon it; no relapses could tire out his patience, which, without weak waste of means still apostolically went on ‘hoping all things,’ while even a dying spark of good feeling remained.
Up to February last did this venerable saint continue his abundant labors; when a severe cold, co-operating with the decay of nature, brought him his sentence of dismissal. He felt that it was on the way, and with the serious grace that marked everything he did, he began at once to gather his earthly robes about him and prepare for the great change which no one could dread less. It was hard for those who saw his ruddy cheek and sparkling eye, his soft brown hair, and sprightly movements to feel that the time of his departure was drawing nigh: but he knew and felt it, with more composure than his friends could summon. It might well be said of this our beloved patriarch, that his eye was not dim, nor his natural force abated. To the last of his daily journeyings through the city, for which he generally used the rail road, he would never allow the drivers to stop for him to get on or off the car, feeling, as he used smilingly to observe, ‘very jealous on that point.’ Few ever passed him in the street without asking who he was; for not only did his primitive dress, his broad-brimmed hat, and his antique shoe buckles attract attention, but the beauty and benevolence of his face was sure to fix the eye of ordinary discernment. He was a living temperance lecture, and those who desire to preserve good looks could not ask a more infallible receipt, than that sweet temper and out-flowing benevolence which made his countenance please every eye. Gay and cheerful as a boy, he had ever some pleasant anecdote or amusing turn to relate, and in all perhaps not one without a moral bearing, not thrust forward, but left to be picked out by the hearer at his leisure. He seemed born to show how great strictness in essentials could exist without the least asceticism in trifles. Anything but a Simeon Stylites in his sainthood, he could go among ‘publicans and sinners’ without the least fear of being mistaken by them for one of themselves. An influence radiated from him that made itself felt in every company, though he would very likely be the most modest man present. More gentlemanly manners and address no court in Christendom need require; his resolute simplicity and candor, always under the guidance of a delicate taste, never for a moment degenerated into coarseness or disregard even of the prejudices of others. His life, even in these minute particulars, showed how the whole man is harmonized by the sense of being
‘Ever in the Great Taskmaster’s eye.’
“He died on the 7th of May, 1852, in his eighty-first year, and a public funeral in the Tabernacle brought together thousands desirous of showing respect to his memory.”
Mrs. Child has written a full, and in many respects, an exceedingly interesting biography of the subject of this memoir, towards the close of which she says:
“From the numerous notices in papers of all parties and sects, I will merely quote the following. ‘The New York Observer’ thus announces his death:
“‘The venerable Isaac T. Hopper, whose placid, benevolent face has so long irradiated almost every public meeting for doing good, and whose name, influence, and labors, have been devoted with an apostolic simplicity and constancy to humanity, died on Friday last, at an advanced age. He was a Quaker of that early sort illustrated by such philanthropists as Anthony Benezet, Thomas Clarkson, Mrs. Fry, and the like.
“‘He was a most self-denying, patient, loving friend of the poor, and the suffering of every kind; and his life was an unbroken history of beneficence. Thousands of hearts will feel a touch of grief at the news of his death; for few men have so large a wealth in the blessings of the poor, and the grateful remembrance of kindness and benevolence, as he.’
“‘The New York Times’ contained the following:
“‘Most of our readers will call to mind, in connection with the name of Isaac T. Hopper, the compact, well-knit figure of a Quaker gentleman, apparently about sixty years of age, dressed in drab or brown clothes of the plainest cut, and bearing on his handsome, manly face the impress of that benevolence with which his whole heart was filled.
“‘He was twenty years older than he seemed. The fountain of benevolence within freshened his old age with its continuous flow. The step of the octogenarian was elastic as that of a boy, his form erect as a mountain pine.
“‘His whole physique was a splendid sample of nature’s handiwork. We see him now with our mind’s eye, but with the eye of flesh we shall see him no more. Void of intentional offence to God or man, his spirit has joined its happy kindred in a world where there is neither sorrow nor perplexity.’
“I sent the following communication to ‘The New York Tribune’:
“In this world of shadows, few things strengthen the soul like seeing the calm and cheerful exit of a truly good man; and this has been my privilege by the bedside of Isaac T. Hopper.
“He was a man of remarkable endowments, both of head and heart. His clear discrimination, his unconquerable will, his total unconsciousness of fear, his extraordinary tact in circumventing plans he wished to frustrate, would have made him illustrious as the general of an army; and these qualities might have become faults, if they had not been balanced by an unusual degree of conscientiousness and benevolence. He battled courageously, not from ambition, but from an inborn love of truth. He circumvented as adroitly as the most practiced politician; but it was always to defeat the plans of those who oppressed God’s poor; never to advance his own self-interest.
“‘Few men have been more strongly attached to any religious society than he was to the Society of Friends, which he joined in the days of its purity, impelled by his own religious convictions. But when the time came that he must either be faithless to duty in the cause of his enslaved brethren, or part company with the Society to which he was bound by the strong and sacred ties of early religious feeling, this sacrifice he also calmly laid on the altar of humanity.
“‘During nine years that I lived in his household, my respect and affection for him continually increased. Never have I seen a man who so completely fulfilled the Scripture injunction, to forgive an erring brother, ‘not only seven times, but seventy times seven.’ I have witnessed relapse after relapse into vice, under circumstances which seemed like the most heartless ingratitude to him; but he joyfully hailed the first symptom of repentance, and was always ready to grant a new probation.
“‘Farewell, thou brave and kind old Friend! The prayers of ransomed ones ascended to Heaven for thee, and a glorious company have welcomed thee to the Eternal City.'”