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SHADOW and LIGHT
SHADOW
and
LIGHT
AN AUTOBIOGRAPHY
WITH REMINISCENCES OF THE LAST AND PRESENT CENTURY.
BY
MIFFLIN WISTAR GIBBS
WITH AN INTRODUCTION BY
BOOKER T. WASHINGTON
A Fatherless Boy, Carpenter and Contractor, Anti-Slavery Lecturer,Merchant, Railroad Builder, Superintendent of Mine, Attorney-at-Law,County Attorney, Municipal Judge Register of United States Lands,Receiver of Public Monies for U. S., United States Consul toMadagascar—Prominent Race Leaders, etc.
Washington, D. C.
1902.
Copyright, 1902.
PREFACE.
During the late years abroad, while reading the biographies ofdistinguished men who had been benefactors, the thought occurred that Ihad had a varied career, though not as fruitful or as deserving ofrenown as these characters, and differing as to status and aim. Yet theportrayal might be of benefit to those who, eager for advancement, arewilling to be laborious students to attain worthy ends.
I have aimed to give an added interest to the narrative by embellishingits pages with portraits of men who have gained distinction in variousfields, who need only to be seen to present the career of those nowliving as worthy models, and the record of the dead, who left the worldthe better for having lived. To enjoy a life prominent and prolonged isa desire as natural as worthy, and there have been those who sought toextend its duration by nostrums and drinking-waters said to bestow thevirtue of "perpetual life." But if "to live in hearts we leave behind isnot to die," to be worthy of such memorial we must have done or saidsomething that blessed the living or benefited coming generations. Henceautobiography is the record, for "books are as tombstones made by theliving,[Pg iv] but destined soon to remind us of the dead."
Trusting that any absence of literary merit will not impair the author'scherished design to "impart a moral," should he fail to "adorn a tale."
INTRODUCTION.
By BOOKER T. WASHINGTON.
It is seldom that one man, even if he has lived as long as Judge M. W.Gibbs is able to record his impressions of so many widely separatedparts of the earth's surface as Judge Gibbs can, or to recall personalexperiences in so many important occurrences.
Born in Philadelphia, and living there when that city—almost on theborder line between slavery and freedom—was the scene of some of themost stirring incidents in the abolition agitation, he was able as afree colored youth, going to Maryland to work, to see and judge of thecondition of the slaves in that State. Some of the most dramaticoperations of the famous "Underground Railroad" came under his personalobservation. He enjoyed the rare privilege of being associated in laborfor the race with that man of sainted memory, the Hon. FrederickDouglass. He met and heard many of the most notable men and