ment, a second has for some
time assisted her mother in her labors, and the youngest is in school.
Mrs. Griffin was too benevolent ever to be rich, and when the freedmen
and their families began to concentrate in the District of Columbia, and
on Arlington Heights, across the Potomac, she sought them out, and made
the effort to ameliorate their condition. At that time they hardly knew
whether they were to be permanently free or not, and massed together as
they were, their old slave habits of recklessness, disorder, and
over-crowding soon gained the predominance, and showed their evil effect
in producing a fearful amount of sickness and death. They were not,
with comparatively few exceptions, indolent; but they had naturally
lapsed into the easy, slovenly methods, or rather want of method of the
old slave life, and a few were doing the greater part of what was done.
They were mere children in capacity, will and perseverance. Mrs.
Griffin, with her intensely energetic nature, soon effected a change.
Order took the place of disorder, under her direction; new cabins were
built, neatness and system maintained, till their good effects were so
apparent, that the freedmen voluntarily pursued the course advised by
their teacher and friend; all who were able to do any work were provided
as far as possible with employment, and schools for the children in the
day time, and for adults in the evening, were established. In this good
work she received material assistance from that devoted young Christian
now gone to his rest, the late Cornelius M. Welles. After awhile, the
able-bodied men were enlisted in the army, and the stronger and
healthier women provided with situations in many instances at the North,
and the children, and feeble, decrepit men and women, could not perform
work enough for their maintenance. Mrs. Griffin began to solicit aid for
them, and carried them through one winter by the assistance she was able
to collect, and by what she gave from her own not over-full purse. Some
land was now allotted to them, and by the utmost diligence they were
enabled to provide almost entirely for themselves, till autumn; but
meantime the Act of Emancipation in the District of Columbia had drawn
thither some thousands of people of color from the adjacent states of
Maryland and Virginia. All looked up to Mrs. Griffin as their special
Providence. She was satisfied that it was better for them, as far as
possible, to find places and work in t