At nineteen years of age he went to Wheeling, Virginia, to learn the
trade of a saddler. He learned more than that. Wheeling, as he tells
us, was then a great thoroughfare for the traffickers in human flesh.
Their coffles passed through the place frequently. "My heart," he
continues, "was grieved at the great abomination. I heard the wail of
the captive, I felt his pang of distress, and the iron entered into my
soul."
But much as Lundy loathed the business of the slave-dealers and
slave-drivers, he then had no idea of attempting its abolishment. He
married and settled down to the prosecution of his trade, and had he
been like other people generally he would have been content. But he
could not shut the pictures of those street scenes in Wheeling out of
his mind and out of his heart.
The first thing in the reformatory line he did was to organize a
local Anti-Slavery society in the village in which he was then living
in Ohio; at the first meeting of this society only five persons were
present.
About this time Lundy made some important discoveries. He learned that
he could write what the newspapers would print, and give expression to
words that the people would listen to.
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