Amy Post

Amy Post
by Lydia


Amy Post had many tragedies in her life.

On December 20th, 1802, in Jericho Long Island, Amy Kirby was born. Little did her parents know she and her husband would one day hide more freedom seekers in her house than anyone else in Rochester. Amy’s early life had many tragedies. The worst was the death of her sister, Hannah, in 1827. One year later Amy married Hannahs’s husband, Isaac Post. She had already moved to Scipio, NY to keep her sister company. Then she and Isaac Post moved to Rochester in 1836. It is hard to tell why Amy Post got started in abolitionism and women’s rights. She was born into a family of Quakers, which may have something to do with it. However Isaac Post decided to become a Hicksite, and eventually she too converted to the Hicksite sect. She went through a large struggle with herself about whether to adopt Isaac’s sect, the Hicksites, or keep her own, Orthodox. She was torn between wanting to please her husband and wanting to stay true to her family. Even in Scipio they were anti-slavery activists; they sheltered freedom seekers in their home then.

When they were in Rochester they met Frederick Douglass, as he was touring Rochester. They became some of Douglass’s best friends. Another of their friends that was involved in abolitionism was Abby Kelly, who was involved in several anti-slavery fairs that the Amy Post helped organize during the 1840s. Another of their friends was William Lloyd Garrision, who sometimes visited their house. Among other things, the Posts housed freedom seekers and hired free African Americans. Sometimes their house could have 10 or 20 freedom seekers hiding out at once. Amy also founded the Ladies Anti-Slavery Society (LASS). However, as time went on many of her activities with LASS stopped, and she became more involved in the Western New York Anti-Slavery Society (WNYASS). This was because LASS was a perfectionist group, more involved with churches. Perfectionists wanted to make individual people better. Perfectionists was one of the three types of reform societies. Benevolent societies wanted to do nice things for people but not make them better or change society. Finally there were ultraists (Amy Post) who wanted to change society, and change the way everyone thought. WNYASS was more of an ultraist group, who were trying to change society, and included more Quakers.

As was mentioned, the Posts were good friends of Frederick Douglass. However in the mid-1840s there was a falling out between Frederick Douglass and Amy Post. This happened because one of the strategies of Amy Post and several other high ranking women in WNYASS was hosting antislavery fairs. At one of them they got very little money but there was a large banquet, and as they put it “people of all classes and colors were present.” Amy Post thought that would truly discourage prejudice, but she was going to have a great shock. In the following issue of Frederick Douglass’s The North Star, Douglass stated that the fair had been a failure. In other words, he agreed more with LASS than with WNYASS because he thought that LASS knew what it was doing and had more experience.

Amy Post was not only an abolitionist. She also believed in women’s rights. After Isaac’s untimely death in 1872, she was one of the women, along with Susan B. Anthony, who attempted to vote. Unlike Anthony, she was not even allowed to vote, though she was registered, but was turned away. Again the following year she tried. Other things that she did that involved womens rights were, she attended the very first Women’s Rights Convention in Seneca Falls in 1848. After the Civil War, she joined the Equal Rights Association (ERA) and National Woman Suffrage Association (NWSA). She died in 1889, and her funeral was held at the Unitarian Society. Amy’s family were also friends with the family of the Fox sisters, who also stayed with the Posts in Rochester. The Fox sisters were Spiritualists. Maybe Amy’s spirit is looking down at us now!

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