Again: "Pinky"

Sixty-seven years ago the congregation of Plymouth Church, Brooklyn, saw Pastor Henry Ward Beecher* mount the pulpit, accompanied by a trembling nine-year-old Negress. Then, while many a woman became hysterical, while many a man shed tears, famed Abolitionist Beecher turned his pulpit into a slave-pen, his sermon into an auctioneer's harangue, asked his hearers to bid $900 for this fine piece of colored flesh-- Sally Maria Diggs, commonly known as "Pinky." Last week the congregation of Plymouth Church saw its present pastor share his pulpit with a Negress. They heard him recall that far off day when the North was shocked with a concrete illustration of how the institution of slavery functioned. As he talked, the woman who stood beside him saw, perhaps, not men and women of 1927 but men and women of 1860; heard, perhaps, not his voice but the voice of Henry Ward Beecher. For she it was who long ago had been "sold" in that same pulpit; after 67 years "Pinky" had come back to Plymouth Church. It was to aid in celebrating the 80th anniversary of Henry Ward Beecher's first sermon at Plymouth Church that "Pinky," now Mrs. James Hunt, of Washington, D. C., returned. She was born a slave in 1851 in Port Tobacco, Charles County, Md. When she was seven years old her mother and two brothers were sold to a Virginia plantation; she never saw them again. Soon after, she and her grandmother were sold to a slave trader in Baltimore. Later her grandmother purchased her own freedom, lacked money to do as much for "Pinky." But in 1860 the grandmother thought of appealing to Henry Ward Beecher, already famed as an anti-slavery speaker. Learning that "Pinky's" owner valued her at $900, Beecher staged the "auction," raised $1,100 in excess of the amount needed. One of his hearers, Authoress Rose Terry, put a ring in the collection plate. Dramatic, Dr. Beecher slipped the ring on Pinky's finger, cried: "With this ring I thee wed -- to freedom!" After her freedom had been purchased, "Pinky" went to live with a Brooklyn family, was re-named Rose Ward, dropped from the public eye. Later she went to Washington, graduated from Howard University (Negro), taught school. In 1882 she married James Hunt, Negro lawyer. Since 1891 the Hunts have lived at No. 411 Florida Ave., Washington.

The identity of "Pinky" and Mrs. Hunt was established more than a year ago by Dr. J. Stanley Durkee, then president of Howard University, now pastor of Plymouth Church. Hearing that Beecher's "Pinky" was living in Washington, Dr. Durkee sought out Mrs. Hunt, found that she remembered details of her life in Brooklyn. She also had in her possession a copy of the bill of sale executed in 1860. "I am just as certain that Mrs. Hunt is 'Pinky' as I am of my own personality," said Dr. Durkee last week.

*Henry Ward Beecher preached in 1877: "The nature of God is to suffer for others rather than to make them suffer." This sounded blasphemous at the time. He was as rampant in politics. President Hayes' administration he called "a bread pudding." A Republican from the earliest years of that party, he left it when in 1884 James G. Blaine ran for the Presidency against Grover Cleveland. He called himself a "Mugwump," a political purist. Pastor Beecher was full-blooded; dared not eat red meat. His only outdoor exercise was croquet. He died of aponlexy in 1887.