Document signed “Fredk Douglass” as Recorder of Deeds. 4 pages, Washington, D.C. Inventory# 20409 Archival Framing $995 Unframed $495 Summary: District of Columbia area land transfer document, signed by Douglass as recorder of deeds between 1881 and 1886. President James Garfield appointed Douglass, who held the respected and high-paying position for five years. After resigning, he spent the next two years traveling to Europe and Africa with his second wife. Frederick Douglass (1817-1895) At the end of the Civil War, Douglass fought for the passage of the fourteenth and fifteenth amendments through testimony to Congress, reports to the President and regular appearances o the lecture circuit. After the passage and adoption of the Thirteenth, Fourteenth, and Fifteenth Amendments after the Civil War, many speculated that he would run for elected office from one of the reconstructed southern states. Douglass was born Frederick Augustus Washington Bailey, in Tuckahoe, Maryland, to an unknown white father and a slave. He changed his name to Douglass after escaping from slavery. In 1841, he addressed the Massachusetts Anti-Slavery Society Convention and was employed as its agent. He wrote Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass in 1845 to document his experiences and sufferings, and to silence those who contended that a man of his abilities could not have been a slave. He became a noted orator and lectured in the U.S. and England. Douglass also served in many important federal posts while simultaneously maintaining his leadership role in the black community, including the post of Recorder of Deeds for Washington D.C.
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