A Biography of Rev. Henry Ward Beecher
by William Constantine Beecher, Samuel Scoville, and Mrs. Henry Ward Beecher, 1888, pages 296-7.
"Well, at one time there was a girl named 'Pink,' or 'Pinky,' brought here. She came through the agency of G. Faulkner Blake, a brother of one of our own members. He was studying in the Episcopal Seminary at Alexandria, I believe. He learned from her old grandmother that Pinky,' who was too fair and beautiful child for her own good, was to be taken away from the grandmother and sent South.
To make a long story short, those interested in the girl wrote me to see if I could purchase her. I replied, 'I cannot unless you send her North'; and there was trouble in bringing her here. I wrote that I would be responsible for her, and that she would be lawfully purchased or sent back.
"I remember that the pen-keeper paid me a compliment which I shall never forget, by saying that if Henry Ward Beecher had given his word he considered it better than a bond. So she was brought here and placed upon this platform; and the rain never fell faster than the tears fell from many of you that were here. The scene was one of intense enthusiasm. The child was bought, and overbought. The collection that was taken on the spot was enough, and more than enough, to purchase her. It so happened (it is not wrong to mention now) that lady known to literary fame as Miss Rose Terry was present; and as, like many Others, she had not with her as much money as she wanted to give, she took a ring off from her hand and threw it into the contribution-box. That ring I took and put on the child's hand, and said to her, 'Now remember that this is your freedom-ring.' Her expression, as she stood and looked at it for a moment, was pleasing to behold; and Eastman Johnson, the artist, was so much interested in the occurrence that he determined to represent it on canvas, and he painted her looking at her freedom-ring; and I have a transcript of the picture now at my house in the parlor, and any of you can see it by asking.
"So the girl was redeemed. She went back South after her redemption; but she was in the North for a time and received some rudiments of education. At length I lost sight of her until 1864, I think, when she was at Chief-Justice Chase's, and I received word that she wished to see me.
"It seems that Pinky' was not a good enough name for her when she was free, though it was when she was a slave; So they mixed things and called her 'Ward,' after my name, and 'Rose,' after the name of this lady; and ever since her name has been Rose Ward —a very nice name indeed. She then had grown to be a young woman, and was very fair. I supposed she would probably live and die in labor to support herself and her grandmother, who was becoming infirm ; but it seems that she has shown uncommon intelligence, and has manifested a very earnest desire to become a laborer for her people, and she is to be educated and to become a teacher and missionary among them.
"Now, it suits me exactly to have this child brought out of slavery, redeemed on this platform, and grow up and develop a Christian disposition, and go back and labor for her people. She does not know anything about it, but if we can raise $150 she shall have a year's schooling in the Lincoln University at Washington. It seems to me as though there was poetic justice and fitness in it. As you redeemed her in the first instance from slavery, in the second instance you must redeem her from ignorance by contributing the amount necessary to send her a year to that university." And it was done.