The Dallas (Oregon) Daily Chronicle
Nov. 27, 1896
Historic Slave Auction.
The Sale of Pinky Said to Have Inspired the Emancipation Proclamation.
In the second of The Ladies Home Journal's ‘Great Personal Events’ series in the December issue Mrs. Henry Ward Beecher writes of "When Mr. Beecher Sold Slaves in Plymouth Pulpit." Recalling the historic sale of Pinky, Mrs. Beecher gives these details: "An old colored woman had written to Mr. G. Faulkner Blake, the brother of one of our church members, that her little grandchild, named Pinky, was too fair and beautiful for her own good, and was about to be sold ‘down South,’ and Mr. Blake asked if she could be freed. ‘Not unless you bring her North,” replied Mr. Beecher; ‘I will be responsible for her, and she shall be lawfully purchased or sent back.’ The answer was a compliment to which Mr. Beecher laughingly referred as the only tribute ever paid to him by a slave-owner. ‘If Henry Ward Beecher his given his word,’ wrote the dealer, it is better than a ‘bond.’
So Pinky was brought to Plymouth church and placed upon the pulpit, as Sarah, another slave, previously had been. The scene was again one of intense enthusiasm. Rain never fell faster than the tears of the congregation. The pretty child, the daughter of a white father, was bought and over-bought. Rose Terry —afterward Mrs. Rose Terry Cooke, the famous authoress— threw a valuable ring into the basket, and Beecher picked it out and put it upon Pinky's finger, saying, ‘Remember— with this ring I do wed thee to freedom.’
* * * President Lincoln took a lively interest in the case of Pinky, the details of which were related to him by Chief Justice Chase and by Mr. Beecher. I was not in Washington with my husband at the time, and therefore cannot verify the story that the sale of Pinky inspired President Lincoln to issue the almost Divine proclamation of emancipation."