In the spring of 1838, Mary Merrick Brooks traveled with her step-daughter Caroline to Philadelphia, to the second Antislavery Convention of American Women, held in the newly constructed Pennsylvania Hall.  Convention speakers included Angelina Grimké Weld, Sarah Grimké, Maria Weston Chapman, Abigail Kelley, Lucretia Mott, John Greenleaf Whittier, and William Lloyd Garrison.  Among the topics broached was the failure of organized religion actively to support antislavery.  Angered in part by the solidarity of blacks and whites at the convention, an angry mob outside the hall broke windows and ultimately set the building on fire.  Pennsylvania Hall burned to the ground.

The violent turn of events in Philadelphia strongly impressed Caroline Brooks, who was only eighteen at the time.  On May 13, 1838, she wrote a dramatic letter to Concord companion Elizabeth Prichard (her best friend, and, later, as Mrs. Edward Sherman Hoar, her sister-in-law) describing the event.  Bessie Keyes Hudson included the text of this letter in a 1909 address on Caroline Brooks Hoar before the Women's Parish Association of the First Parish in Concord.

 

	19. Mary Merrick Brooks. Letter to Nathan Brooks ("My dearest Hussey"), Philadelphia, May 13, 1838, referring to Mrs. Brooks's planned attendance at a speech at the Antislavery Convention of American Women  in Pennsylvania Hall with her step-daughter Caroline. From Nathan Brooks Papers, CFPL Vault Collection.

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	20. Bessie Keyes Hudson. Account of 1838 Antislavery Convention of American Women in Philadelphia (including transcription of letter from Caroline Brooks to Elizabeth Prichard, May 13, 1838), from typescript address "Memories of Mrs. E.R. Hoar" by Bessie Keyes Hudson before the Women's Parish Association of the First Parish in Concord, 1909. From Hudson Family Papers, CFPL Vault Collection.

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	21. Engraving by J. Sartain of Pennsylvania Hall burning, in Elizabeth Palmer Peabody's copy of History of Pennsylvania Hall, Which Was Destroyed by a Mob, on the 17th of May, 1838 (Philadelphia: Printed by Merrihew and Gunn, 1838). From Peabody Books, CFPL Vault Collection.

 

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