The event was referred to as the “Great Abolitionist Pic Nic” and took place in Tranquility Grove (known today as Burns Memorial Park on Hersey Street). Frederick Douglass, William Lloyd Garrison, and other luminaries of the abolition movement traveled to Hingham, where an estimated 10,000 people had gathered in support of the anti-slavery cause. Douglass gave an address at First Baptist Church before the attendees processed to Tranquility Grove for further speeches and entertainment.
Hingham author and resident, Martha Bewick, published Tranquility Grove: The Great Abolitionist Picnic of 1844 in 2018. Read her 2017 Lincoln Day speech about the event here.
[Images of banners that hung in Tranquility Grove: Hingham Historical Society]
