question arose as to the name by which I should be known thereafter
in my new relation as a free man. The name given me by my dear mother
was no less pretentious and long than Frederick Augustus Washington Bailey.
I had, however, while living in Maryland, dispensed with the
Augustus Washington, and retained only Frederick Bailey.
Between Baltimore and New Bedford, the better to conceal myself
from the slave-hunters, I had parted with Bailey and called myself Johnson;
but in New Bedford I found that the Johnson family was already so numerous
as to cause some confusion in distinguishing them, hence a change in this name
seemed desirable. Nathan Johnson, mine host, placed great emphasis upon
this necessity, and wished me to allow him to select a name for me.
I consented, and he called me by my present name--the one by which
I have been known for three and forty years--Frederick Douglass.
Mr. Johnson had just been reading the "Lady of the Lake,"
and so pleased was he with its great character that he wished me
to bear his name. Since reading that charming poem myself,
I have often thought that, considering the noble hospitality
and manly character of Nathan Johnson--black man though he was--he,
far more than I, illustrated the virtues of the Douglas of Scotland.
Sure am I that, if any slave-catcher had entered his domicile
with a view to my recapture, Johnson would have shown himself like him
of the "stalwart hand."

The reader may be surprised at the impressions I had in some way conceived
of the social and material condition of the people at the North.
I had no proper idea of the wealth, refinement, enterprise,
and high civilization of this section of the country.
My "Columbian Orator," almost my only book, had done nothing
to enlighten me concerning Northern society. I had been taught
that slavery was the bottom fact of all wealth. With this foundation idea,