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SHADOW AND LIGHT

[Illustration: Very truly yours, M. W. Gibbs]

SHADOW AND LIGHT

An Autobiography

With Reminiscences of the Last and Present Century.

by

MIFFLIN WISTAR GIBBS

With an Introduction by Booker T. Washington

A Fatherless Boy, Carpenter and Contractor, Anti-Slavery Lecturer,
Merchant, Railroad Builder, Superintendent of Mine, Attorney-at-Law,
County Attorney, Municipal Judge Register of United States Lands,
Receiver of Public Monies for U. S., United States Consul to
Madagascar--Prominent Race Leaders, etc.







Washington, D. C.
1902.

Copyright, 1902.




PREFACE.


During the late years abroad, while reading the biographies of
distinguished men who had been benefactors, the thought occurred that I
had had a varied career, though not as fruitful or as deserving of
renown as these characters, and differing as to status and aim. Yet the
portrayal might be of benefit to those who, eager for advancement, are
willing to be laborious students to attain worthy ends.

I have aimed to give an added interest to the narrative by embellishing
its pages with portraits of men who have gained distinction in various
fields, who need only to be seen to present the career of those now
living as worthy models, and the record of the dead, who left the world
the better for having lived. To enjoy a life prominent and prolonged is
a desire as natural as worthy, and there have been those who sought to
extend its duration by nostrums and drinking-waters said to bestow the
virtue of "perpetual life." But if "to live in hearts we leave behind is
not to die," to be worthy of such memorial we must have done or said
something that blessed the living or benefited coming generations. Hence
autobiography is the record, for "books are as tombstones made by the
living, but destined soon to remind us of the dead."

Trusting that any absence of literary merit will not impair the author's
cherished design to "impart a moral," should he fail to "adorn a tale."

    Little Rock, Ark., January, 1902.




INTRODUCTION.

By BOOKER T. WASHINGTON.


It is seldom that one man, even if he has lived as long as Judge M. W.
Gibbs is able to record his impressions of so many widely separated
parts of the earth's surface as Judge Gibbs can, or to recall personal
experiences in so many important occurrences.

Born in Philadelphia, and living there when that city--almost on the
border line between slavery and freedom--was the scene of some of the
most stirring incidents in the abolition agitation, he was able as a
free  youth, going to Maryland to work, to see and judge of the
condition of the slaves in that State. Some of the most