The short-lived CUYAHOGA COUNTY ANTI-SLAVERY SOCIETY was organized on 4 July 1837 at a meeting in FIRST PRESBYTERIAN CHURCH, but had disappeared by the 1840s. "The object of this society," according to its constitution, was "the entire abolition of slavery throughout the U.S. and the elevation of our colored brethren to their proper rank as men." Several of the professionals and businessmen who formed the society were also prominent in the CLEVELAND ANTI-SLAVERY SOCIETY: JOHN A. FOOTE presided over the organizational meeting of the county group and became a vice-president; EDWARD WADE of BROOKLYN was president; John M. Sterling, president in 1841, helped draw up the constitution; Henry F. Brayton served as recording secretary; and SOLOMON L. SEVERANCE was treasurer. Similarities in leadership and in the constitutions suggest that the Cuyahoga County Anti-Slavery Society may have formed as the successor to the Cleveland society, as antislavery sentiment spread throughout the county. In the early 1840s, the national movement split into warring factions, and after 1841 there are no references in local newspapers to either society, until Jan. 1859, when the CLEVELAND LEADER refers to single meetings of both organizations. On 10 Jan. 1859, an apparently new county society, the Cuyahoga Anti-Slavery Society, met at the African Methodist Episcopal Church on Bolivar St.
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