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“I wish, though I fear there is small probability of it, that you could give me some line of which I could avail myself in seeking a place for a little colored boy, lately from Charlestown, S.C. He is in his tenth year; can neither read nor write; but is uncommonly pleasing and prepossessing in his appearance and manners. He seems to be of almost too nice material to make a servant of; yet what other opening there can be, I do not see. He and his little sister are now supported at the cost of two dollars a week, by their mother and older sister, whose joint wages amount to four dollars a week. If it should occur to you to advise me in what quarter to make inquiry I should feel greatly obliged to you.” Abraham Lincoln appointed Rev. John Gorham Palfrey as Postmaster of Boston during the Civil War in recognition of his pre-war support of the anti-slavery cause and the Republican Party. Though he had served in Congress as an anti-slavery Whig just before young Lincoln first came to Washington, Palfrey was not a professional politician, but a noted Unitarian clergyman, magazine editor and historian who had freed the 16 slaves he had inherited from his plantation owning family in Louisiana and later badly needed the financially security that the postmaster’s sinecure provided. After Lincoln’s death, Palfrey’s appointment was not renewed by Andrew Johnon, which may explain why he was in no position to personally support the charming “little colored boy” whose plight so moved him.