The remains of an impressive legacy

One of the early Chesapeake Bay Scientists was Dr Don Lear, who worked at EPA's then-laboratory on bestgate Road, where we were at the start of the Liason Office in Annapolis, back in 1984. Don was very active in the Program, and something of a thorn in the side of sluggish Agency Management. Rich Batiuk can recall those days; just ask him.

Don Lear was also a part time philatelist(well stamp collector, however ya spell it) and one day at a yard sale he bought some interesting stamps on old 19th century letters, from young girls on an Eastern Shore Plantation to friends in Baltimore. Don, reading these letters, found that theirs was the family who "owned" the labor of Frederick Douglass when he was a little boy, and they refer to kids playing together with Freddy. Their lives, as young landed girls, on their way to debutant status in 19th c Maryland would diverge when "Freddy" grew up, had enough and went off to better times and a distinguished career in American History.

When Don was dying of cancer at his Annapolis home, he gave me his draft of a stamp collection article on these letters, and urged me to publish them. You may know I wrote for years in Chesapeake Bay Journal, but my "employment" there ended in 2012. Any ideas about the text of the article Don Lear passed to me?

Regards, Kent