Dr. P.H. Skinner: Controversial Educator of the Deaf, Blind and Mute, and Niagara Falls, New York Abolitionist

Unfortunately for Skinner, newspapers near and far carried the Niagara City Heralds story about him. The Lockport Daily Advertiser and Democrat initially gave him and his school a favorable report in its columns. Following the Herald's story, they began to examine Skinner more closely, asking him probing questions that were not answered to their satisfaction. They therefore publicly retracted their recommendation of Skinner and, to serve as a warning to their readers, published accounts of other towns and cities that Skinner visited to solicit funds.(39) In publishing an account of Skinner's visit to Utica, New York, the Lockport Daily Advertiser and Democrat declared: "When will people learn to remember what they read, and pay attention to gross imposters when the press warns them before hand? [Skinner's] toadyism is convincing of his skill and public weakness."(40) The Lockport Courier, the Rochester Union, and the Utica Morning Herald all carried the Herald's story -- even embracing it and defaming Skinner themselves to the point where Skinner filed a libel suit against these papers.(41) Other than the Utica Morning Herald, the judge seemed to have agreed with Skinner.(42) After this suit, the public attacks on Skinner seemed to have decreased. Regardless, Skinner's reputation was damaged in Niagara County and other parts of New York State and Canada. As an example, one Sunday morning, Skinner, accompanied by a Mr. John L. Felter and some of his pupils, attended a church in St. Catharines, Canada to inform parishioners of his work and to solicit aid for his school. Mr. Felter was a neighbor of Skinner's. St. Catharines, which was thirteen miles from Suspension Bridge, was amenable to a message of the kind that Skinner would present. It was a community well aware of the treatment of slaves and free blacks in the United States because a large fugitive slave community resided in the town.(43) [Harriet Tubman] even lived and worked in the town for a while. Moreover, some of Skinner's pupils may have been from St. Catharines. Skinner, as usual, went through his routine of exposing his students and their needs to his attentive audience. He spoke with great interest regarding the students under his tutelage, stating that they belonged to a despised race and that they were the most unfortunate of the despised. The blind children read from Psalms by raised letters, and a deaf and dumb child repeated the Lord's Prayer by signs.(44) The audience was mesmerized. Th