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Despite the opposition of the city newspapers, the Pratt Hall meeting `` brought together a very respectable audience, composed in part of those who had been distinguished for years for their radical views upon the subject of slavery, of many of our colored citizens, and of those who were attracted to the place by the novelty of such a gathering ''.

Seated on the platform were Amos C. Barstow, ex-mayor of Providence and a wealthy Republican stove manufacturer ; ;

Thomas Davis, an uncompromising Garrisonian ; ;

the Reverend Augustus Woodbury, a Unitarian minister ; ;

the Reverend George T. Day, a Free-Will Baptist ; ;

Daniel W. Vaughan, and William H. H. Clements.

The latter two were appointed secretaries.

The first speaker was Amos C. Barstow who had been unanimously chosen president of the meeting.

He spoke of his desire to promote the abolition of slavery by peaceable means and he compared John Brown of Harper's Ferry to the John Brown of Rhode Island's colonial period.

Barstow concluded that as Rhode Island's John Brown became a canonized hero, if not a saint, so would it be with John Brown of Harper's Ferry.