A man or woman either who can truly be called a philanthropist is of the highest type of human character. Some people say, that to "stand up for Jesus" means every degree of excellence. Not so; we can do nothing for Jesus, but we can respect our fellow creatures and exert ourselves to do them good. This is philanthropy, and [Photius Kavasalis Fisk] … is a worthy friend who practises this great virtue

Source: "A Philanthropist." Boston Investigator, 10 November 1886.]

In his view, slavery was the sum of all abominations, the fountain-head of all social and political corruptions, and the primary source of untold wretchedness and misery. It was repugnant to his moral nature; and no consideration of social or official standing could restrain the free and unreserved expression of his principles. He openly denied the right of ownership in men, and denounced the whole system as a monstrous wrong against humanity.

Hodge, Lyman F. "Photius Fisk, a Biography." Boston, 1891, p. 61

Every one familiar with the streets of Boston for the last eight or ten years has frequently noticed, though perhaps not knowing the man, a short, slim, frail figure, moving rapidly along with quick, elastic step. It is that of a little old man, above three score and ten years, with nervous, gray eyes, thin face, sharp features, something between a saffron and a bronze complexion, and long, white locks, not hanging, but drawn up on either side over a head bald on top. This man is one of Boston's characters, known and loved by many, especially among the poor, lowly, and unfortunate. His name is Rev. Photius Fisk, and he has a strange history.

By nationality he is a Greek, and in him are combined all the traits and characteristics of the remarkable race from which he sprang. One of the islands of the Grecian Archipelago, Hylas, was his birthplace; but he did not live there many years, for reason that the plague visited his home, and, in its frightful devastations, swept away, in one week's time, both his parents, two brothers, and two sisters, leaving him the sole survivor of the family. In his distress, he fell into the hands of an uncle, Panages Maneses, and afterwards, at an uncertain age, – presumably in his teens, – was picked up at Malta by Rev. Pliny Fisk, a missionary from this State, who became deeply interested in him, gave him his own surname in place of Kavasales (his family name), and sent him to this coun try to be educated for missionary work.

Another Greek boy was shipped with him, and the two landed at Salem, and were placed in charge of a member of the American Board of Foreign Missions, Rev. Dr. Cornelius. They were lionized (or "monkeyized," as Mr. Fisk would now say) in religious circles for some time, and the ministers exhibited them in order to induce contributions for missionary purposes. A little while later he was sent to the Cornwall Mission School in Connecticut, where he studied for a time, and then left it for the Hopkins Academy, in New Haven. He rather lost favor with the Missionary Board by run ning away twice, – once from each of these schools, – and finally went back to Malta; but there he found life dull and lonesome after his experiences in Connecticut, and soon resolved to return. Having but little money, he promised the captain of a vessel that, if he would take him to America, friends there would pay him for it. The vessel stopped at Martinique on its trip, and there for the first time young Photius met face to face the institution of slavery, the horrors of which so moved his pity that from that time forth he was a devoted Abolitionist, the chief interest of his life center ing thereafter on the anti – slavery cause.

Arriving in America, he began another educational career, paying the expense by his own work, and after studying in sectarian colleges in New York City and Auburn, where he became familiar with several languages, he entered the Congregational ministry. His first settlement was in Halifax, Vermont; but his Grecian constitution did not harmonize with the rigorous climate, and he sought a more congenial field of pastoral work. Moreover, his association with Abolitionists had not helped him in his aspirations for success in the pulpit, though that influence was instrumental in securing him a position which permanently relieved him of all pecuniary care. At the solicitation of Joshua R. Giddings, John Quincy Adams, and Gerritt Smith, he was appointed chaplain in the United States Navy in 1842, and served actively in that capacity at various naval stations and on the seas until ten or twelve years ago, when he was placed on the retired list, since which time he has made Boston his home. Being a man of inexpensive habits, and few calls being made upon his generous nature while at sea, he accumulated during that time a fortune of from $30,000 to $40,000, most of which is now invested in government bonds. He now draws the income of this sum in addition to a salary of $2,175, a condition of comparative opulence for a single man with no relative dependent upon him, giving scope for the exercise of Mr. Fisk's distinguishing characteristic, a most beautiful benevolence.

The philanthropic instincts of the man are something extraordinary. He lives with excessive simplicity in a suite of four rooms on the fourth floor of a house in Tremont Place, taking meals that consist of next to nothing at all at restaurants. All that is left of his income after paying for these necessaries, and moder ately gratifying a love of art and music that possesses him, he devotes each year to charities of all sorts. For many years the anti – slavery cause was the chief object of his giving, and even since its triumph the interest of the negroes and their champions have been largely his peculiar care. Besides contributing largely to the burial expenses of many prominent Abolitionists who died in poverty, he has reared no less than four monu ments to men who did brave deeds for freedom. One of these is Captain Dryton's, in New Bedford, and another – the most noted of all – is that marking the grave of Captain Jonathan Walker, the 'Man with the Branded Hand,' at the unveiling of which, in Muskegon, Michigan, August 1, 1878, Pillsbury delivered an eloquent address. He has very materially aided many other causes, giving liberally at times to the women suffragists, the free religionists, and the temperance reformers. But he is moved no less by the sufferings of individuals than by the wrongs of classes, and many are the beneficiaries who, in distress, have found in him a savior. Appalling disasters, too, call with equal effect upon his sympathetic nature. Being in Naples at the time of the great Chicago fire, he cabled to the custodian of his funds in Boston, at an expense of twenty dollars, to act for him liberally in subscribing for the relief of the suffering, and sent a similar message from Malta on receiving news of the subsequent Boston fire. No longer ago than last Thursday morning he responded readily to a call in behalf of the sufferers by the recent inundations in Holland.

[Photius] had seen a good deal of the world and with it, Slavery. He hated it. He could not keep it out of the pulpit, and for that reason probably he was what we should call in these days, "boycotted" by the Christian, ministry. …

But here is the point I want to bring out, or one of them; he was in heart and soul, and is today, in deep sympathy with ail that goes to alleviate the wrongs of humanity, and I judge from the frequent connection of his name with Liberal or Free Thought enterprises, that he, like others I could name, preferred to conduct his own education at his own cost, because he would rather do that and enjoy freedom to conduct his investigations. …

Photius Fisk still lives, and the object of this letter is, to not permit so generous, and devoted a lover of his. fellow man, to pass away with out some additional tribute of respect being shown, to him, and to cause his name wherever it shall be seen or heard, to be heard with that honor and love which all generous men and women feel towards those, whether dead or living, who have lived to make the world better and mankind happier.

James Vincent, Sr.

Source: Vincent, James. "Rev. Photius Fisk." The American Nonconformist and Kansas Industrial Liberator [Winfield, Kansas], 11 November 1886, p. 2.

After an illness of nearly six weeks, in the early hours of the evening of February 4, 1890, he sank into a state of coma, in which he lay unconscious until the morning of the 8th, when, his earthly work being finished, he bade adieu to earthly scenes, and entered into his eternal rest.

Thus passed away one of the few unselfish benefactors of mankind, who lived but to deliver the enslaved from bondage, to redress the wrongs imposed upon the weak by arbitrary power, to bestow the bounty of a generous hand upon the needy, to instruct and elevate the lowly in the scale of intellectual and moral culture, and to scatter blessings in the pathway of all classes of his fellow-men, but more especially the pathway of the poor and the oppressed.

And, therefore, we may contemplate the character of Photius Fisk as we survey the grandeur of some noble structure – strong, majestic, beautiful, symmetrical in its proportions, faultless in its harmony of details, and environed with delightful scenery, – with enraptured admiration of the beauty of its outlines and the blended harmony of its component parts.

To perpetuate the memory of a life devoted to the cause of universal freedom from the bonds of slavery and tyranny, and to unselfish acts of generosity and charity, this book is written. The example of a life so worthy of the emulation of mankind, indeed, may pass from the remembrance of the race, but the results that spring from noble deeds flow onward, like a rivulet, forever. – The man with all his acts of charity may be forgotten, but the good resulting from his life endeavors, will live on in the improved conditions of the social State.

That such examples may be multiplied, and happiness thereby increased, is the earnest wish of THE AUTHOR.