Because Gay aided men coming from Philadelphia, some of his notes overlap materials by activist William Still of that city, who published his account in 1872.

[citation needed] Sydney's father, Ebenezer Gay, was a prosperous but unhappy attorney who wanted one of his sons to join his practice.

While he was trying desperately to start a mercantile enterprise in New Orleans, his sister, Francis, informed him that Angelina Grimké had spoken in Hingham against slavery, and she had greatly impressed their mother.

Withdrawing into his father's library, he read and thought deeply about the slavery issue; he changed his opinion, announcing that he was an abolitionist.

In 1843, Gay moved to New York City to become resident editor of the National Anti-Slavery Standard, a post he would hold for 14 years.

[4] Several people helped Gay make his office at the Standard one of New York City's busiest Underground Railroad depots.

His associates included the venerable abolitionist Quaker Isaac T. Hopper, his daughter, Abigail Hopper Gibbons, and her husband, James; Elias Smith; and two African Americans: the Standard's printer, William H. Leonard, and Louis Napoleon, who conducted many of the fugitives forwarded to the office from Philadelphia by James Miller McKim and William Still.

[5] Gay's office was a critical stop for refugees traveling from Philadelphia to New Haven and Boston, or to Canada West via Albany, Syracuse, and Rochester.

Gay aided three of history's most famous fugitives: Henry "Box" Brown, Jane Johnson, and Harriet Tubman.

The earliest-known documented reference to it was made by historian Kathryn Grover in her 2002 monograph about black abolitionists in Boston for the National Park Service.

After 14 years at the Standard, Gay resigned when the Boston clique decided it could not afford to keep his associate editor, Oliver Johnson.

Although Greeley unrelentingly criticized President Lincoln's handling of the Civil War, Gay ensured the Tribune was a pro-Union paper.

Gay defied Greeley's command against arming staff at the Tribune building during the 1863 Draft Riots, and they were able to prevent a mob from burning it to the ground.