were not always selected for their euphony or æsthetic associations. One
tall, finely-built yellow man, who trembled when he was questioned in
the sitting-room, lest his conversation about his old home and the free
wife whom he longed to have brought to him should be overheard in the
kitchen, expressed to me his dissatisfaction with his new name—Simon.
“I never knowed anybody named that,” he said. His beautiful bright
wife—bright in the _colored_ sense,—that is, bright-colored, or nearly
white,—was secretly and safely brought to him, and nursed him through
that fatal disease which made him of no value in the man-market,—the
market which had been the great horror of his life. The particulars
Friend Wilson collected concerning his humble charge the venerable man
entered in his day-book, in a place especially assigned to them. If this
record were still existing, I should, perhaps, be able to tell what name
the fortunate and unfortunate Simon had been obliged to renounce. This
record, however, is lost, as I shall mention hereafter. If the services
of any of these fugitives were needed, within-doors or without, and the
master’s pursuit was not supposed to be imminent, they were detained
for a while, or perhaps became permanent residents in the neighborhood;
otherwise, they were forwarded at night to Friends living nearer
Philadelphia. Of these, two other families willing to receive the poor
exiles lived about twelve miles farther on.
The house and farm were generally pretty well stocked with colored
people, who were a wonder to the neighbors of the Wilson family; for
these were in a great measure “Pennsylvania Dutch,”—a people anxious to
do as much work with their own hands and by the hands of their own family
as possible, in order to avoid expense. It is a remarkable circumstance
that, although Samuel Wilson during thirty years or more entertained the
humble strangers, and although he received so large a number, only one of
them was seized upon his “plantation” and taken back to slavery. This was
owing partly to the secluded situation of his house, and partly to the
prudence and discretion that he exercised. “He was crafty,” it has been
said.
Neither did he suffer any legal expenses, such as lawsuits, from the
slaveholders who came in pursuit of their fleeing bondmen. Two friends
who lived not far from him, and who prosecuted kidnappers, had their
barns burned, and others, of whom he had knowledge, suffered great
pecuniary loss in consequence of their assisting runaway slaves. He,
however, limited his care to receiving, entertaining, and forwarding
those who came to him in person, and never undertook any measures of
offence,—any border raids, so to speak,—such as sending secretly into
Maryland and Virginia for the relatives and friends of fugitives who were
still living in those States as slaves. The one person of whom I have
spoken, who was recaptured from the Wilson farm, was a young girl of
fifteen or sixteen. Samuel and Anna were absent from home at the time,
gone on a little journey, such as they frequently took, to attend their
own monthly and quarterly meetings; assisting to preserve the discipline
and order of the Society of Friends. The men who came in pursuit of the
young girl told her that her friends, who had run away too, had concluded
to go back South again; and the poor child, under these circumstances,
could hardly do anything but go with the beguilers; not, however, to find
the friends whom she expected.
There was also a man who was very near being taken,—a man who had “come
away,” to use the brief euphemism sometimes employed in the Wilson family
in speaking of fugitives from slavery. He escaped by having gone down
the creek or adjacent mill-stream to set his muskrat-traps. This creek
where it ran by the house was well wooded; therefore the colored man,
looking up to the house, could see the white strangers without being seen
himself. With what trembling did he see that they were persons whom he
“knowed in Murrland,” as he expressed it! However, the friendly woods
sheltered him, while Samuel at the house was talking with the slaveholder
or his agents,—kidnappers, as the Wilsons called them.
The men told Samuel that they had come after a runaway nigger,—black,
five feet ten inches high, lost one of his front teeth, etc. To this
description Friend Wilson listened in silence. I do not know what
he would have done had he been directly questioned by them, for the
different items suited him of the muskrats,—the man who had gone to the
woods. But during Samuel’s continued silence they went on to say, “He’s
a very ornary nigger; no dependence to be placed on him nohow.” “There
is no man here,” rejoined Samuel, greatly relieved, “that answers the
description.” “We’ve very good reason to think he came here,” said one;
“we got word very direct; reckon he’s lyin’ around here. Hain’t there
been no strange nigger here?”
“There was a colored man here, but he has gone away; I don’t know as
he will ever come back again.” For, from the man’s protracted absence,
he doubtless had some idea of his having seen his pursuers, and having
sought shelter.
“Tell him that his master says that if he will only come back again, down
to Baltimore County, he sha’n’t be whipped, nor sold, nor nuthin’, but
everything shall be looked over.”
“I’ll tell him what you say,” said Samuel, “if ever I see him again;
but,” he added, regaining his accustomed independence, “I’ll tell him,
too, that if I was in his place I’d never go back to you again.”
The men left, and under cover of the friendly night the fugitive sought a
more secure hiding place.
There was one heroic black man in whom Samuel Wilson felt an abiding
interest. When Jimmy Franklin told the tale of his perilous escapes and
recaptures in the States of Maryland, North and South Carolina, Georgia,
and Florida,—when he showed the shot still remaining in his legs—shot
that had been fired at him as he ran, and, working through to the front,
were perceived through the skin, like warts upon his legs,—the lads of
the family looking and listening had their sympathies enkindled in such a
manner as could never entirely die out. One of them, in after-years, was
asked:
“How does thee account for that man’s persistent love of freedom? What
traits of character did he possess that would account for his doing so
much more than others to escape from the far South?”
“I don’t know,” was the reply, in the freedom of familiar conversation.
“What was the reason that Fulton invented his steamboat? or that Bacon
wrote his System? or that Napier invented logarithms?
“This man was a genius,—a greater man in his way than those I spoke of.
If he had had education, and had been placed in circumstances to draw him
out, he would have been the leader in some great movement among men.”
The narrative of James Franklin was written by a dear friend of him whom
I call Samuel Wilson, but is supposed to have been burned when the mob
destroyed Pennsylvania Hall.
It was in relation to these fugitives that Samuel sometimes forgot for a
while his strictly peaceful principles; for there were to be found among
the men of color those who could be induced to betray to the pursuers
their fugitive brethren, giving such information as would lead to their
recapture; or, if they should escape this, to their being obliged to
abandon their resting-places and to flee again for safety.
It was in talking of some such betrayer that Samuel Wilson said to his
colored friends, “What would you do with that man, if you had him on
Mill-Creek bridge?” (a lofty structure by which the railroad crossed the
adjacent stream,) thus hinting at a swift mode of punishment, and one
that might possibly have been a fatal one.
Though with an unskilled pen, yet have I endeavored to describe that
quiet family among whom the fugitive-slave law of 1850 fell like a blow.
Samuel Wilson had ample opportunity to study its provisions and its
peculiarities from the newspapers of which I have before spoken, and from
the conversation which these journals called forth.
This horrible act gave the commissioner before whom the colored man was
tried five dollars only if the man went free from the tribunal, but
ten dollars if he was sent into slavery. Hitherto, men had suffered in
assisting the fugitive _to escape_; now it was made a penal offence to
refuse to lend active assistance in apprehending him.
Friend Wilson had read much of fines and imprisonment, having studied
the sufferings of the people called Quakers. (Even a lady of so high
a standing as she who became the wife of George Fox was not exempt
from many years’ imprisonment, nor from persecution at the hands of
her own son.) Friend Wilson was about seventy-five years old when the
fugitive-slave bill was passed. In spite of his advanced years, however,
after sorrowful reflection upon it, he said to one of his household, “I
have made up my mind to go to jail.”
That hospitality and charity which had so long been the rule of his life
he was not now prepared to forego through fear of any penalties which
the law would inflict upon him.
It was while suffering from the infirmities of advanced years, and from
the solicitude which this abominable enactment had called forth, that
Samuel destroyed the record which he had kept for so many years of the
slaves that had taken refuge with him. This record was contained in about
forty pages of his day-book, and these he cut out and burned. How would
they now be prized had they not thus been lost!
Samuel Wilson saw, with the prophetic eye of faith and hope, what he
did not live to behold in the flesh,—the abolition of slavery. His
mortal remains repose beside the Quaker meeting-house where he so
long ministered as an elder. No monumental stone marks that humble
resting-place; but these simple lines of mine, that portray a character
so rare, may serve for an affectionate memorial.
COUSIN JEMIMA.
“Well, Phebe, I guess thee did not expect me this afternoon. Don’t get
up. I will just lay my bonnet in the bedroom myself. Dinah Paddock
told me thy quilt was in; so I came up as soon as I could. Laid out in
orange-peel! I always did like orange-peel. Dinah’s was herring-bone; and
thine is filled with wool, and plims up, and shows the works, as mother
used to say. I’ll help thee roll before I sit down. Now then. Days are
long, and we’ll try to do a stroke of work, for thee’s a branch quilter,
I’ve heard say.
“Jethro Mitchell stopped to see me this morning. They got home from Ohio
last week, and he says that Cousin Jemima Osborne’s very bad with typhoid
fever. Poor Jemima! It had been pretty much through the family, and after
nursing the rest, she was taken down. I almost know she has no one fit to
take care of her,—only Samuel and the three boys, and maybe some hired
girl that has all the housework to do. The neighbors will be very kind,
to be sure, sitting up nights; but there’s been so much sickness in that
country lately.
“Jemima was Uncle Brown Coffin’s daughter, thee knows, who used to live
down at Sandwich, on the Cape, when thee and I were girls. She always
came to Nantucket to Quarterly Meeting with Uncle Brown and Aunt Judith;
and folks used to say she wasn’t a bit of a coof, if she was born on the
Cape. When Samuel and she were married, they asked me and Gorham Hussey
to stand up with them. Jemima looked very pretty in her lavender silk
and round rosy cheeks. When meeting was over, she whispered to me that
there was a wasp or bee under her neck-handkerchief that had stung her
while she was saying the ceremony. But I don’t think anybody perceived
it, she was so quiet. Poor dear! I seem to see her now on a sick-bed and
a rolling pillow.
“After my Edward died, I was so much alone that I thought I couldn’t bear
it any longer, and I must just get up and go to Ohio, as Samuel and ’Mima
had often asked me to. I stopped on the way at Mary Cooper’s at Beaver,
and Mary’s son was joking a little about Cousin Samuel’s farming, and
said he didn’t quite remember whether it was two or three fences that
they had to climb going from the house to the barn-yard. I told him that
Samuel wasn’t brought up to farming; he bought land when he moved out
West.
“I found Jemima a good deal altered, now that she had a grown family;
but we just began where we left off,—the same friendliness and kindness.
When I was in Ohio was just when the English Friends, Jonathan and
Hannah Purley, were in the country. We met them at Marlborough Quarterly
Meeting. We were all together at William Smith’s house,—one of the
neatest of places,—everything like waxwork, with three such daughters at
home. How they worked to entertain Friends!
“First-day a great many world’s people were at meeting on account of the
strange Friends. Meeting was very full,—nearly as many out in the yard as
in the house. Very weighty remarks were made by Jonathan and Hannah. She
spoke to my own state:—‘Leave thy widows and let thy fatherless children
trust in Me.’ The meeting was disturbed some by the young babies; but we
could hardly expect the mothers to stay away.
“Second-day was Quarterly Meeting. Of course the English Friends, being
at William Smith’s, drew a great many others. We had forty to dinner. One
of William’s daughters stayed in the kitchen, one waited on the table,
and one sat down midway, where she could pass everything and wait on the
Friends. It was in the Eighth Month, and we had a bountiful table of all
the good things of that time of year,—vegetables and fruit too. William
was a nurseryman.
“There was a little disturbance at breakfast, William’s son—a rather
wild young man—making the young people laugh. We had fish,—mackerel,
and little fresh fish out of the mill-dam. I sat near the middle, and
heard Friend Smith at one end say to each, ‘Will thee have some of the
mackerel, or some of these little dam-fish?’ Then young William, at
the other end, spoke low to his friends: ‘Will thee have some of the
mackerel, or some of these dam little fish?’ But most of the young women
kept pretty serious countenances. When Quarterly Meeting was over, the
English Friends went out to Indiana, visiting meetings and Friends’
families, and I went back with Cousin Samuel’s.
“I was dreadfully disappointed once. One evening Samuel and ’Mima and the
rest of us were sitting round the table, and Samuel put his hand into
his coat-pocket and drew out the paper and two or three letters. As he
read, I noticed that one of the letters had not been opened, and caught
sight of my name—Priscilla Gardner; so I put out my hand and took it. It
was from sister Mary,—just as James and she were starting for California.
She told me that they should stay in Pittsburg over one night, and she
hoped I should be able to meet them there and bid them a long farewell.
But when I looked again at the date of the letter, and glanced at the
paper that Samuel was reading, I found that my letter was ten days old.
The time had gone by. Oh, dear! I walked out into the kitchen and stood
by the stove, in the dark, and cried. Some one came up behind me. Of
course it was Jemima. She kissed me, and waited for me to speak. I gave
her the letter, and in about ten minutes I felt able to go back to the
sitting-room. When I sat down, Samuel said, ‘’Mima tells me, Priscilla,
that thee is very much disappointed about thy letter. I had on this coat
when I went to the post-office a week ago, and I didn’t put it on again
till to-day. I hope thee’ll excuse me. Thomas, my son, will thee bring us
some red-streaks? I feel as if I could eat a few apples.’
“I felt sorrowful for some time about my sister; but my mind was diverted
when we got word that the English Friends were coming to our Monthly
Meeting on their way back from Indiana; and as we lived very near the
meeting-house, of course they would be at Samuel’s. As the time came
near, Jemima and I were a good deal interested to have things nice. They
were going to be at William Smith’s again, where everything was so neat,
and I felt very anxious to make everything in-doors, at Jemima’s, as nice
as we could.
“In the sitting-room was one empty corner, where the great rocking-chair
ought to stand. It was broken, and put away in the bedroom. I wanted
very much to have it mended; but it seemed as if we could not get it to
Salem. One time the load would be too large, another the chair would be
forgotten. At last one day it was put in the back of the covered wagon,
and fairly started. When Samuel got home it was rather late in the
evening, and I heard him say to ’Mima, ‘Only think of my forgetting thy
large chair. I was late starting from home, thee knows; and when I got to
Salem there was a good deal of talk about the war; and when I got halfway
home I remembered the big chair in the back of the wagon. It can go in
next week.’ We did send it again, but it did not get home before Monthly
Meeting.
“Jemima had a very neat home-made carpet on the sitting-room: she had
a great taste for carpets. As there had been some yards left, she let
me cover the front entry too, and her youngest son Edward, a nice lad,
helped me put it down. A little colored girl, near by, rubbed up the
brass andirons for us, and Edward built up a pile of wood ready to kindle
the fire when it was wanted. A good many panes of glass had been broken,
and as we had just had an equinoctial storm, some old coats, and so on,
had been stuffed in at several places; but we managed to get most of the
glass put in before Monthly Meeting.
“When we had done all we could to the house, of course we began to think
of the cooking. Jemima said, ‘I sha’n’t be able to get Mary Pearson
to come and cook: she is nursing. I wonder whether I hadn’t better
heat the oven on meeting-day. I can get the dinner in before I go; and
then between meetings I can run over and see to it. I shall hardly be
missed. I can slip in at the side-door of the meeting-house before Mary
Ann has done reading the Minutes.’—‘Then thee will heat the oven?’ said
I.—‘I reckon,’ she said; ‘but it is only a mud oven. Samuel has been
talking for a good while about having a brick oven. This one is not very
safe.’—‘Suppose I make a little sponge-cake, and put it in too,’ said I.
‘I’ll send for some sugar, if thee is willing. Polly Evans used to call
me a dabster at sponge-cake.’
“Jemima was willing, and we began to get ready to go to the store. Edward
and the little colored girl hunted the barn and the straw-shed, and
brought in a quantity of eggs. All could not be sent, because we needed
some at home, and some had been set on, and some had lain too long. Then
Jemima sent to the garret for brooms and rags, and spared a little butter
too for the store,—not much, to be sure, when Monthly Meeting was coming.
I thought I might as well ride over with Edward; and when we had got
coffee, and tea, and so on, and were just starting home, I caught sight
of some lemons. I bought a few, and when I got home asked Jemima if she
would not like some lemon-puddings. ‘Thy apple-pies and rice-puddings are
nice, dear,’ I said; ‘but Hannah Purley and Jonathan are such strangers,
we might go a little out of the common way.’ Jemima smiled at my being so
anxious, but agreed, as she generally did.
“Fourth-day morning we were up very early. Jemima was going to roast
some fowls and a loin of veal. Edward and the little colored girl helped
me to beat eggs, grate lemons, and roll sugar; and everything was ready
for the oven before the Friends came in from a distance, who always
stopped before meeting to get a cup of tea.
“We had a nice little table for them, of course,—dried beef, preserves,
and so on; and one woman Friend, a single woman, asked for a warm
flat-iron to press out her cap and handkerchief. At last we were ready
to start. Jemima had set everything into the oven, which stood out in
the yard. She put the meats back, and the cakes and puddings near the
door, where it was not so hot. ‘The door isn’t very safe,’ said she, ‘and
I propped a stick against it to keep it up. Don’t let the dog knock it
down, Susan, while we are gone.’
“The day was beautiful; all signs of the storm over, except the roads
a little muddy; and as we stepped over to the meeting-house Jemima
whispered, ‘I am glad I told Susan to set both tables. I think we shall
have a good many to dinner. I wanted cole-slaw, like Pennsylvania folks,
but the cows broke in last night and ate all the solid cabbage.’ She did
not talk of these things generally going into meeting; but our minds were
very full.
“First meeting was rather long, for several Friends spoke besides the
strangers. When it broke, Jemima stepped out, and I quietly followed her.
We walked over to the house, and round into the side-yard, going toward
the oven. But just as we had got into the yard we saw the old sow. She
had broken out of the barn-yard, and had been wallowing in a pond of
brown water near the fence. Now she had knocked down Jemima’s stick,
and as the door fell I guess she smelt our good things, for she had her
fore-feet upon the oven floor. We ran and screamed, but she did not turn.
She made a jump up to the oven, over my cakes and puddings, the veal and
chickens, and carried the oven roof off with her. Oh, dear! oh, dear!
poor Jemima! I could laugh too, if it wasn’t so dreadful.”
_Reader._—And what did they do then?
_Writer._—The best that they could. I do wonder at Jemima, poor thing, to
undertake so much on Monthly Meeting day.
THE MINERS OF SCRANTON.
A few years ago I visited Hyde Park,—a mining division of the youthful
city of Scranton. Besides boarding in the family of an operative, I
talked with citizens, from miners to ministers, and took notes of these
conversations. Upon the information thus obtained the following article
is founded.
There hangs in our house a large map of the State of Pennsylvania of
the year 1851. Scranton is not marked upon it. A little village named
Providence is, indeed, to be found, which is now an inconsiderable part
of consolidated Scranton. Nine years after the date of this map, by the
census of 1860, the population of Scranton is given at nine thousand, and
in 1870 at thirty-five thousand. This very rapid increase was caused by
the working of the immense coal-beds which underlie the narrow valley of
the Lackawanna, in which the city is situated.
Forty-five per cent. of the population is given as foreign, or fifteen
thousand eight hundred and eighty-seven. The miners are almost all of
foreign birth, the Irish being the most numerous, next the Welsh, then
the Germans, and lastly the English and Scotch. Among the Welsh-speaking
population there are, however, natives of Monmouthshire, not now a
portion of Wales, but belonging to England. Among the miners there are
some Pennsylvania Germans. With the exception of these, there is scarcely
to be found at Scranton a native of this country working underground,
either as miner or laborer.
Gaelic is extensively spoken by the Irish here, there being women, I
am told, newly come over, who do not speak English. The Welsh language
is more extensively employed. There are seven churches of which the
services are in that language, a Welsh newspaper, and a literary or
scientific society.[166] But as the Pennsylvania German employs many
English words in speaking “Dutch,” so does the Welshman introduce many
into his vernacular, as “all right,” “exactly,” “you know,” “twenty per
cent.,” “mortgage,” “explosion,” “universe.” In speaking English, those
from South Wales treat the letter _h_ as the English do, and speak of
Mr. ’Iggins, and of picking ’uckleberries, or say, “That’s a hodd name,”
“I have a hell kitchen to my house.” The Welshman frequently emphasizes
a statement, as, “Yes, sure,” “Yes indeed, man.” He says, “Dear to
goodness!” “I ’on’t do it, whatever,” etc., etc.
The Welsh have been accused of bearing malice, and of being clannish,
or of “keeping together.” “I think,” says a Scotchman, “that that is
why they keep up the Welsh language.” For themselves they claim that
they were never subjugated. They are Republicans almost to a man, and
equally Protestant; lovers of liberty, stubborn and enduring, not fickle.
The Welsh churches at Scranton belong to the three following sects:
Independent or Congregational, Baptist, and Calvinistic Methodist.
The Welshman is an experienced miner in his own rugged country. We are
informed that the coal-field of Glamorganshire, in Wales, is one of the
most important mineral districts in the world, and that in this small
district more iron is manufactured than in all the United States. The
Welsh here work more exclusively at mining than do the Irish and Germans.
The Welshman is the miner, who blasts and takes down the coal, while the
Irishman loads it upon the cars, a certain number of car-loads forming
his daily task.