William is 25, complexion brown, intellect naturally good, with no
favorable notions of the peculiar institution. He was armed with a
formidable dirk-knife, and declared he would use it if attacked, rather
than be dragged back to bondage.
Hannah is a hearty-looking young woman of 23 or 24, with a countenance
that indicated that liberty was what she wanted and was contending for,
and that she could not willingly submit to the yoke. Though she came
with the Cambridge party, she did not come from Cambridge, but from
Marshall Hope, Caroline County, where she had been owned by Charles
Peters, a man who had distinguished himself by getting "drunk,
scratching and fighting, etc.," not unfrequently in his own family even.
She had no parents that she knew of. Left because they used her "so bad,
beat and knocked" her about.
"Jack Scott." Jack is about thirty-six years of age, substantially
built, dark color, and of quiet and prepossessing manners. He was owned
by David B. Turner, Esq., a dry goods merchant of New York. By birth,
Turner was a Virginian, and a regular slave-holder. His slaves were kept
hired out by the year. As Jack had had but slight acquaintance with his
New York owner, he says but very little about him. He was moved to leave
simply because he had got tired of working for the "white people for
nothing." Fled from Richmond, Va. Jack went to Canada direct. The
following letter furnishes a clew to his whereabouts, plans, etc.
MONTREAL, September 1st 1859.
DEAR SIR:--It is with extreme pleasure that I set down to
inclose you a few lines to let you know that I am well & I hope
when these few lines come to hand they may find you & your
family in good health and prosperity I left your house Nov. 3d,
1857, for Canada I Received a letter here from James Carter in
Peters burg, saying that my wife would leave there about the
28th or the first September and that he would send her on by way
of Philadelphia to you to send on to Montreal if she come on you
be please to send her on and as there is so many boats coming
here all times a day I may not know what time she will. So you
be please to give her this direction, she can get a cab and go
to the Donegana Hotel and Edmund Turner is there he will take
you where I lives and if he is not there cabman take you to Mr
Taylors on Durham St. nearly opposite to the Methodist Church.
Nothing more at present but Remain your well wisher