John was a sturdy-looking chattel, but possessed far less intelligence
than the generality of passengers. He was not too old, however, to
improve. The fact that he had spirit enough to resent the harsh
treatment of one Albert Lewis, a small farmer, who claimed to own him,
showed that he was by no means a hopeless case. With all his apparent
stupidity he knew enough to give his master the name of a "free whiskey
drinker," likewise of "beating and fighting the slaves." It was on this
account that John was compelled to escape.
Ann Mountain arrived from Delaware with her child about the same time
that John did, but not in company with him; they met at the station in
Philadelphia. That Slavery had crippled her in every respect was very
discernible; this poor woman had suffered from cuffing, etc., until she
could no longer endure her oppression. Taking her child in her arms, she
sought refuge beyond the borders of slave territory. Ann was about
twenty-two years of age, her child not quite a year old. They were
considered entitled to much pity.
William was forty-one years of age, dark, ordinary size, and
intelligent. He fled from Richmond, where he had been held by Alexander
Royster, the owner of fifteen slaves, and a tobacco merchant. William
said that his master was a man of very savage temper, short, and
crabbed. As to his social relations, William said that he was "a member
of nothing now but a liquor barrel."
Knowing that his master and mistress labored under the delusion that he
was silly enough to look up to them as kind-hearted slave-holders, to
whom he should feel himself indebted for everything, William thought
that they would be sadly puzzled to conjecture what had become of him.
He was sure that they would be slow to believe that he had gone to
Canada. Until within the last five years he had enjoyed many privileges
as a slave, but he had since found it not so easy to submit to the
requirements of Slavery. He left his wife, Nancy, and two children.
* * * * *