P.S. May the Lord be with you. J.W. DUNGY.
Address your letter to John W. Dungy, Brantford, C.W.
"AUNT HANNAH MOORE."
In 1854 in company with her so-called Mistress (Mary Moore) Aunt Hannah
arrived in Philadelphia, from Missouri, being _en route_ to California,
where she with her mistress was to join her master, who had gone there
years before to seek his fortune. The mistress having relatives in this
city tarried here a short time, not doubting that she had sufficient
control over Aunt Hannah to keep her from contact with either
abolitionists or those of her own color, and that she would have no
difficulty in taking her with her to her journey's end. If such were her
calculations she was greatly mistaken. For although Aunt Hannah was
destitute of book-learning she was nevertheless a woman of thought and
natural ability, and while she wisely kept her counsel from her mistress
she took care to make her wants known to an abolitionist. She had passed
many years under the yoke, under different owners, and now seeing a ray
of hope she availed herself of the opportunity to secure her freedom.
She had occasion to go to a store in the neighborhood where she was
stopping, and to her unspeakable joy she found the proprietor an
abolitionist and a friend who inquired into her condition and proffered
her assistance. The store-keeper quickly made known her condition at the
Anti-slavery Office, and in double-quick time J.M. McKim and Charles
Wise as abolitionists and members of the Vigilance Committee repaired to
the stopping-place of the mistress and her slave to demand in the name
of humanity and the laws of Pennsylvania that Aunt Hannah should be no
longer held in fetters but that she should be immediately proclaimed
free. In the eyes of the mistress this procedure was so extraordinary
that she became very much excited and for a moment threatened them with
the "broomstick," but her raving had no effect on Messrs. McKim and
Wise, who did not rest contented until Aunt Hannah was safely in their
hands. She had lived a slave in Moore's family in the State of Missouri
about ten years and said she was treated very well, had plenty to eat,
plenty to wear, and a plenty of work. It was prior to her coming into
the possession of Moore that Aunt Hannah had been made to drink the
bitter waters of oppression. From this point, therefore, we shall
present some of the incidents of her life, from infancy, and very nearly
word for word as she related them:
"Moore bought me from a man named McCaully, who owned me about a year. I
fared dreadful bad under McCaully. One day in a rage he undertook to
beat me with the limb of a cherry-tree; he began at me and tried in the
first place to snatch my clothes off, but he did not succeed. After that
he beat the cherry-tree limb all to pieces over me. The first blow
struck me on the back of my neck and knocked me down; his wife was
looking on, sitting on the side of the bed crying to him to lay on.
After the limb was worn out he then went out to the yard and got a lath,
and he come at me again and beat me with that until he broke it all to
pieces. He was not satisfied then; he next went to the fence and tore
off a paling, and with that he took both hands, 'cursing' me all the
time as hard as he could. With an oath he would say, 'now don't you love
me?' 'Oh master, I will pray for you, I would cry, then he would 'cuss'
harder than ever.' He beat me until he was tired and quit. I crept out
of doors and throwed up blood; some days I was hardly able to creep.
With this beating I was laid up several weeks. Another time Mistress
McCaully got very angry. One day she beat me as bad as he did. She was a
woman who would get very mad in a minute. One day she began scolding and
said the kitchen wasn't kept clean. I told her the kitchen was kept as
clean as any kitchen in the place; she spoke very angry, and said she
didn't go by other folks but she had rules of her own. She soon ordered
me to come in to her. I went in as she ordered me; she met me with a
mule-rope, and ordered me to cross my hands. I crossed my hands and she
tied me to the bedstead. Here her husband said, 'my dear, now let me do
the fighting.' In her mad fit she said he shouldn't do it, and told him
to stand back and keep out of the way or I will give you the cowhide she
said to him. He then 'sot' down in a 'cheer' and looked like a man
condemned to be hung; then she whipped me with the cowhide until I sunk
to the floor. He then begged her to quit. He said to his wife she has
begged and begged and you have whipped her enough. She only raged 'wus;'
she turned the butt end of the cowhide and struck me five or six blows
over my head as hard as she could; she then throwed the cowhide down and
told a little girl to untie me. The little girl was not able to do it;
Mr. McCaully then untied me himself. Both times that I was beat the
blood run down from my head to my feet.
"They wouldn't give you anything to eat hardly. McCaully bore the name
of coming by free colored children without buying them, and selling them
afterwards. One boy on the place always said that he was free but had
been kidnapped from Arkansas. He could tell all about how he was
kidnapped, but could not find anybody to do anything for him, so he had
to content himself.
"McCaully bought me from a man by the name of Landers. While in Landers'
hands I had the rheumatism and was not able to work. He was afraid I was
going to die, or he would lose me, and I would not be of any service to
him, so he took and traded me off for a wagon. I was something better
when he traded me off; well enough to be about. My health remained bad
for about four years, and I never got my health until Moore bought me.
Moore took me for a debt. McCaully owed Moore for wagons. I was not born
in Missouri but was born in Virginia. From my earliest memory I was
owned by Conrad Hackler; he lived in Grason County. He was a very poor
man, and had no other slave but me. He bought me before I was quite four
years old, for one hundred dollars. Hackler bought me from a man named
William Scott. I must go back by good rights to the beginning and tell
all: Scott bought me first from a young man he met one day in the road,
with a bundle in his arms. Scott, wishing to know of the young man what
he had in his bundle, was told that he had a baby. 'What are you going
to do with it?' said Scott. The young man said that he was going to take
it to his sister; that its mother was dead, and it had nobody to take
care of it. Scott offered the young man a horse for it, and the young
man took him up. This is the way I was told that Scott came by me. I
never knowed anything about my mother or father, but I have always
believed that my mother was a white woman, and that I was put away to
save her character; I have always thought this. Under Hackler I was
treated more like a brute than a human being. I was fed like the dogs;
had a trough dug out of a piece of wood for a plate. After I growed up
to ten years old they made me sleep out in an old house standing off
some distance from the main house where my master and mistress lived. A
bed of straw and old rags was made for me in a big trough called the tan
trough (a trough having been used for tanning purposes). The cats about
the place came and slept with me, and was all the company I had. I had
to work with the hoe in the field and help do everything in doors and
out in all weathers. The place was so poor that some seasons he would
not raise twenty bushels of corn and hardly three bushels of wheat. As
for shoes I never knowed what it was to have a pair of shoes until I was
grown up. After I growed up to be a woman my master thought nothing of
taking my clothes off, and would whip me until the blood would run down
to the ground. After I was twenty-five years old they did not treat me
so bad; they both professed to get religion about that time; and my
master said he would never lay the weight of his finger on me again.
Once after that mistress wanted him to whip me, but he didn't do it, nor
never whipped me any more. After awhile my master died; if they had gone
according to law I would have been hired out or sold, but my mistress
wanted to keep me to carry on the place for her support. So I was kept
for seven or eight years after his death. It was understood between my
mistress, and her children, and her friends, who all met after master
died, that I was to take care of mistress, and after mistress died I
should not serve anybody else. I done my best to keep my mistress from
suffering. After a few years they all became dissatisfied, and moved to
Missouri. They scattered, and took up government land. Without means
they lived as poor people commonly live, on small farms in the woods. I
still lived with my mistress. Some of the heirs got dissatisfied, and
sued for their rights or a settlement; then I was sold with my child, a
boy."
Thus Aunt Hannah reviewed her slave-life, showing that she had been in
the hands of six different owners, and had seen great tribulation under
each of them, except the last; that she had never known a mother's or a
father's care; that Slavery had given her one child, but no husband as a
protector or a father. The half of what she passed through in the way of
suffering has scarcely been hinted at in this sketch. Fifty-seven years
were passed in bondage before she reached Philadelphia. Under the good
Providence through which she came in possession of her freedom, she
found a kind home with a family of Abolitionists, (Mrs. Gillingham's),
whose hearts had been in deep sympathy with the slave for many years. In
this situation Aunt Hannah remained several years, honest, faithful, and
obliging, taking care of her earnings, which were put out at interest
for her by her friends. Her mind was deeply imbued with religious
feeling, and an unshaken confidence in God as her only trust; she
connected herself with the A.M.E. Bethel Church, of Philadelphia, where
she has walked, blameless and exemplary up to this day. Probably there
is not a member in that large congregation whose simple faith and whose
walk and conversation are more commendable than Aunt Hannah's. Although
she has passed through so many hardships she is a woman of good judgment
and more than average intellect; enjoys good health, vigor, and peace of
mind in her old days, with a small income just sufficient to meet her
humble wants without having to live at service. After living in
Philadelphia for several years, she was married to a man of about her
own age, possessing all her good qualities; had served a life-time in a
highly respectable Quaker family of this city, and had so won the esteem
of his kind employer that at his death he left him a comfortable house
for life, so that he was not under the necessity of serving another. The
name of the recipient of the good Quaker friend's bounty and Aunt
Hannah's companion, was Thomas Todd. After a few years of wedded life,
Aunt Hannah was called upon to be left alone again in the world by the
death of her husband, whose loss was mourned by many friends, both
colored and white, who knew and respected him.
KIDNAPPING OF RACHEL AND ELIZABETH PARKER--MURDER OF JOSEPH C. MILLER IN
1851 AND 1852.
Those who were interested in the Anti-Slavery cause, and who kept posted
with reference to the frequent cases of kidnapping occurring in
different Free States, especially in Pennsylvania, during the twenty
years previous to emancipation, cannot fail to remember the kidnapping
of Rachel and Elizabeth Parker, and the murder of Joseph C. Miller, who
resided in West Nottingham township, Chester county, Pennsylvania, in
the latter part of 1851, and the beginning of 1852.
Both the kidnapping and the murder at the time of the occurrence shocked
and excited the better thinking and humane classes largely, not only in
Pennsylvania, but to a considerable extent over the Northern States. It
may be said, without contradiction, that Chester county, at least, was
never more aroused by any one single outrage that had taken place within
her borders, than by these occurrences. For a long while the interest
was kept alive, and even as lately as the past year (1870), we find the
case still agitating the citizens of Chester county. Judge Benjamin I.
Passmore, of said county, in defence of truth in an exhaustive article
published in the "Village Record," West Chester, Oct. 12th, 1870, gives
a reliable version of the matter, from beginning to end, which we feel
constrained to give in full, as possessing great historical value,
bearing on kidnapping in general, especially in Pennsylvania.