[Illustration: GRACE ANNE LEWIS]
[Illustration: MRS. FRANCIS E. W. HARPER]
[Illustration: JOHN NEEDLES.]
Auxiliary to the influences already mentioned, was a very early
recollection of seeing a colored man, Henry, bound with ropes and
carried off to slavery. Grace Anna, not more than four or five years old
at the time, declared that the man's face of agony is before her now;
nor is it likely that her sisters were impressed less deeply. Of natures
keenly sensitive, they hated slavery, from that hour, as only children
of such natures can; and--as yet too young and immature for that charity
to have been developed in them, which can see a brother even in the
evil-doer, and pity while condemning him,--they even more intensely
hated, while they feared, the actors in the outrage, and despised the
girl who had betrayed the victim. Ever after, any one of them could be
trusted to be faithful to the hunted fugitive, though an army of
kidnappers might surround her.
Another of their early recollections was of a white handkerchief which
was to be waved from a back window, as a signal of danger, to a colored
man at work in a wood near by. And, all the while, the feelings aroused
by such events were kept alive by little Anti-slavery poems, which they
were wont to learn by heart and recite in the evenings. Grace Anna, on
her first visit to Philadelphia, when nine years old, bought a copy of
one of these, entitled "Zambo's Story," pleased to recognize in it a
favorite of her still earlier childhood.
By means like these they were unconsciously preparing themselves for the
predestined tasks of their after-life; and if there were danger that
such a strain upon their sympathies, as they often underwent, might
prove unhealthful, it was fully counteracted by ball-playing, and all
kinds of active out-door amusements of childhood, so that it was never
known to result in harm.
As time passed on, their home, always open to fugitives, became an
important centre of Underground Rail Road operations for the region
extending from Wilmington, Del., into Adams county, Pa.; and they, grown
to womanhood, had glided into the management of its very considerable
business. They received passengers from Thomas Garrett, and sometimes
others, perhaps, of Wilmington, when it was thought unsafe to send them
thence directly through Philadelphia; from Wm. and Phebe Wright, in
Adams county, and from friends, more than we have room to name, in York,
Columbia, and the southern parts of Lancaster and Chester counties; the
several lines, from Adams county to Wilmington, converging upon the
house of John Vickers, of Lionville, whose wagon, laden apparently with
innocent-looking earthen ware from his pottery, sometimes conveyed,
unseen beneath the visible load, a precious burden of Southern chattels,
on their way to manhood.
[At a later period, the trains from Adams county generally took another
course, going to Harrisburg, and on to Canada, by way of the Susquehanna
Valley; though still, when pursuit that way was apprehended, the former
course was taken.]
These passengers, the Lewises forwarded in diverse ways; usually, in the
earlier times, by wagon or carriage, to Richard Moore, of Quakertown, in
Bucks county, about thirty miles distant; but later, when abolitionists
were more numerous, and easier stages could be safely made, either
directly to the writer, or to one or other of ten or twelve stations
which had become established at places less remote, in the counties of
Chester and Montgomery. During portions of the time, their married
sister Rebecca, and her husband, Edwin Fussell, and their uncle, Dr. B.
Fussell, and, after him, his brother William, lived on farms adjoining
theirs, and were their active helpers in this work.
The receiving and passing on of fugitives, was not all they had to do.
Often it was necessary to fit out whole families with clothing suitable
for the journey. In cases of emergency they would sometimes gather a
sewing-circle from such neighboring families as could be trusted; and,
with its help, accomplish rapidly the needed work. One instance is
remembered, of a woman, with her little boy, whom they put into girls'
attire; and, changing also the woman's dress, sent both, by cars, to
Canada, accompanied by a friend. In this kind of work, too, they had
generous aid from friends at neighboring stations. From Lawrenceville
and Limerick, and Pottstown and Pughtown, came contributions of
clothing; at one time a supply which filled compactly three three-bushel
bags, and of which a small remainder, still on hand when slavery was
abolished, was sent South to the freedmen.
The prudence, skill, and watchful care with which the business was
conducted, are well attested by the fact that, so far as can be
remembered, during all the many years of their connection with the
Underground Rail Road, not a plan miscarried, and not a slave that
reached their station was retaken; although among their neighbors there
were bitter adversaries of the Anti-slavery cause, eager to find
occasion for hostile acts against any abolitionist; and, at times,
especially vindictive against the noble sisters, because of their
effective co-operation with other friends of Temperance, in preventing
the licensing of a liquor-selling tavern in the neighborhood. On one
occasion, when, within a week, they had passed on to freedom no less
than forty fugitives, eleven of whom had been in the house at once, they
were amused at hearing a remark by some of their pro-slavery neighbors,
to the effect that "there used to be a pretty brisk trade of running off
niggers, but there was not much of it done now."
Though parties of four, five or six sometimes arrived in open day, they
seldom sent any away till about nightfall or later, and, whenever the
danger was greater than usual, the coming was also at night. The
fugitives, in attempting to capture whom, Gorsuch was killed, near
Christiana, were brought to them at midnight, by Dr. Fussell; and in
this case such caution was observed, that not even the hired girl knew
of the presence of persons not of the family.
For one reason or another,--perhaps to let a hot pursuit go by; perhaps
to allow opportunity for recovering from fatigue and recruiting
exhausted strength, or for earning means to pursue the journey by the
common railroads,--it was often thought advisable that passengers should
remain with them for a considerable period; and numbers of these were,
at different times, employed as laborers in some capacity. Grace Anna
testifies that some of the best assistants they ever had in the house or
on the farm, were these escaped slaves; that in general they were
thrifty and economical, one man, for instance, who spent several years
with them, having accumulated five hundred dollars before he went on to
Canada; and another, enough to furnish an old coat with a full set of
buttons, each of which was a golden half-eagle, covered with cloth, and
firmly sewed on, besides an ample supply of good clothing for himself
and his wife; and that, almost without exception, they were honest and
loyal to their benefactors, and only too happy to find opportunities of
showing their gratitude. One man sent back to the sisters a letter of
thanks, through a gentleman in England, whither he had gone. And once,
when Grace Anna was passing an elegant mansion in Philadelphia, a
colored woman rushed out upon her with such an impetuous demonstration
of affection, joy, and thankfulness--all thought of fitness of time and
place swept away by the swell of strong emotion--as might well have
amused, or slightly astonished, the passers in the street, who knew not
that in her arms the woman's child had died. But it is no marvel that to
her the memory of that poor runaway slave-woman's true affection is more
than could have been the warmest welcome from her educated and refined
mistress.
One case, of which the sisters for a time had charge, seems worthy of a
somewhat more extended mention. In the fall of 1855 a slave named
Johnson, who, in fleeing from bondage, had come as far as Wilmington,
thinking he saw his master on the train by which he was journeying
northward, sprang from the car and hurt his foot severely. The Kennett
abolitionists having taken him in hand, and fearing that suspicious eyes
were on him in their region, felt it necessary to send him onward
without waiting for his wound to heal. He was therefore taken to the
Lewises, suffering very much in his removal, and arriving in a condition
which required the most assiduous care. For more than four months he
remained with them, patient and gentle in his helplessness and
suffering, and very thankful for the ministrations of kindness he
received. He was nursed as tenderly as if his own sisters had attended
him, instead of strangers, and was so carefully concealed that the
nearest neighbors knew not of his being with them. Their cousin, Morris
Fussell, who lived near, being a physician, they had not to depend for
even medical advice upon the outside world.
As the sufferer's wound, in natural course, became offensive, the care
of it could not but have been disagreeable as well as toilsome; and the
feeble health of one of the sisters at that time must have made heavier
the burden to be borne. But it was borne with a cheerful constancy. In a
letter which Grace Anna wrote after she had attended for some time in
person to the patient, with the care and sympathy which his condition
demanded, and begun to feel her strength unequal to the task, in
addition to her household duties, she asked a friend in Philadelphia to
procure for her a trusty colored woman fit to be a helper in the work,
offering higher wages than were common in that region for the services
required, and adding that, indeed, they could not stand upon the amount
of pay, but must have help, if it could be obtained, though not in a
condition to bear undue expenditure. But, she said, the man "is unable
to be removed; and if he were not, I know of no place where the charge
would not be equally severe." So, in perfect keeping with her character,
she just quietly regarded it as a matter of course that it should still
continue where it was. And there it did continue until spring, when the
man, now able to bear removal, was conveyed to the writer, and, after a
time, went thence to Boston. There his foot, pronounced incurable, was
amputated, and the abolitionists supplied him with a wooden limb. He
then returned and spent another winter with the Lewises, assisting in
the household work, and rendering services invaluable at a time when it
was almost impossible to obtain female help. The next spring, hoping
vainly to recover in a warmer climate from the disease induced by the
drain his wounded foot had made upon his system, he went to Hayti, and
there died; happy, we may well believe, to have escaped from slavery,
though only to have won scarely two years of freedom as an invalid and a
cripple.
The sisters were so thoroughly united in their work, as well as in all
the experiences of life, that this brief sketch has not attempted what
indeed it could not have achieved--a separation of their spheres of
beneficent activity. Yet they had each her individual traits and
adaptations to their common task; "diversities of gifts, but the same
spirit." Elizabeth, although for many years shut out by feeble health
from any part requiring much bodily exertion, was ever a wise
counsellor, as well as ready with such help as her state of health would
warrant. Though weak in body, in spirit she was strong and calm and
self-reliant, with a clear, discriminating intellect, a keen sense of
right, and a certain solidity and balanced symmetry of the spiritual
nature which made her an appreciable power wherever she was known. Of
Mariann, Grace Anna says, that if a flash of inspiration was required,
it usually came from her. Taught by her love for others, and by a
sensitiveness almost preternaturally quick, "she always knew exactly the
right thing to do," and put all the poetry of a nature exquisitely fine
into her efforts to diffuse around her purity and peace and happiness.
Her constant, utterly unselfish endeavors to this end contributed in
ample measure to the blessedness of a delightful home, rich in the
virtues, charities and graces which make home blessed. Veiled by her
modest and retiring disposition, to few beyond the circle of her home
were known the beauty and beneficence of her noiseless life; but those
who did look in upon it testified her worth in terms so strong as showed
how deeply it impressed them. "Just the best woman I ever knew," said a
young man for whom she had long cared like a mother. "I cannot
remember," said another, "ever hearing from her one ungentle word;" and
it may be safely doubted whether she was ever heard to utter such. And
one who "knew her every mood" cannot recall an instance of selfishness
in her, even when a child. "The most womanly woman I ever knew,"
declared a friend long closely intimate with her, "and such as would
have been adored, if found by any man worthy of her."
The ideal element in her was chastened by sound sense and blended with a
quick sagacity; but her shrinking sensitiveness, too keen to be quite
healthy, and an extreme of self-forgetfulness, amounting possibly to a
defect in one sojourning amid this world's diverse dispositions and
experiences, rendered her, on the whole, less balanced and complete than
her younger sisters, and not well fitted for rough encounter with life's
trials. So it became Grace Anna's province, especially after their
mother's death, to stand a shelter between her and whatever would
unpleasantly affect her by its contact; to be in some sort as a brother
to her, seeing there was no brother in the house. But from this it must
not be inferred that Grace Anna is less gifted with the distinctive
qualities of her sex. For the native fineness of her spiritual texture,
her gentle dignity and feminine delicacy and grace, mark her as "every
inch" a true and noble woman. In her combine in happy union the calm
strength of soul and self-reliance of her younger, with the poetic
ideality and a just degree of the quick sensibility of her elder sister,
with better health than either, making her foremost of the three in that
executive efficiency which did so much to give their plans the uniform
success already mentioned. Kindness and warm affection, clearness of
moral vision, and purity of heart, with a lively relish for quiet
intellectual pleasures, for society and books adapted to refine, improve
and elevate, were among the characteristics common to them all.
Mariann and Elizabeth, having lived to see the triumph of the Right, in
the Presidential Proclamation of Freedom to the slaves, have gone from
their earthly labors to their heavenly rest; which, we may well believe,
is that whereof the poet speaks:
"Rest in harmonious action like the stars,
Doing the deeds which make heaven musical,
The earth a heaven, and brothers of us all."
Grace Anna still continues here, working for human welfare in such
fields as still demand the laborer's toil; and finding mental profit and
delight in the pursuit of natural science.