"A Presbyterian preacher, now resident in a slave state, and therefore
it is not expedient to give his name, stated, that he saw on board of
a steamboat at Louisville, Kentucky, a woman who had been forced on
board, to be carried off from all she counted dear on earth. She ran
across the boat and threw herself into the river, in order to end a
life of intolerable sorrows. She was drawn back to the boat and taken
up. The brutal driver beat her severely, and she immediately threw
herself again into the river. She was hooked up again, chained, and
carried off."
Testimony of M. WILLIAM HANSBOROUGH, of Culpepper county, Virginia,
the "owner" of sixty slaves.
"I saw a slave taken out of prison by his master, on a hot summer's
day, and driven, by said master, on the road before him, till he
dropped down dead."
The above statement was made by Mr. Hansborough to Lindley Coates, of
Lancaster county, Pa. a distinguished member of the Society of
Friends, and a member of the late Convention in Pa. for altering the
State Constitution. The letter from Mr. C. containing this testimony
of Mr. H. is now before us.
Mr. TOBIAS BOUDINOT, a member of the Methodist Church in St. Albans,
Licking county, Ohio, says:
"In Nicholasville, Ky. in the year 1823, he saw a slave fleeing before
the patrol, but he was overtaken near where he stood, and a man with a
knotted cane, as large as his wrist, struck the slave a number of
times on his head, until the club was broken and he made tame; the
blood was thrown in every direction by the violence of the blows."
The Rev. WILLIAM DICKEY, of Bloomingburg, Fayette county, Ohio, wrote
a letter to the Rev. John Rankin, of Ripley, Ohio thirteen years
since, containing a description of the cutting up of a slave with a
broad axe; beginning at the feet and gradually cutting the legs, arms,
and body into pieces! This diabolical atrocity was committed in the
state of Kentucky, in the year 1807. The perpetrators of the deed were
two brothers, Lilburn and Isham Lewis, NEPHEWS OF PRESIDENT JEFFERSON.
The writer of this having been informed by Mr. Dickey, that some of
the facts connected with this murder were not contained in his letter
published by Mr. Rankin, requested him to write the account _anew_,
and furnish the additional facts. This he did, and the letter
containing it was published in the "Human Rights" for August, 1837. We
insert it here, slightly abridged, with the introductory remarks which
appeared in that paper.
"Mr. Dickey's first letter has been scattered all over the country,
south and north; and though multitudes have affected to disbelieve its
statements, _Kentuckians_ know the truth of them quite too well to
call them in question. The story is fiction or fact--if _fiction_, why
has it not been nailed to the wall? Hundreds of people around the
mouth of Cumberland River are personally knowing to these facts.
_There_ are the records of the court that tried the wretches.--_There_
their acquaintances and kindred still live. All over that region of
country, the brutal butchery of George is a matter of public
notoriety. It is quite needless, perhaps, to add, that the Rev. Wm.
Dickey is a Presbyterian clergyman, one of the oldest members of the
Chilicothe Presbytery, and greatly respected and beloved by the
churches in Southern Ohio. He was born in South Carolina, and was for
many years pastor of a church in Kentucky."