[361] Conversation with Mrs. Elizabeth Cooley, a fugitive from

Norfolk, Va., Boston, Mass., April 8, 1897.

[362] Letter of Frederick Douglass, Anacostia, D.C., March 27,

1893.

[363] Conversation with Mrs. Tubman, Boston, Mass., April 8, 1897.

It is apparent from the map that the numerous tributaries of the

Ohio and the great valleys of the Appalachian range afforded many

tempting paths of escape. These natural routes from slavery have

been recognized and defined by a recent writer.[364] "One," he says,

"was that of the coast south of the Potomac, whose almost continuous

line of swamps from the vicinity of Norfolk, Va., to the northern

border of Florida afforded a refuge for many who could not escape

and became 'marooned' in their depths, while giving facility to

the more enduring to work their way out to the north star land.

The great Appalachian range and its abutting mountains were long

a rugged, lonely, but comparatively safe route to freedom. It was

used, too, for many years. Doubtless a knowledge of that fact, for

John Brown was always an active railroad man, had very much to do,

strategically considered, with the Captain's decision to begin

operations therein. Harriet Tubman ... was a constant user of the

Appalachian route in her efforts to aid escaping slaves.[365] ...

Underground Railroad operations culminating chiefly at Cleveland,

Sandusky, and Detroit, led by broad and defined routes through Ohio

to the border of Kentucky. Through that State, into the heart of

the Cumberland Mountains, northern Georgia, east Tennessee, and

northern Alabama, the limestone caves of the region served a useful

purpose.... The Ohio-Kentucky routes probably served more fugitives

than others in the North. The valley of the Mississippi was the

most westerly channel, until Kansas opened a bolder way of escape

from the southwest slave section." These were the main channels of

flight from the slave states; but it must be remembered that escapes

were continually taking place along the entire frontier between the

two sections of the Union, the drift of travel being constantly

towards those points where the homes of abolitionists or where negro

settlements indicated initial stations on lines running north to

freedom. The border counties of the slave states were thus subject

to a steady loss of their dissatisfied bondmen. This condition

is well represented in the case of several counties of Maryland,

concerning which Mr. Smedley obtained information. He says, "The

counties of Frederick, Carroll, Washington, Hartford and Baltimore,

Md., emptied their fugitives into York and Adams counties across

the line in Pennsylvania. The latter two counties had settlements

of Friends and abolitionists. The slaves learned who their friends

were in that part of the Free State; and it was as natural for those

aspiring to liberty to move in that direction as for the waters of

brooks to move toward larger streams."[366]

[364] R. J. Hinton, _John Brown and His Men_, pp. 172, 173.

[365] Harriet Tubman has told the author that she did not travel

by the mountain route. In his book entitled _The Underground

Railroad_ (p. 37), Mr. R. C. Smedley illustrates the value of

the Alleghanies to the slaves of the regions through which they

extend: "William and Phœbe Wright resided during their entire

lives in a very old settlement of Friends, near the southern

slope of South Mountain, a spur of the Alleghanies, which extends

into Tennessee. This location placed them directly in the way to

render great and valuable aid to fugitives, as hundreds, guided

by that mountain range northward, came into Pennsylvania, and

were directed to their home."

[366] _Underground Railroad_, p. 36.

Along the southern margin of the free states began those

well-defined trails or channels that have lent themselves to

representation upon the large map given herewith. In dealing with

the tracings shown upon this map it will be best to consider the

territory as divided into three regions, the first comprising the

states of Pennsylvania, New Jersey and New York; the second, the

New England states; and the third, the five states created out of

the Northwest Territory. This arrangement will, perhaps, admit of

the introduction of some system into the discussion of what might

otherwise prove a complicated subject.

In point of time underground work seems to have developed first

in eastern Pennsylvania.[367] Regular routes of travel began to

be formed in the vicinity of Philadelphia about the middle of the

first decade of the present century. It is said that "some cases

of kidnapping and shooting of fugitives who attempted to escape

occurred in Columbia, Pa., in 1804. This incited the people of

that town, who were chiefly Friends or their descendants, to throw

around the colored people the arm of protection, and even to assist

those who were endeavoring to escape from slavery.... This gave

origin to that organized system of rendering aid to fugitives

which was afterward known as the 'Underground Railroad.'" Thus

begun, the service rapidly extended, being greatly favored by the

character of the population in southeastern Pennsylvania, which was

largely Quaker, with here and there some important settlements of

manumitted slaves. It was on account of the large number of runaways

early resorting to Columbia that it became necessary to have an

understanding with regard to places of entertainment for them along

lines leading to the Eastern states and to Canada, whither most of

the fugitives were bound.[368] There seems to have been scarcely

any limitation upon the number of persons in Lancaster, Chester and

Delaware counties willing to assume agencies for the forwarding

of slaves; hence this region became the field through which more

routes were developed in proportion to its extent than any other

area in the Northern states. It will be necessary to make use of

a special map of the region in order to follow out the principal

channels of escape and to discover the centres from which the

Canada routes sprung.[369] West of the Susquehanna River Gettysburg

and York were the stations chiefly sought by slaves escaping from

the border counties of Maryland. Along the western shore of the

Chesapeake runaways passed northward to Havre de Grace, where they

usually crossed the Susquehanna, and with others from the Eastern

Shore found their way to established stations in the southern

part of Lancaster and Chester counties in Pennsylvania. From the

territory adjacent to the Delaware the movement was to Wilmington,

and thence north through Chester and Delaware counties. The routes

developed in the three regions just indicated formed three systems

of underground travel, the first of which may be called the western,

the second, the middle, and the third, the eastern system. These

systems comprised, besides the main roads indicated in heavy lines

upon the map, numerous side-tracks and branches shown by the light

lines. Their common goal was Phœnixville, the home of Elijah F.

Pennypacker, and from here fugitives were sent to Philadelphia,

Norristown, Quakertown, Reading and other stations as occasion

required. While Phœnixville may be regarded as the central station

for the three systems mentioned, it did not receive all the negroes

escaping through this section, and Smedley says that "Hundreds were

sent to the many branch stations along interlacing routes, and

hundreds of others were sent from Wilmington, Columbia, and stations

westward direct to the New England States and Canada. Many of these

passed through the hands of the Vigilance Committee connected with

the anti-slavery office in Philadelphia."[370] From this point

one outlet led overland across New Jersey to Jersey City and New

York; another outlet from Philadelphia, was the Reading Railroad,

which also carried refugees from various stations along its course.

How many steam railway extensions may have been connected with

the underground tracks of southeastern Pennsylvania cannot be

discovered. One such extension was the Northern Central Railroad

from Harrisburg across the state to Elmira, New York.[371] Another

trans-state route in eastern Pennsylvania appears to have had its

origin at or near Sadsbury, Chester County, and to have run overland

to Binghamton, New York.[372] The intermediate stations along this

pathway are not known, although some disconnected places of resort

in northeastern Pennsylvania[373] may have constituted a section of

it. Lines of northern travel for fugitives also passed through Bucks

County, but Dr. Edward H. Magill, formerly President of Swarthmore

College, thinks these were "less clearly marked" than those running

through Chester and Lancaster counties. He finds that friends of

the slave in the middle section of Bucks County generally forwarded

the negroes to Quakertown or even as far north, by stage or private

conveyance, as Stroudsburg. From this point they sometimes went to

Montrose or Friendsville, in Susquehanna County, near the southern

boundary of the State of New York,[374] whence, together with

fugitives from Wilkesbarre, and, perhaps, the Lehigh Valley, they

were sent on to Gerrit Smith, at Peterboro in central New York, and

thence to Canada.[375]

[367] See pp. 33 and 34, Chapter II.

[368] R. C. Smedley, _Underground Railroad_, pp. 26, 27, 28,

29, 30. For a description of the routes of this region, our

dependence is almost wholly upon Mr. Smedley, whose intimate

knowledge of them was obtained by conversation and correspondence

with many of the operators. _Ibid._, Preface, p. x.

[369] The special map of these counties will be found in a corner

of the general map.

[370] _The Underground Railroad_, p. 209. For a description of

the secret paths in southeastern Pennsylvania, see Smedley's

book, pp. 30, 31, 32, 33, 34, 50, 53, 77, 85, 89, 90, 100, 132,

137, 142, 164, 172, 191, 192, 208, 217, 218, 219, etc.

[371] Letters of Mrs. Susan L. Crane, Elmira, N.Y., Aug. 27, and

Sept. 14 and 23, 1896; letters of John W. Jones, Elmira, N.Y.,

Dec. 17, 1896, and Jan. 16, 1897.

[372] Smedley, _Underground Railroad_, p. 91.

[373] See the general map.

[374] Article by Dr. Magill, entitled "When Men were Sold. The

Underground Railroad in Bucks County," in _The Bucks County

Intelligencer_, Feb. 3, 1898. Same article in the _Friends'

Intelligencer_, Feb. 26, 1898.

[375] Letter of Horace Brewster, Montrose, Pa., March 20, 1898.

At the other end of Pennsylvania several routes and sections of

routes have been discovered. The most important of these seem to

have been the roads resulting from the convergence of at least

three well-defined lines of escape at Uniontown in southwestern

Pennsylvania from the neighboring counties of Virginia and

Maryland. A map drawn by Mr. Amos M. Jolliffe, of Uniontown,

shows that there were two courses leading northward from his

neighborhood, both of which terminated at Pittsburgh.[376] From

this point fugitives seem to have been sent to Cleveland by rail,

or to have been directed to follow the Alleghany or the Ohio and

its tributaries north. Investigation proves that friends were

not lacking at convenient points to help them along to the main

terminals for this region, namely, Erie and Buffalo, or across

the border of the state to the much-used routes of the Western

Reserve.[377] East of the Alleghany River significant traces of

underground work are found running in a northeasterly direction from

Greensburg through Indiana County to Clearfield,[378] a distance

of seventy-five miles, and from Cumberland, Maryland, through

Bedford and Pleasantville to Altoona,[379] about the same distance.

These fragmentary routes may have had connections with some of the

fragmentary lines of western New York. From Clearfield an important

branch is known to have run northwest to Shippenville and Franklin,

and so to Erie, a place of deportation on the lake of the same

name.[380]

[376] Letter of Mr. Jolliffe, Nov. 17, 1895.

[377] Letter of John F. Hogue, Greenville, Pa., Nov. 25, 1895;

letter of S. P. Stewart, Clark, Mercer Co., Pa., Dec. 26, 1895;

letter of W. W. Walker, Makanda, Jackson Co., Ill., March

14, 1896; note-book of Joseph S. White, of New Castle, Pa.,

containing "Some Reminiscences of Slavery Times."

[378] Letters of C. P. Rank, Cush Creek, Indiana Co., Pa., Dec.

25, 1896, and Jan. 4, 1897; letter of William Atcheson, DuBois,

Pa., Jan. 11, 1897.

[379] Letter of Wyett Perry, Bedford, Pa., Dec. 23, 1895; letter

of John W. Rouse, Bedford, Pa., Nov. 25, 1895; letter of William

M. Hall, Bedford, Pa., Nov. 30, 1895.

[380] Conversation with William Edwards, Amherstburg, Ont., Aug.

3, 1895.

New Jersey was intimately associated with Philadelphia and the

adjoining section in the underground system, and afforded at least

three important outlets for runaways from the territory west of the

Delaware River. Our knowledge of these outlets is derived solely

from the testimony of the Rev. Thomas Clement Oliver, who, like

his father, travelled the New Jersey routes many times as a guide

or conductor.[381] Probably the most important of these routes was

that leading from Philadelphia to Jersey City and New York. From

Philadelphia the runaways were taken across the Delaware River to

Camden, where Mr. Oliver lived, thence they were conveyed northeast

following the course of the river to Burlington, and thence in

the same direction to Bordentown. In Burlington, sometimes called

Station A, a short stop was made for the purpose of changing

horses after the rapid drive of twenty miles from Philadelphia.

The Bordentown station was denominated Station B east. Here the

road took a more northerly direction to Princeton, where horses

were again changed and the journey continued to New Brunswick. Just

east of New Brunswick the conductors sometimes met with opposition

in attempting to cross the Raritan River on their way to Jersey

City. To avoid such interruption the conductors arranged with

Cornelius Cornell, who lived on the outskirts of New Brunswick,

and, presumably, near the river, to notify them when there were

slave-catchers or spies at the regular crossing. On receiving such

information they took a by-road leading to Perth Amboy, whence their

protégés could be safely forwarded to New York City. When the way

was clear at the Raritan the company pursued its course to Rahway;

here another relay of horses was obtained and the journey continued

to Jersey City, where, under the care of John Everett, a Quaker, or

his servants, they were taken to the Forty-second Street railroad

station, now known as the Grand Central, provided with tickets, and

placed on a through train for Syracuse, New York. The second route

had its origin on the Delaware River forty miles below Philadelphia,

at or near Salem. This line, like the others to be mentioned later,

seems to have been tributary to the Philadelphia route traced above.

Nevertheless, it had an independent course for sixty miles before

it connected with the more northern route at Bordentown. This

distance of sixty miles was ordinarily travelled in three stages,

the first ending at Woodbury, twenty-five miles north of Salem,

although the trip by wagon is said to have added ten miles to the

estimated distance between the two places; the second stage ended

at Evesham Mount; and the third, at Bordentown. The third route was

called, from its initial station, the Greenwich line. This station

is vividly described as having been made up of a circle of Quaker

residences enclosing a swampy place that swarmed with blacks. One

may surmise that it made a model station. Slaves were transported

at night across the Delaware River from the vicinity of Dover, in

boats marked by a yellow light hung below a blue one, and were met

some distance out from the Jersey shore by boats showing the same

lights. Landed at Greenwich, the fugitives were conducted north

twenty-five miles to Swedesboro, and thence about the same distance

to Evesham Mount. From this point they were taken to Mount Holly,

and so into the northern or Philadelphia route. Still another branch

of this Philadelphia line is known. It constitutes the fourth road,

and is described by Mr. Robert Purvis[382] as an extension of a

route through Bucks County, Pennsylvania, that entered Trenton, New

Jersey, from Newtown, and ran directly to New Brunswick and so on to

New York.

[381] Conversation with Mr. Oliver, Windsor, Ont., Aug. 2, 1895.

[382] Conversation with Mr. Purvis, Philadelphia, Dec. 23, 1895.

Mr. Eber M. Pettit, for many years a conductor of the Underground

Railroad in western New York,[383] asserts that the Road had four

main lines across his state, and scores of laterals,[384] but he

nowhere attempts to identify these lines for the benefit of those

less well informed than himself. Concerning what may be supposed

to have been one of the lines, he speaks as follows: "The first

well-established line of the U. G. R. R. had its southern terminus

in Washington, D.C., and extended in a pretty direct route to

Albany, N.Y., thence radiating in all directions to all the New

England states, and to many parts of this state.... The General

Superintendent resided in Albany.... He was once an active member

of one of the churches in Fredonia. Mr. T., his agent in Washington

City, was a very active and efficient man; the Superintendent

at Albany was in daily communication by mail with him and other

subordinate agents at all points along the line."[385] Frederick

Douglass, who was familiar with this Albany route during the period

of his residence in Rochester, describes it as running through

Philadelphia, New York, Albany, Rochester, and thence to Canada;

and he gives the name of the person at each station that was most

closely associated in his mind with the work of the station.

Thus, he says that the "fugitives were received in Philadelphia

by William Still, by him sent to New York, where they were cared

for by Mr. David Ruggles, and afterwards by Mr. Gibbs, ... thence

to Stephen Myers at Albany; thence to J. W. Loguen, Syracuse;

thence to Frederick Douglass, Rochester; and thence to Hiram

Wilson, St. Catherines, Canada West."[386] Not all the negroes

travelling by this route went as far as Rochester; some were turned

north at Syracuse to the port of Oswego, where they took boat for

Canada.[387] The Rev. Charles B. Ray, a member of the Vigilance

Committee of New York City, and editor of _The Colored American_,

has left some testimony which corroborates that just given. He knew

of a regular route stretching from Washington, by way of Baltimore

and Philadelphia, to New York, thence following the Hudson to

Albany and Troy, whence a branch ran westward to Utica, Syracuse

and Oswego, with an extension from Syracuse to Niagara Falls.

New York was a kind of receiving point from which fugitives were

assisted to Albany and Troy, or, as sometimes happened, to Boston

and New Bedford, or, when considerations of safety warranted it,

were permitted to pass to Long Island.[388] The lines that are said

to have radiated from Albany are mentioned neither by Mr. Douglass

nor by Mr. Ray, but we know from other witnesses that some of the

fugitives sent to Troy found their way to places of refuge north

and east. Mr. Martin I. Townsend, of Troy, writes that fugitives

arriving at that city were supplied with money and forwarded either

to Suspension Bridge, on the Niagara River, or by way of Vermont and

Lake Champlain to Rouses Point.[389] It seems probable that another

branch of the secret thoroughfare followed the valley of the Hudson

from Troy to the farm of John Brown, near North Elba among the

Adirondacks. Mr. Richard H. Dana visited this frontier home of Brown

one summer, and was informed by his guide that the country about

there belonged to Gerrit Smith; that it was settled for the most

part by families of fugitive slaves, who were engaged in farming;

and that Brown held the position of a sort of ruler among them. The

view was therefore credited that this neighborhood was one of the

termini of the Underground Railroad."[390]

[383] _Sketches in the History of the Underground Railroad_,

1879, Preface, p. xvi.

[384] _Ibid._, p. xiv.

[385] _Ibid._, p. 34.

[386] Letter of Frederick Douglass, Cedar Hill, Anacostia, D.C.,

March 27, 1893.

[387] Letter of Joseph A. Allen, Medfield, Mass., Aug. 10, 1896.

[388] Letter of Florence and Cordelia H. Ray, Woodside, L.I.,

April 12, 1897. See _Sketch of the Life of Rev. Chas. B. Ray_,

written by the Misses Ray.

[389] Letters of Martin I. Townsend, Troy, N.Y., Sept. 4 and 15,

1896.

[390] C. F. Adams, _Life of Richard Henry Dana_, Vol. I, p. 155;

_History of Madison County, New York_, by Mrs. L. M. Hammond, p.

721.

Gerrit Smith, the friend and counsellor of Brown, lived at

Peterboro, in central New York, where his house was an important

station for runaway slaves. His open invitation to fugitives to

come to Peterboro gave the post he maintained great publicity, and

many negroes resorted thither. From Peterboro they were sent in

Mr. Smith's wagon to Oswego.[391] A little to the east and north

of this place of deportation there were what may perhaps be called

emergency stations at or near Mexico, New Haven, Port Ontario[392]

and Cape Vincent.[393] From the place last named, and perhaps also

from Port Ontario, fugitives took boat for Kingston.[394] A route

that came into operation much later than that with which the

Peterboro station was connected was the Elmira route. In 1844, John

W. Jones, an escaped slave from Virginia, settled in Elmira, and

began, together with Mr. Jervis Langdon, a prominent citizen of the

town, to receive fugitives. A few years later the Northern Central

Railroad was constructed, and supplied a means of travel through

western New York to Niagara Falls. Underground passengers forwarded

by rail from Philadelphia, Harrisburg and Williamsport were sent

on via the Northern Central to Canada.[395] In the counties of

New York west and south of the Elmira route the map shows some

disconnected stations and sections of Road. Not enough is known

about these to suggest with certainty their connections. It is,

however, evident that their trend is toward the short arm of the

Province of Ontario, which is separated from the United States only

by the Niagara River, with crossings favorable for fugitives at

Buffalo, Black Rock, Suspension Bridge and Lewiston. In the angle of

southwestern New York there were two routes, the objective point of

which was Buffalo. One of these, by way of Westfield and Fredonia,

hugged closely the shore of Lake Erie;[396] the other, issuing by

way of the Alleghany River from Franklin, Pennsylvania, ran through

Jamestown and Ellington to Leon, where it branched, one division

going to Fredonia and so on northward, whilst the other seems to

have followed a more direct course to Buffalo.[397]

[391] O. B. Frothingham, _Life of Gerrit Smith_, pp. 113, 114.

[392] Letter of O. J. Russell, Pulaski, N.Y., July 29, 1896.

[393] Mr. George C. Bragdon writes concerning the runaways

harbored by his father, near Port Ontario: "I believe they

usually went to Cape Vincent, near the mouth of the St. Lawrence,

and were taken over to Canada from there.... I believe some of

the slaves received by him were sent on from Peterboro by Gerrit

Smith to _Asa S. Wing_ or _James C. Jackson_ (Mexico), and came

from them to our house. They steered clear of the villages, as

a rule. Our farm was favorably situated for concealing them and

helping them on." Letter of George C. Bragdon, Rochester, N.Y.,

Aug. 11, 1896.

Mrs. Elizabeth Smith Miller, the daughter of Gerrit Smith, says

that in October, 1839, the "White Slave, Harriet," was taken by Mr.

Federal Dana from her father's house directly to Cape Vincent, and

that Mr. Dana wrote from that point: "I saw her pass the ferry this

morning into Canada." Letter received from Mrs. Miller, Peterboro,

N.Y., Sept. 21, 1896.

[394] The fugitive Jerry McHenry, after his rescue in Syracuse,

was hurried to Mexico, thence to Oswego, and from this point was

transported across the lake to Kingston. May, _Some Recollections

of Our Anti-Slavery Conflict_, pp. 378, 379.

[395] Letters of Mrs. Susan L. Crane, Elmira, N. Y., Sept. 14

and 23, 1896. Mrs. Crane is a daughter of Mr. Jervis Langdon

mentioned in the text; letter of John W. Jones, Elmira, N. Y.,

Dec. 14, 1896.

[396] A number of the stations along the lake shore are named in

the sketches called "Romances and Realities of the Underground

Railroad," by H. U. Johnson, printed in the _Lakeshore and Home

Magazine_, 1885-1887.

[397] E. M. Pettit, in _Sketches in the History of the

Underground Railroad_, pp. 30, 31, 32, gives an instance of the

use of this route.

Notwithstanding the unfavorable position for this work of the New

England states, a considerable number of fugitive slaves found their

way through these states to Canada. A part of them came through

Pennsylvania and New York. Smedley states, as already noted, that

hundreds were sent from Wilmington, Columbia, and other points to

the New England states and Canada.[398] Another part came by boat

from Southern ports to the shores of New England, landing at various

places, chief among which seem to have been New Haven, New Bedford,

Boston and Portland. Such was the number of arrivals and consequent

demand for transportation to a place of safety, that these four

places became the beginnings of routes, which it has been possible

to trace on the map with more or less completeness.

[398] See p. 120, this chapter.

The first of these may be called the Connecticut valley route.

President E. B. Andrews, of Brown University, whose father was

an active friend of slaves at Montague in western Massachusetts,

describes this route as running from New York, New Haven, or

New London up the Connecticut River valley to Canada.[399] This

is corroborated by some writer in the _History of Springfield,

Massachusetts_, where it is noted that there was a steady movement

of parties of runaways up the valley on their way to the adjacent

provinces.[400] Mr. Erastus F. Gunn, of Montague, Massachusetts,

writes that the travel along this route was largely confined to the

west side of the river, and was through Springfield, Northampton and

Greenfield into the State of Vermont.[401] Fugitives disembarking

at New Haven[402] went north through Kensington, New Britain and

Farmington, and probably by way of Bloomfield or Hartford to

Springfield. Sometimes they came up the river by steamboat to

Hartford, the head of navigation, and continued their journey

overland.[403] A trail probably much less used than the routes

just mentioned, seems to have connected the southwestern part of

Connecticut with the valley route.[404] In Massachusetts there were

ramifications from the valley route,[405] which may have terminated

among the hills in the western part of the state, for all that one

can now discover.

[399] Letter of Mr. Andrews, Providence, R.I., April, 1895.

[400] Pp. 470, 471.

[401] Letter of Mr. Gunn, Montague, Mass., Nov. 23, 1895.

[402] Letter of Simeon E. Baldwin, New Haven, Conn., Jan. 27,

1896; letter of Simeon D. Gilbert, New Haven, Conn., Feb. 27,

1896.

[403] Letter of D. W. C. Pond, New Britain, Conn. Mr. Pond is one

of the surviving agents of New Britain.

[404] Letters of George B. Wakeman, Montour Falls, N.Y., April 21

and Sept. 26, 1896. Letter of the Rev. Erastus Blakeslee, Boston,

Mass., Aug. 28, 1896.

[405] The stations, as indicated on the map, are named in

letters from L. S. Abell and Charles Parsons, Conway, Mass.;

C. Barrus, Springfield, Mass.; Judge D. W. Bond, Cambridge,

Mass.; and Arthur G. Hill, Boston, Mass. See also article on

"The Underground Railway," by Joseph Marsh, in the _History of

Florence, Massachusetts_, pp. 165-167.

A line of Road originating at New Bedford in southeastern

Massachusetts is mentioned in connection with the line up

the Connecticut valley by the Hon. M. M. Fisher, of Medway,

Massachusetts, as one of the more common routes.[406] Mrs. Elizabeth

Buffum Chace says that slaves landing on Cape Cod went to New

Bedford, whence under the guidance of some abolitionist they were

conveyed to the home of Nathaniel P. Borden at Fall River. Between

this station and the one kept by Mr. and Mrs. Chace at Valley Falls,

Robert Adams acted as conductor; and from Valley Falls Mr. Chace

was in the habit of accompanying passengers a short distance over

the Providence and Worcester Railroad until he had placed them in

the care of some trusted employee of that road to be transferred

at Worcester to the Vermont Railroad.[407] The Rev. Joshua Young

was receiving agent at Burlington, Vermont, and testifies that

during his residence there he and his friend and parishioner, L.

H. Bigelow, did "considerable business."[408] South of Burlington

there was a series of stations not connected with the Vermont

Central Railroad extension of the New Bedford route. The names of

these stations have been obtained from Mr. Rowland E. Robinson,

whose father's house was a refuge for fugitives at Ferrisburg,

Vermont, and from the Hon. Joseph Poland, the editor of the first

anti-slavery newspaper in his state, who was himself an agent of the

Underground Road at Montpelier. The names are those of nine towns,

which form a line roughly parallel to the west boundary of the

state, namely, North Ferrisburg, Ferrisburg, Vergennes, Middlebury,

Brandon, Rutland, Wallingford, Manchester and Bennington.[409]

They constituted what may be called the west Vermont route,

Bennington being at the southern extremity, where escaped slaves

were received from Troy, New York.[410] The terminal at the northern

end of this route was St. Albans, whence runaways could be hastened

across the Canadian frontier. The valley of the lower Connecticut

seems to have yielded a sufficient supply of fugitive slaves to

sustain a vigorous line of Road in eastern Vermont. It was over this

line the travellers came that were placed in hiding in the office of

Editor Poland at Montpelier, having made their way northward with

the aid of friends at Brattleboro, Chester, Woodstock, Randolph and

intermediate points. At Montpelier the single path divided into

three branches, one extending westward and uniting with the west

Vermont route at Burlington, another running northward into the

Queen's dominions by way of Morristown and other stations, and the

third zigzagging to New Port, where a pass through the mountains

admitted the zealous pilgrims to the coveted possession of their own

liberty.[411]

[406] Letter of Mr. Fisher, Oct. 23, 1893.

[407] _Anti-Slavery Reminiscences_, pp. 27, 28.

[408] Letter of Mr. Young, Groton, Mass., April 21, 1893.

[409] Letter of Mr. Robinson, Ferrisburg, Vt., Aug. 19, 1896;

letter of Mr. Poland, Montpelier, Vt., April 12, 1897.

[410] Letter of Mr. Brainerd, St. Albans, Vt., Oct. 21, 1895.

[411] Letters of Mrs. Abijah Keith, Chicago, Ill., March 28, and

April 4, 1897; letters of Mr. Poland, April 7 and 12, 1897.

[Illustration: CAVES IN SALEM TOWNSHIP, WASHINGTON COUNTY, OHIO.

The cave on the left was a rendezvous for fugitives.]

[Illustration: HOUSE OF MRS. ELIZABETH BUFFUM CHACE,

A STATION OF THE UNDERGROUND RAILROAD, VALLEY FALLS, RHODE ISLAND.]

Having thus sketched in the Vermont lines of Underground Railroad,

it is necessary for us to return to the consideration of the New

Bedford route, which had some accessory lines near its source.

One of these had stations at Newport and Providence, managed by

Quakers--Jethro and Anne Mitchell with others in the former, and

Daniel Mitchell in the latter.[412] Another was a short line

through Windham County, in the northeastern part of Connecticut,

to Uxbridge, where it joined the main line.[413] The Rev. Samuel

J. May, who was a resident of Brooklyn, Connecticut, in the early

thirties, had fugitives addressed to his care at that time, and he

helped them on to Effingham L. Capron while he lived in Uxbridge,

and afterwards when he settled in Worcester.[414] From Boston[415]

westward there were at least two paths to reach the New Bedford

road, one of these was by way of Newton to Worcester, and the other

through Concord to Leominster. Mr. William I. Bowditch generally

passed on the fugitives received at his house to Mr. William

Jackson, of Newton, thence they were sent by rail to Worcester.[416]

Colonel T. W. Higginson writes that fugitives were sometimes sent

from Boston to Worcester,[417] while he lived in the latter place,

and that he has himself driven them at midnight to the farm of

the veteran abolitionists, Stephen and Abby Kelley Foster, in the

suburbs of the city.[418] All along the short route, from Boston to

Leominster and Fitchburg, stations were systematically arranged,

according to the statement of Mrs. Mary E. Crocker,[419] who was

one of the helpers at Leominster.[420] This was the route taken by

Shadrach, after his rescue in Boston.[421]

[412] Letter of James S. Rogers, Chicago, Ill., April 17, 1897.

[413] Letters of Joel Fox, Willimantic, Conn., July 30, 1896, and

Aug. 3, 1896.

[414] _Some Recollections of our Anti-Slavery Conflict_, p. 297.

[415] "In Boston there were many places where fugitives were

received and taken care of. Every anti-slavery man was ready to

protect them, and among these were some families not known to be

anti-slavery." James Freeman Clarke, _Anti-Slavery Days_, p. 86.

[416] Letter of Mr. Bowditch, Boston, April 5, 1893.

[417] Letter of Mr. Higginson, Glimpsewood, Dublin, N.H., July

24, 1896.

[418] T. W. Higginson, _Atlantic Monthly_, March, 1897.

[419] Article on "The Fugitive Slave Law and Its Workings," in

_Fitchburg Daily Sentinel_, Oct. 31, 1893.

[420] Letter of Mr. F. B. Sanborn, Concord, Mass., Feb. 1, 1896,

states that "Concord was a place of resort for fugitives." Letter

of Mr. S. Shurtleff, South Paris, Me., May 25, 1896, states that

"The direct line of the Underground Railroad was from Boston

through Vermont, via St. Albans."

[421] _Atlantic Monthly_, March, 1897, p. 345; _Fitchburg Daily

Sentinel_, Oct. 31, 1893; letter of Mr. Sanborn, Concord, Mass.,

Feb. 1, 1896.

Boston was the starting-point of longer lines running north along

the coast; one, so far as can now be made out, turning and passing

obliquely across New Hampshire; the other following the shore into

Maine. Mr. Simeon Dodge, of Marblehead, Massachusetts, who had

intimate knowledge of the first of these courses, gives, in an

illustrative case, the names of Marblehead, Salem and Georgetown

as stations;[422] and Mr. G. W. Putnam, of Lynn, gives the names

of persons harboring slaves at two of these places.[423] A report

of the Danvers Historical Society is authority for the statement

that Mr. Dodge, together with some of the abolitionists of Salem,

maintained a secret thoroughfare to Canada,[424] which passed

through Danvers, and on through Concord, New Hampshire.[425] From

Concord fugitives were sent north to Canterbury and Meredith

Ridge[426] in two known instances, and more frequently, it appears,

to Canaan and Lyme. James Furber, who lived in Canaan for several

years, is said to have made trips to Lyme about once a fortnight

with refugees received by him.[427] From Lyme they may have gone

north by way of the Connecticut valley. At Salem the coast route

parted company with the New Hampshire route, and ran on through

Ipswich, Newburyport and Exeter[428] to Eliot, Maine, and perhaps

farther.

[422] Letter of Mr. Dodge, March, 1893.

[423] Letter of Mr. Putnam, Lynn, Mass., Feb. 14, 1894.

[424] _Old Anti-Slavery Days_, p. 150.

[425] Letter of David Mead, Davenport, Mass., Nov. 3, 1893.

[426] Letter of Judge Mellen Chamberlain, Chelsea, Mass., Feb. 1,

1896.

[427] Letter of C. E. Lord, Franklin, Pa., July 6, 1896.

[428] Letter of D. L. Brigham, Manchester, Mass., Nov. 16, 1893;

letter of Professor Marshall S. Snow, Washington University, St.

Louis, Mo., April 28, 1896.

Slaves sometimes reached Portland, Maine, travelling as stowaways

on vessels from Southern ports. Consequently Portland became the

centre of several hidden routes to Canada. Mr. S. T. Pickard, who

lived in the family of Mrs. Oliver Dennett in Portland, says that

Mrs. Dennett harbored runaway slaves, as did also Nathan Winslow

and General Samuel Fessenden. The fugitives that came to Portland,

he says, were on their way to New Brunswick and Lower Canada, and

some were shipped directly to England.[429] Mr. Brown Thurston, the

veteran abolitionist of Portland, is authority for the statement

that routes extended from Portland to the provinces, by water to

St. John, New Brunswick, and by rail to Montreal,[430] the road

used being the Grand Trunk.[431] An important overland route also

had its origin at Portland. Its two branches encircled Sebago Lake,

united at Bridgton, and formed a single pathway to the northwest,

and did not separate again until the eastern border of Vermont

was reached. There, at Lunenburg, one branch took its course up

the Connecticut valley to Stratford, and thence, probably, ran to

Stanstead, Quebec; while the other, passing more to the westward,

joined the easternmost of the branches from Montpelier, Vermont, at

Barton, and so entered Canada.[432] Besides, there were at least two

subsidiary routes, which were probably feeders of the "through line"

just described. One of them ran to South Paris and Lovell;[433] the

other, according to ex-President O. B. Cheney, of Bates College, who

was privy to its operations, ran to Effingham, North Parsonsfield

and Porter.[434] Both Lovell and Porter are within a few miles of

several of the stations that form a part of the Maine section of

this line, and could witnesses be found it is likely that their

testimony would sustain the view that external evidence suggests.

[429] Letter of Mr. Pickard, Portland, Me., Nov. 18, 1893.

[430] Letter of Mr. Thurston, Jan. 13, 1893.

[431] Letter of Mr. Thurston, Oct. 21, 1895; letter of Aaron

Dunn, South Paris, Me., April 9, 1896.

[432] Letter of J. Milton Hall, April 30, 1897.

[433] Letter of S. Shurtleff, May 25, 1896.

[434] Letter of Mr. Cheney, Pawtuxet, R.I., April 8, 1896.

In the free states included between the Ohio and the Mississippi

rivers the number of underground trails was much greater than in

the states farther east. Bordering on the slave states, Missouri,

Kentucky and Virginia, with a length of frontier greatly increased

by the sinuosities of the rivers, the states of Ohio, Indiana and

Illinois were the most favorably situated of all the Northern

states to receive fugitive slaves. Not only the bounding rivers

themselves, but also their numerous tributaries, became channels

of escape into free territory, and connected directly with many

lines of Underground Railroad. These lines of Road are shown on

the map as starting from the Ohio or the Mississippi, but they

cannot be supposed to have abruptly originated there, for in some

instances there were points south of these streams that formed an

essential part of the system. It is impossible to bring together

here the numerous bits of testimony through the correlation of

which the multitude of lines within the old Northwest Territory has

been traced. Only a general survey, therefore, of the Underground

Railroad system in the Western states will be undertaken, while

several smaller maps of limited areas will give the details of the

multiple and complex routes found therein.

Concerning the number of paths there were in Ohio it is almost

impossible to obtain a definite and correct idea. The location of

the state was favorable to the development of new lines with the

steady increase in the number of slaves fleeing across its southern

borders; and, in the process of development, it was natural that

the various branches should intertwine and form a great network.

To disentangle the strands of this web and say how many there were

is a thing not easy to accomplish, although an anonymous writer in

1842 seems to have found little or no difficulty in arriving at a

definite conclusion. His estimate appeared in the _Experiment_ of

December 7, and is as follows: "It is evident from the statements

of the abolitionists themselves, that there exist some eighteen or

nineteen thoroughly organized thoroughfares through the State of

Ohio for the transportation of runaway and stolen slaves, one of

which passes through Fitchville, and which to my certain knowledge

has done a 'land office business.'"[435] If the number of important

initial stations fringing the southern and eastern boundaries of

Ohio be counted as the points of origin of separate routes, it

would be correct to say that there were not less than twenty-two

or twenty-three routes in Ohio, but in a count thus made one would

fail to note the instances in which, as in the case of Cincinnati,

several lines sprang from one locality.

[435] The _Firelands Pioneer_, July, 1888, p. 67.

In the remaining portion of the Northwest Territory, the number of

lines was relatively not so great; and extended areas, as in the

western and northern parts of Indiana or the southeastern part of

Illinois, contained few or no lines so far as can now be discovered.

In western and northern Illinois the conditions were more favorable,

and the multiplicity of routes is such that on account of the

fusion, division and subdivision of roads it is impossible to say

how many lines crossed the state. In Michigan the case is not so

complicated, and one can trace with some clearness six or seven

paths leading to Detroit. Iowa, not a part, however, of the old

Northwest Territory, was traversed by lines terminating in Illinois,

and therefore deserves consideration here. In the southeastern

part of the state there were several short routes with initial

stations at Croton, Bloomfield, Lancaster and Cincinnati, all of

which had terminals no doubt along the Mississippi, though it has

been possible to complete but two of the routes. In southwestern

Iowa, Percival and the three roads branching from it are said to

have supplied means of egress for slaves from Missouri and Nebraska

through three tiers of counties ranging across the state in lines

parallel with the north boundary of Missouri. John Brown took the

northernmost of these parallel roads in the winter of 1858 and 1859,

when he led a company of twelve fugitives from Missouri through

Kansas to Percival on their way to Chicago and Detroit.

[Illustration: UNDERGROUND LINES OF MORGAN COUNTY, OHIO. Drawn by

Thomas Williams.]

Of the local maps, the first represents the lines passing through a

portion of Morgan County, in the southeastern part of Ohio. It was

drawn by Mr. Thomas Williams, whose services in behalf of runaways

made him familiar with the location of operators in the western

part of his county.[436] The area represented is twenty-five miles

in length and sixteen in width at the widest part, and contains

nineteen stations including the towns through which routes passed.

The irregular distribution of these stations, and the way in which

trips could be varied from one to another to suit the convenience

of conductors or to elude pursuers is apparent. The fugitives that

travelled over these routes crossed the Ohio River in the vicinity

of Parkersburg and Point Pleasant, in what is now West Virginia, and

proceeded north twenty or thirty miles by the help of abolitionists

before reaching Morgan County. The southern part of this county

was traversed by two parallel lines, one of which branched at

Rosseau and ran on in parallels to the northern part of the county

whence after sharp deflection to the west the branches converged

at Deavertown; the other issued from its first station in three

divergent lines, which rapidly converged at Pennsville and were

united by a single course to the first route. In case of emergency a

guide used his knowledge and discretion as to whether he should "cut

across lots," skip stations, travel by the "longest way around," or

go back on his track. The houses noted on the map as being off the

regular routes appear to have been emergency stations and hence not

so frequently used.

[436] Corroborative evidence as regards the routes of Morgan

County is found in letters from the following persons: E. M.

Stanberry, McConnellsville, O., Nov. 1, 1892; T. L. Gray,

Deavertown, O., Dec. 2, 1892; Martha Millions, Pennsville, O.,

March 9, 1892; E. R. Brown, Sugar Grove, O.; H. C. Harvey,

Manchester, Kan., Jan. 16, 1893.

A special map of exceeding interest and importance is that drawn by

Mr. Lewis Falley, of La Fayette, Indiana, showing the underground

lines of Indiana and Michigan about 1848. Mr. Falley's acquaintance

with the Road came about through the work of his father in the

interest of fugitives in La Fayette after 1841. Subsequently

Mr. Falley learned of the lines traversing his state through an

itinerant preacher who sometimes stopped as a guest at his father's

house. When Mr. Falley's map was received in March, 1896, the author

himself had already plotted from other testimony a number of routes

in southern and eastern Indiana and in Michigan, and a comparison

of maps was made. On Mr. Falley's map three main roads appear, the

eastern, middle and western routes. The first of these ran parallel,

roughly speaking, with the eastern boundary line of the state only

a few miles from it, and took its rise from two lesser paths, which

converged at Richmond from either side of the state line. The second

or middle route sprang from three branches that crossed the Ohio at

Madison, New Albany, and the neighborhood of Leavenworth, passed

north through Indianapolis and Logansport, and entered Michigan a

few miles east of Lake Michigan. The third or western route followed

up the Wabash River to La Fayette, where it crossed the river,

proceeded to Rensselaer, and thence northeasterly to the Michigan

line, making its entrance to Michigan at the point where the middle

route entered that state. From the two crossing-places on the

Michigan border the northern extensions of the Indiana routes found

their way to Battle Creek, from which station one trail led directly

east to Detroit, and the other, by a more northerly course, to Port

Huron. In southern Indiana the eastern route was connected with the

middle route by a branch between Greensburg and Indianapolis, and

the middle with the western by two branches, one between Salem and

Evansville, and the other between Brownstown and Bloomingdale.

[Illustration: ROUTES THROUGH INDIANA AND MICHIGAN IN 1848.

As traced by Lewis Falley.]

In the general map prepared by the author, the southern route

through Michigan to Detroit, and the eastern, middle, and a portion

of the western routes in Indiana on the map of Mr. Falley are

duplicated with more or less completeness. The initial stations

along the Ohio River correspond in the two maps almost exactly, and

many of the way-stations seen on the one map are to be found on the

other. It is not to be expected that the two maps would agree in

all particulars, and some stations occur on each that are not to be

found on the other. Such differences are due to the development of

new or the obliteration of old lines and the insufficient knowledge

of the draughtsmen. It is not known that a map similar to Mr.

Falley's has been devised for any other state or states among the

many through which well-defined underground routes extended.

[Illustration: SIMPLE ROUTE THROUGH LIVINGSTON AND LA SALLE

COUNTIES, ILLINOIS.

Drawn by William B. Fyffe.]

From a drawing made by Mr. W. B. Fyffe, an old-time station-agent

of Ottawa, Illinois, the accompanying chart of a line of escape

through Livingston and La Salle counties in Illinois is reproduced.

The portion of the trail represented is about forty miles in length,

and is remarkable for the directness of its course and the absence

of interlacing lines. At Ottawa, the northernmost station shown, the

trail loses these two characteristics, for it makes there a sharp

turn on its way to the terminus, Chicago, and at Ottawa also it

makes a junction with several other lines from the western part of

the state.[437]

[437] For these features see the general map.

A number of noteworthy features appear on the general map. The first

deserving mention is the direction or trend of the underground

lines. The region traversed by these lines may be described as an

irregular crescent, the concavity of which is in part filled by a

portion of Ontario, Canada, which by reason of its proximity became

the goal of the great majority of runaways. In the New England

states the direction of the underground paths was, with perhaps an

exception or two, from southeast to northwest, their objective point

being Montreal. The main lines of Pennsylvania and New York ran

north until they reached the middle part of the latter state, and

then veered off almost directly west to Canada. West of Pennsylvania

the trend of the routes was in general to northeast, being in Ohio

and Indiana to the shores of Lake Erie, and in Illinois and Iowa

to the southern extremity of Lake Michigan. Through central Iowa,

northern Illinois and southern Michigan, the course of the routes

was almost directly east.

[Illustration: NETWORK OF ROUTES THROUGH GREENE, WARREN AND CLINTON

COUNTIES, OHIO.]

It is not surprising that the regions through which the simplest

and most direct routes passed should have been those at the two

extremities of the great irregular crescent of free soil, where the

number of routes was few and the activity of the stations limited.

In the states that formed the middle portion of the crescent, it

was natural that multiple and intricate trails should have been

developed. The fact that slave-owners and their agents often sallied

into this region in search of missing chattels was a consideration

given due weight by the shrewd operators, who early learned that

one of their best safeguards lay in complex routes, made by several

lines radiating from one centre, or branch connections between

routes, by paths that zigzagged from station to station. These

features were characteristic, and serve to show that the safety

of fugitives was never sacrificed by the abolitionists to any

thoughtless desire for rapid transit. From Cincinnati, Ohio, not

less than four branches of the Road radiated. One of these led to

Fountain City, Indiana, where it was joined by two other important

lines. From this point four lines diverged to the north. At Oberlin

as many as five lines converged from the south. Quincy, Illinois,

was the starting-point of four or five lines, and Knoxville, Ottawa

and Chicago in the same state each received fugitives from several

routes. The region in which the devices of multiple routes and

cross lines were most highly developed is, as far as known, in

southeastern Pennsylvania.

Some broken lines and isolated place-names occur upon the map.

For example, in Iowa, branches of the system have been traced to

Quincy, Indianola, North English and Ottumwa, but beyond these

points the connections cannot be made. Examples of such incomplete

sections will be found also in northern and central Illinois,

in central Indiana, in western New York, in central and eastern

Pennsylvania and in other states. It is not to be supposed that the

routes represented by these fragmentary lines terminated abruptly

without reaching a haven of safety, but only that the witnesses

whose testimony is essential to complete the lines have not been

discovered. In the case of the isolated place-names, a few of which

occur in the New England states, in New York, Pennsylvania, Indiana

and Illinois, the evidence at hand seemed to designate them as

stations, without indicating in any definite way the neighboring

stations with which they were probably allied.

On the general map may be noticed a few long stretches of Road that

had apparently no way-stations. Such lines are usually identical

with certain rivers, or canals, or railway systems. It has already

been seen that the Connecticut River served to guide fugitives

north on their way to Canada.[438] The Mississippi, Illinois,

Ohio, Alleghany, and Hudson rivers united stations more or less

widely separated.[439] The tow-paths of some of our western canals

formed convenient highways to liberty for a considerable number

of self-reliant fugitives, and were considered safer than public

roads. A letter from E. C. H. Cavins, of Bloomfield, Indiana,[440]

states that the Wabash and Erie Canal became a thoroughfare for

slaves, who followed it from the vicinity of Evansville, Indiana,

until they reached Ohio, probably in some instances going as far

as Toledo, though usually, as the writer believes, striking off on

one or another of several established lines of Underground Road in

central and northern Indiana. James Bayliss,[441] of Massillon,

in northeastern Ohio, states that fugitives sometimes came up the

tow-path of the canal to Massillon, knowing that the canal led to

Cleveland, whence a boat could be taken for Canada.[442]

[438] See p. 129, this chapter.

[439] See the language of Jefferson Davis, quoted on p. 312,

Chapter X; letter of A. P. Dutton, Racine, Wis., April 7, 1896;

E. M. Pettit, _Sketches in the History of the Underground

Railroad_, pp. 29, 30, 31; letter of Florence and Cordelia H.

Ray, referred to on p. 126, this chapter.

[440] Letter of Mr. Cavins, Dec. 5, 1895.

[441] Conversation with James Bayliss, Massillon, O., Aug. 15,

1895.

[442] Letter of Brown Thurston, Portland, Me., Oct. 21, 1895.

The identity of a few of the tracings with steam railway lines

signifies, of course, transportation by rail when the situation

admitted of it. Sometimes, when there was not the usual eagerness

of pursuit, and when the intelligence or the Caucasian cast of

features of the fugitive warranted it, the traveller was provided

with the necessary ticket and instructions, and put aboard the

cars for his destination. The Providence and Worcester and the

Vermont Central railroads furnished quick transportation from

New Bedford, Massachusetts, to Canada.[443] In southeastern

Pennsylvania the Philadelphia and Reading Railroad carried many

slaves on their way to freedom, and according to Smedley, "All who

took the trains at the Reading Railroad stations went directly

through to Canada."[444] E. F. Pennypacker often forwarded negroes

from Schuylkill to Philadelphia over this road, and William Still

sent them on their northward journey.[445] Fugitives arriving at

Harrisburg, Pennsylvania, sometimes took passage over the Northern

Central Railroad to Elmira, New York. Mr. Jervis Langdon and John

W. Jones, of Elmira, took care that underground passengers secured

transportation from Elmira to their destination. The fugitives were

always put in the baggage-car at four o'clock in the morning,[446]

and went through without change to the Niagara River. The old Mad

River Railroad bore many dark-skinned passengers from Urbana, if

not also from Cincinnati and Dayton, Ohio, to Lake Erie.[447] In

eastern Ohio the Cleveland and Western Railroad, from Alliance to

Cleveland, was much patronized during several years by instructed

runaways. Mr. I. Newton Peirce, then living in Alliance, had "an

understanding with all the passenger-train conductors on the C.

and W. R. R." that colored persons provided with tickets bearing

the initials I. N. P. were to be admitted to the trains without

question, unless slave-catchers were thought to be aboard the

cars.[448] Indiana and Michigan are known to have had their steam

railway lines in the secret service system: in the former state

the Louisville, New Albany and Chicago Railroad was utilized by

operators at Crawfordsville;[449] in the latter the Michigan

Central supplied a convenient outlet to Detroit from stations

along its course.[450] The Chicago and Rock Island Railroad from

Peru, Lasalle County, Illinois, to Chicago was incorporated in the

service, so also was the Illinois Central from Cairo and Centralia

to the same terminus. The Chicago, Burlington and Quincy Railroad

sometimes conveyed fugitives from Quincy on the Mississippi River to

Chicago. Two men of prominence connected with this road, who secured

transportation over its rails for many Canada-bound passengers, were

Dr. C. V. Dyer, of Chicago, and Colonel Berrien, chief engineer of

the road.[451]

[443] See p. 80, Chapter III.

[444] _Underground Railroad_, p. 174. See also pp. 176, 177.

[445] _Ibid._, pp. 364, 365.

The following letter from Mr. Pennypacker to Mr. Still explains

itself:

"SCHUYLKILL, 11th Mo., 7th, 1857.

WILLIAM STILL, _Respected Friend_,--There are three colored

friends at my house now, who will reach the city by the

Philadelphia and Reading train this evening. Please meet them.

Thine, etc., E. F. PENNYPACKER.

We have within the past two months passed forty-three through

our hands, transported most of them to Norristown in our own

conveyance. E. F. P."

[446] Letter of Mr. Jones, Elmira, N.Y., Jan. 16, 1897.

[447] See p. 78, Chapter III.

[448] Letter of Mr. Peirce, Folcroft, Delaware Co., Pa., Feb. 1,

1893.

[449] See p. 79, Chapter III.

[450] _Ibid._

[451] _Life and Poems of John Howard Bryant_, p. 30. Mr. Bryant

made a practice of receiving fugitives in his house in Princeton,

Ill.

Along the portion of the Atlantic coast shown on the map will

be seen long lines connecting Southern with Northern ports.

These represent routes to liberty by sea. It is reported by a

station-keeper of Valley Falls, Rhode Island, that "Slaves in

Virginia would secure passage either secretly or with the consent of

the captains, in small trading vessels, at Norfolk or Portsmouth,

and thus be brought into some port in New England, where their fate

depended on circumstances;"[452] and the reporter gives several

instances coming within her knowledge of fugitives that escaped

from Virginia to Massachusetts as stowaways on vessels.[453]

Boats engaged in the lumber trade sometimes brought refugees from

Newberne, North Carolina, to Philadelphia.[454] Captain Austin

Bearse, who was active in the rescue of stowaways from vessels

arriving in Boston harbor from the South, cites two instances in

which fugitives came by sea from Wilmington, North Carolina,

and another from Jacksonville, Florida.[455] William Still gives

a number of cases of escape by boat from Richmond and Norfolk,

Virginia, and Wilmington, North Carolina, to the Vigilance Committee

at Philadelphia.[456] Negroes arriving in New York City and coming

within the horizon of Isaac T. Hopper's knowledge were often sent by

water to Providence and Boston.[457]

[452] Mrs. Elizabeth Buffum Chace, _Anti-Slavery Reminiscences_,

p. 27.

[453] _Ibid._, pp. 28, 30.

[454] R. C. Smedley, _Underground Railroad_, p. 355.

[455] _Reminiscences of Fugitive-Slave Law Days in Boston_, pp.

34, 36, 37.

[456] William Still, _Underground Railroad Records_, pp. 77, 142,

151, 163, 165, 211, etc.

[457] Letter of James S. Rogers, Chicago, Ill., April 17, 1897.

Of the terminal stations or places of deportation along our

northeastern boundary, there are not less than twenty-four, and

probably many more. Three of them, Boston, Portland and St. Albans,

were located in the New England states. Fugitives were probably less

often sent directly to English soil from Boston than from the two

other points, and in the few instances of which we have any hint,

with perhaps one exception, the passengers so sent were put aboard

vessels sailing for England. The boats running between Portland and

the Canadian provinces were freely made use of to help slaves to

their freedom, especially as the emigrants were often provided with

passes. Sailing-vessels also furnished free passage, and carried the

majority of the passengers that went from Portland.[458] St. Albans

was the terminal of the Vermont line. Many fugitives were received

and cared for here, and were sent on by private conveyance across

the Canada border before the Vermont Central Railroad was built.

Afterwards they were sent by rail, through the intervention of the

Hon. Lawrence Brainerd, of St. Albans, who was one of the projectors

of the steam railroad and largely interested in it financially.[459]

[458] Letter of Brown Thurston, Portland, Me., Oct. 21, 1895.

[459] Letter of Aldis O. Brainerd, St. Albans, Vt., Oct. 21, 1895.

Along the northern boundary of New York and Pennsylvania there seem

to have been not less than ten resorts facing the Canadian frontier.

These were Ogdensburg,[460] Cape Vincent, Port Ontario, Oswego,

some port near Rochester, Lewiston, Suspension Bridge, Black Rock,

Buffalo, Dunkirk Harbor and Erie. Doubtless the most important of

these crossing-places were the four along the Niagara River, for

here the most travelled of the routes in New York terminated. The

harbors along Lake Ontario and the one on the St. Lawrence River

appear to have been the terminals of side-tracks and branches rather

than of main lines of Road.

[460] "They crossed at Detroit and at Niagara and at Ogdensburg.

Of those in New England, some went up through Vermont, some fled

to Maine, and crossed over into New Brunswick." F. W. Seward,

_Seward at Washington as Senator and Secretary of State_, Vol. I,

p. 170.

Ohio may lay claim to eight terminal stations, all comparatively

important. The best-known of these appear to have been Ashtabula

Harbor, Painesville, Cleveland, Sandusky and Toledo, although the

other three, Huron, Lorain and Conneaut, may be supposed, from their

locations, to have done a thriving business. It is impossible to

get now a measure of the efficiency of these various ports, for

the period during which they were resorted to was a long one, and

operators were obliged to work more or less independently, and

obtained no adequate idea of the number emigrating from any one

point. Custom-house methods were not followed in keeping account

of the negroes exported across the Canada frontier. All that can

be said in comparing these various ports is that Ashtabula Harbor,

Cleveland and Sandusky, each seems to have been the terminus for

four or five lines of Road, while perhaps only two or three lines

ended at Toledo and Painesville, and one each at Huron, Lorain and

Conneaut. Concerning the port at Huron we have a few observations,

made by Mr. L. S. Stow, who lived a few miles from Lake Erie on

the course of the Milan canal, and near one of the managers of the

terminal, on whose premises fugitives often awaited the appearance

of a Canada-bound boat. He says: "We used to see, occasionally,

the fugitives, who ventured out for exercise while waiting for an

opportunity to get on one of the vessels frequently passing down the

canal and river from Milan, during the season of navigation. Many

of these vessels passed through the Welland Canal on their way to

the lower Lakes, and after leaving the harbor at Huron the fugitives

were safe from the pursuit of their masters unless the vessels were

compelled by stress of weather to return to harbor."[461]

[461] The _Firelands Pioneer_, July, 1888, pp. 80, 81.

[Illustration: THE DETROIT RIVER, AT DETROIT, MICHIGAN, IN 1850,

THE FAVORITE PLACE FOR FUGITIVES TO CROSS INTO CANADA.

(From an engraving in possession of C. M. Burton, Esq., of Detroit.)]

[Illustration: HARBOR, ASHTABULA COUNTY, OHIO, IN 1860,

A PLACE OF DEPORTATION FOR FUGITIVES ON LAKE ERIE.

(From a photograph in possession of J. D. Hulbert, Esq., of Harbor,

Ohio.)]

Hundreds, nay, thousands of fugitives found crossing-places along

the Detroit River, especially at the city of Detroit. The numerous

routes of Indiana together with several of the chief routes of

western Ohio poured their passengers into Detroit, thence to be

transported by ferries and row-boats to the tongue of land pressing

its shore-line for thirty miles from Lake Erie to Lake St. Clair

upon the very borders of Michigan. The movement of slaves to this

region was a fact of which Southerners early became apprised, and

their efforts to recover their servants as these were about to

enter the Canaan already within sight were occasionally successful,

although the majority of the people of Detroit[462] and of the

surrounding districts rejoiced to see the slave-catchers outwitted.

[462] Silas Farmer, _History of Detroit and Michigan_, p. 346.

The places of deportation remaining to be mentioned are four, along

the southwestern shore of Lake Michigan, namely, Milwaukee, Racine,

South Port and Chicago. Of these the last-named was, doubtless,

the most important, since through it chiefly were drained off the

fugitives that came from Missouri over the routes of Iowa and

Illinois. A single operator of Chicago, Mr. Philo Carpenter, is said

to have guided not less than two hundred negroes to Canada-bound

vessels.[463]

[463] Edward G. Mason, _Early Chicago and Illinois_, p. 110.

The lines of boat-service to the Canadian termini require a few

words of comment. The longest line of travel on the lakes was that

connecting the ports of Wisconsin and Illinois with Detroit or

Amherstburg,[464] and was only approached in length by the route

from Chicago to Collingwood, Ontario.[465] Five hundred miles

would be a minimum statement of the distance refugees were carried

by the boats of abolitionist captains from these westernmost

ports to their havens of refuge. On Lake Erie the routes were, of

course, much shorter, and ran up and down the lake, as well as

across it. Important routes joined Toledo, Sandusky and Cleveland

to Amherstburg and Detroit at one end of the lake, and Dunkirk,

Ashtabula Harbor, Painesville and Cleveland with Buffalo and

Black Rock at the other end of the lake. Certain boats running

on these routes came to be known as abolition boats, with ample

accommodations for underground passengers. Thus, we are told, such

passengers "depended on a vessel named the _Arrow_, which for many

years plied between Sandusky and Detroit, but always touched first

at Malden, Canada, where the fugitives were landed."[466] Frequent

use was also made of scows, sail-boats and sharpies, with which

refugees could be "set across" the lake, and landed at almost any

point along the shore. Small vessels, a part of whose "freight" had

been received from the Underground Railroad, were often despatched

to Port Burwell in the night from the warehouse of Hubbard

and Company, forwarding and commission merchants of Ashtabula

Harbor.[467] Similar enterprises were carried on at various other

points along the lake.[468] So far as known, Lake Ontario had only a

few comparatively insignificant routes: at the upper end of the lake

were two, one joining Rochester and St. Catherines, the other, St.

Catherines and Toronto; at the lower end of the lake, Oswego, Port

Ontario and Cape Vincent seem to have been connected by lines with

Kingston.

[464] See Chapter III, pp. 82, 83.

[465] Letter of John G. Weiblen, Fairview, Erie Co., Pa., Nov.

26, 1895.

[466] The _Firelands Pioneer_, July, 1888, p. 77.

[467] Conversation with Nelson Watrous, Harbor, O., Aug. 8, 1892;

conversation with J. D. Hulbert, Harbor, O., Aug. 7, 1892.

[468] The following incident given by Mr. Rush R. Sloane will

serve as an illustration: "In the summer of 1853, four fugitives

arrived at Sandusky. ... Mr. John Irvine ... had arranged for a

'sharpee,' a small sail-boat used by fishermen, with one George

Sweigels, to sail the boat to Canada with this party, for which

service Captain Sweigels was to receive thirty-five dollars. One

man accompanied Captain Sweigels, and at eight o'clock in the

evening this party in this small boat started to cross Lake Erie.

The wind was favorable, and before morning Point au Pelee Island

was reached, and the next day the four escaped fugitives were in

Canada." The _Firelands Pioneer_, July, 1888, pp. 49, 50.

It is impossible to tell how many cities, towns and villages in

Canada became terminals of the underground system. Outside of the

interlake region of Ontario it is safe to name Kingston, Prescott,

Montreal, Stanstead and St. John, New Brunswick. Within that region

the terminals were numerous, being scattered from the southern

shore of Georgian Bay to Lake Erie, and from the Detroit and Huron

rivers to the Niagara. Owen Sound, Collingwood and Oro were the

northernmost resorts, so far as now known. Toronto, Queen's Bush,

Wellesley, Galt and Hamilton occupied territory south of these, and

farther south still, in the marginal strip fronting directly on Lake

Erie, there were not less than twenty more places of refuge. The

most important of these were naturally those situated at either end

of the strip, and along the shore-line, namely, Windsor, Sandwich

and Amherstburg, New Canaan, Colchester and Kingsville, Gosfield

and Buxton, Port Stanley, Port Burwell and Port Royal, Long Point,

Fort Erie and St. Catherines. In the valley of the Thames also many

refugees settled, especially at Chatham, Dresden and Dawn, and at

Sydenham, London and Wilberforce. The names of two additional towns,

Sarnia on the Huron River and Brantford on the Grand, complete the

list of the known Canadian terminals. This enumeration of centres

cannot be supposed to be exhaustive. A full record would take into

account the localities in the outlying country districts as well as

those adjoining or forming a part of the hamlets, towns and cities

of the whites, whither the blacks had penetrated. The untrodden

wilds of Canada, as well as her populous places, seemed hospitable

to a people for whom the hardships of the new life were fully

compensated by the consciousness of their possession of the rights

of freemen, rights vouchsafed them by a government that exemplified

the proud boast of the poet Cowper:--

"Slaves cannot breathe in England; if their lungs

Receive our air, that moment they are free!

They touch our country and their shackles fall."

CHAPTER VI

ABDUCTION OF SLAVES FROM THE SOUTH

Most persons that engaged in the underground service were opposed

either to enticing or to abducting slaves from the South. This

was no less true along the southern border of the free states

than in their interior. The principle generally acted upon by the

friends of fugitives was that which they held to be voiced in the

Scriptural injunction to feed the hungry and clothe the naked. The

quaking negro at the door in the dead of night seeking relief from

a condition, the miseries of which he found intolerable and for

which he was in no proper sense responsible, was a figure to be

pitied, and to be helped without delay. Under such circumstances

there was no room for casuistry in the mind of the abolitionist.

The response of his warm nature was as decisive as his favorite

passage of Scripture was imperative. The fugitive was fed,

clothed if necessary, and guided to another friend farther on.

But abolitionists were unwilling, for the most part, to involve

themselves more deeply in danger by abducting slaves from thraldom.

The Rev. John B. Mahan, one of the early anti-slavery men of

southern Ohio, expressed this fact when he said, "I am confident

that few, if any, for various reasons, would invade the jurisdiction

of another state to give aid and encouragement to slaves to escape

from their owners...."[469] And in northern Ohio, in so radical a

town as Oberlin, a famous station of the Underground Road, we are

told that there was no sentiment in favor of enticing slaves away,

and that this was never done except in one case--by Calvin Fairbank,

a student.[470]

[469] _History of Brown County, Ohio_, p. 315.

[470] Conversation with ex-President James H. Fairchild, Oberlin,

O., Aug. 3, 1892.

The general disinclination to induce escapes of slaves, either by

secret invitation or by persons serving as guides, renders the

few cases conspicuous, and gives them considerable interest. When

instances of this kind became known to the slave-owners, as for

example, by the arrest and imprisonment of some over-venturesome

offender, the irritation resulting on both sides of Mason and

Dixon's line was apt to be disproportionate to the magnitude of

the cause. Nevertheless the aggravation of sectional feeling thus

produced was real, and was valued by some Northern agitators as a

means to a better understanding of the system of slavery.[471]

[471] See the Annual Reports of the Massachusetts Anti-Slavery

Society.

The largest number of abduction cases occurred through the

activities of those well-disposed towards fugitives by the

attachments of race. There were many negroes, enslaved and free,

along the southern boundaries of New Jersey, Pennsylvania, Ohio,

Indiana, Illinois and Iowa, whose opportunities were numerous for

conveying fugitives to free soil with slight risk to themselves.

These persons sometimes did scarcely more than ferry runaways across

a stream or direct them to the homes of friends residing near the

line of a free state. In the vicinity of Martin's Ferry, Ohio,

there lived a colored man who frequented the Virginia shore for the

purpose of persuading slaves to run away. He was in the habit of

imparting the necessary information, and then displaying himself

in an intoxicated condition, feigned or real, to avoid suspicion.

At last he was found out, but escaped by betaking himself to

Canada.[472] In the neighborhood of Portsmouth, Ohio, slaves were

conveyed across the river by one Poindexter, a barber of the town of

Jackson.[473] In Baltimore, Maryland, two colored women, who engaged

in selling vegetables, were efficient in starting fugitives on the

way to Philadelphia.[474] At Louisville, Kentucky, Wash Spradley,

a shrewd negro, was instrumental in helping many of his enslaved

brethren out of bondage.[475] These few instances will suffice to

illustrate the secret enterprises conducted by colored persons on

both sides of the sectional line once dividing the North from the

South.

[472] Conversation with Mrs. Joel Woods, at Martin's Ferry, Aug.

19, 1892.

[473] Conversation with Judge Jesse W. Laird, Jackson, O., June,

1895.

[474] Conversation with Mr. Robert Purvis, at Philadelphia, Dec.

23, 1895.

[475] Conversation with John Evans, at Windsor, Ont., C.W., Aug.

2, 1895; John Evans was a slave near Louisville, but was given

his liberty in 1850, when his master became financially involved.

Another class of colored persons that undertook the work of

delivering some of their race from the cruel uncertainties of

slavery may be found among the refugees of Canada. Describing the

early development of the movement of slaves to Canada, Dr. Samuel

G. Howe says of these persons, "Some, not content with personal

freedom and happiness, went secretly back to their old homes and

brought away their wives and children at much peril and cost."[476]

It has been stated that the number of these persons visiting the

South annually was about five hundred.[477] Mr. D. B. Hodge, of

Lloydsville, Ohio, gives the case of a negro that went to Canada by

way of New Athens, and in the course of a year returned over the

same route, went to Kentucky, and brought away his wife and two

children, making his pilgrimage northward again after the lapse of

about two months.[478] Another case, reported by Mr. N. C. Buswell,

of Neponset, Illinois, is as follows: A slave, Charlie, belonging to

a Missouri planter living near Quincy, Illinois, escaped to Canada

by way of one of the underground routes. Ere long he decided to

return and get his wife, but found she had been sold South. When

making his second journey eastward he brought with him a family of

slaves, who preferred freedom to remaining as the chattels of his

old master. This was the first of a number of such trips made by

the fugitive Charlie.[479] Mr. Seth Linton,[480] who was familiar

with the work on a line of this Road running through Clinton County,

Ohio, reports that a fugitive that had passed along the route

returned after some months, saying he had come back to rescue his

wife. His absence in the slave state continued so long that it was

feared he had been captured, but after some weeks he reappeared,

bringing his wife and her father with him. He told of having seen

many slaves in the country and said they would be along as soon

as they could escape. The following year the Clinton County line

was unusually busy. A brave woman named Armstrong escaped with

her husband and one child to Canada in 1842. Two years later she

determined to rescue the remainder of her family from the Kentucky

plantation where she had left them, and, disguised as a man, she

went back to the old place. Hiding near a spring, where her children

were accustomed to get water, she was able to give instructions to

five of them, and the following night she departed with her flock to

an underground station at Ripley, Ohio.[481]

[476] Howe, _The Refugees from Slavery in Canada West_, p. 11.

[477] Redpath, _The Public Life of Captain John Brown_, p. 229.

[478] Letter from Mr. D. B. Hodge, Oct. 9, 1894.

[479] Letter from Colonel N. C. Buswell, March 13, 1896.

[480] Letter from Seth Linton.

[481] The _Firelands Pioneer_, July, 1888, p. 39.

Equally zealous in the slaves' behalf with the groups of persons

mentioned in the last two paragraphs were certain individuals of

Southern birth and white parentage, who found the opportunity to

conduct slaves beyond the confines of the plantation states. Robert

Purvis tells of the son of a planter, who sometimes travelled into

the free states with a retinue of body-servants for the purpose

of having them fall into the hands of vigilant abolitionists. The

author has heard similar stories in regard to the sons of Kentucky

slave-owners, but the names of the parties concerned were withheld

for obvious reasons.

John Fairfield, a Virginian, devoted much time and thought to

abducting slaves. Levi Coffin, who knew him intimately, describes

him as a person full of contradictions, who, although a Southerner

by birth, and living the greater part of the time in the South, yet

hated slavery; a person lacking in moral quality, but devoted to the

interests of the slave.[482] John Fairfield's ostensible business

was, at times, that of a poultry and provision dealer; and his

views, when he was among planters, were pro-slavery. Nevertheless

his abiding interest seems to have been to despoil slaveholders

of their human property. He made excursions into various parts

of the South, and led many companies safely through to Canada.

While Laura Haviland was serving as a mission teacher in Canada

West (1852-1853), Fairfield arrived at Windsor, bringing with

him twenty-seven slaves. Mrs. Haviland, who witnessed the happy

conclusion of this adventure, testifies that it was but one of

many, and that the abductor often made expeditions into the heart

of the slaveholding states to secure his companies. On the occasion

of the arrival of the Virginian with the twenty-seven a reception

and dinner were given in his honor by appreciative friends in one

of the churches of the colored people, and a sort of jubilee was

celebrated. The ecstasies of some of the guests, among them an old

negro woman over eighty years of age, touched the heart of their

benefactor, who exclaimed, "This pays me for all dangers I have

faced in bringing this company, just to see these friends meet."[483]

[482] Coffin, _Reminiscences_, pp. 304, 305; letter of Miss H. N.

Wilson, College Hill, O., April 14, 1892.

[483] Laura S. Haviland, _A Woman's Life Work_, p. 199.

In a letter dated Lawrence, Kan., March 23, 1893, Mr. Fitch Reed

gives some of the circumstances connected with the progress of

this company through the last stages of its journey. He says: "In

1853, there came over the road twenty-eight in one gang, with a

conductor by the name of Fairfield, from Virginia, who had aided

in liberating all his father's and uncle's slaves, and there was

a reward out for him of five hundred dollars, dead or alive. They

had fifty-two rounds of arms, and were determined not to be taken

alive. Four teams from my house [in Cambridge, Mich.] started at

sunset, drove through Clinton after dark, got to Ypsilanti before

daylight. Stayed at Bro. Ray's through the day. At noon, Bro.

M. Coe, from our station, got on the cars and went to Detroit,

and left Ray to drive his team. Coe informed the friends of the

situation, and made arrangements for their reception. The friends

came out to meet them ten miles before we came to Detroit,

piloted us to a large boarding-house by the side of the river.

Two hundred abolitionists took breakfast with them just before

daylight. We procured boats enough for Fairfield and his crew.

As they pushed off from shore, they all commenced singing the

song, 'I am on my way to Canada, where colored men are free,' and

continued firing off their arms till out of hearing. At eight

o'clock, the ferry-boats started, and the station-keepers went

over and spent most of the day with them."

Northern men residing or travelling in the South were sometimes

tempted to encourage slaves to flee to Canada, or even to plan and

execute abductions. Jacob Cummings, a slave belonging to a small

planter, James Smith, of southeastern Tennessee, was befriended by

a Mr. Leonard, of Chattanooga, who had become an abolitionist in

Albany, New York, before his removal to the South. Cummings was

occasionally sent on errands to Mr. Leonard's store. This gave the

Northerner the desired opportunity to show his slave customer where

Ohio and Indiana are on the map, and to advise him to go to Canada.

As Cummings had a "hard master" he did not long delay his going.[484]

[484] Conversation with Jacob Cummings, Columbus, O., April, 1894.

The risks and costs of a long trip were not too great for the

enthusiastic abolitionist who felt that immediate rescue must be

attempted. One remarkable incident illustrates the determination

sometimes displayed in freeing a slave. Two brothers from

Connecticut settled in the District of Columbia about the year

1848. They became gardeners, and employed among their hands a

colored woman, who was hired out to them by her master. Soon after

the passage of the Fugitive Slave Law (1850) she came weeping to

her employers with the news that she was to be sold "down South."

Stirred by her impending misfortune, one of the brothers had a large

box made, within which he nailed the slave-woman and her young

daughter. With the box in his market-wagon he set out on a long,

arduous trip across Maryland and Pennsylvania into New York. After

three weeks of travel he reached his journey's end at Warsaw. Here

he delivered his charge to the care of friends, among whom they

found a permanent home.[485]

[485] Conversation with the daughter mentioned, now the wife

of William Burghardt, Warsaw, N.Y., June, 1894. Article on the

Underground Railroad in the _History of Warsaw, New York_.

There were ardent abolitionists living almost within sight of slave

territory that had no scruples about helping slaves across the

line and passing them on to freedom. In 1836, Dr. David Nelson, a

Virginian, who had freed his slaves and moved to Marion County,

Missouri, and had there founded Marion College, was driven into

Illinois on account of his anti-slavery views. He settled at Quincy,

and soon established the Mission Institute, which was chiefly a

school for the education of missionaries. Mr. N. A. Hunt, now

eighty-five years old but apparently of clear mind, was a student in

Mission Institute in its early years. He relates an incident showing

the spirit existing in the school, a spirit that manifested itself

a little later in the actions of Messrs Burr, Work and Thompson.

His story is that Dr. Nelson came to him one day in the spring of

1839 or 1840, and asked him to go with another student across the

Mississippi River and patrol the shore opposite Quincy. The students

were to make signals at intervals by tapping stones together, and if

their signals were answered they were to help such as needed help by

conducting them to a place of safety, a station on the Underground

Railroad, sixteen miles east of Quincy. The station could be easily

recognized, for it was a red barn. The time chosen for crossing the

river was always a Sunday night, a time known to be the best for the

persons sometimes found waiting on the other side. This detailing

of a watch from the school was regularly done, although with what

results is not known.[486]

[486] Letter from N. A. Hunt, of Riverside, Cal., Feb. 12, 1891.

Among the students attending this Institute in 1841 were James E.

Burr and George Thompson. These young men, together with a villager,

Alanson Work, arranged with two slaves to convey them from bondage

in Missouri. The abductors found themselves surrounded by a crowd of

angry Missourians, and were speedily committed to jail in Palmyra.

To insure the conviction of the prisoners three indictments were

brought against them, one charging them with "stealing slaves,

another with attempting to steal them, and the other with intending

to make the attempt."[487] Conviction was a foregone conclusion.

Work and his companions were pronounced guilty and sentenced to

twelve years' imprisonment. These men were not required, however,

to serve out their terms. Mr. Work was pardoned after three and a

half years on the unjust condition that he return with his wife and

children to the State of Connecticut, his former residence. Mr. Burr

was released at the end of a little more than four years and six

months, and Mr. Thompson after nearly five years' imprisonment. The

anti-slavery character of Mission Institute at length brought down

upon it the wrath of the Missourians. One winter night a party from

Marion County crossed the Mississippi River on the ice, stealthily

marched to the Institute, and set it on fire.[488]

[487] Quoted by Wilson, _Rise and Fall of the Slave Power in

America_, Vol. II, p. 71.

[488] Asbury, _History of Quincy_, p. 74. The account of the

Burr, Work and Thompson case occupies pp. 72, 73 and 74 of

Asbury's volume.

In southern Indiana operations similar to those of the students of

the Mission Institute were carried on by a supposedly inoffensive

pedler of notions, Joseph Sider. With his large convenient wagon

Sider traversed some of the border counties of Kentucky, supplying

goods to his customers; one of his boxes was reserved for disguises

for negroes that wished to cast off the garments of slavery. Sider's

method involved the use of his vehicle for long trips to the Ohio

River, where the passengers were conveyed by boat to a place of

safety, and told to remain concealed until the wagon and team could

be transported by ferry the following morning. So simple a plan did

not excite suspicion, and served to carry fugitives rapidly forward

to some line of underground traffic.[489]

[489] E. Hicks Trueblood, "Reminiscences of the Underground

Railroad," in the _Republican Leader_, Salem, Ind., March 16,

1894.

Among those invasions of the South that caused considerable

excitement at the time of their occurrence, the cases of Calvin

Fairbank, Seth Concklin and John Brown are notable; and accounts of

them cannot well be omitted from these pages, even though they may

be more or less familiar to the reader. Mr. Calvin Fairbank came of

English stock, and was born in Wyoming County, New York, in 1816.

His home training as well as his attendance at Oberlin College

furnished him with anti-slavery views, but the circumstance to which

he traced his hearty hatred of the Southern institution arose by

chance, when as a boy he was attending quarterly meeting with his

parents. "It happened that my family was assigned," he relates, "to

the good, clean home of a pair of escaped slaves. One night after

service I sat on the hearthstone before the fire, and listened to

the woman's story of sorrow.... My heart wept, my anger was kindled,

and antagonism to slavery was fixed upon me."[490] In the spring of

1837 young Fairbank was sent by his father down the Ohio River in

charge of a raft of lumber. A little below Wheeling he saw a large,

active-looking, black man on the Virginia shore, going to the woods

with his axe. He found the woodsman to be a slave, soon gained his

confidence, and set him across the river on the raft. A few days

later Mr. Fairbank moored his rude craft, and landed on the Kentucky

shore opposite the mouth of the Little Miami River. Here he was

approached by an old slave-woman, who sought the liberation of her

seven children. The matter was easily arranged, and after dark the

seven were speedily conveyed across the river.[491]

[490] _Rev. Calvin Fairbank During Slavery Times, or How the Way

was Prepared._ Edited from his manuscript. Pp. 1-7.

[491] _Rev. Calvin Fairbank During Slavery Times_, pp. 12-14.

The rescue of Lewis Hayden and his family was the means of bringing

Mr. Fairbank to the penitentiary, while it opened to his friend

Hayden an honorable career in New England. Mr. Hayden became a

respected citizen of Boston, and helped to organize the Vigilance

Committee for the purpose of protecting the refugees that were

settling in the city; in course of time he came to serve in the

legislature of the State of Massachusetts. His wife, who survived

him, made a bequest of an estate of about five thousand dollars

to Harvard University to found a scholarship for the benefit of

deserving colored students.[492] The story of Hayden's delivery and

of his own imprisonment is best told in Mr. Fairbank's words: "Lewis

Hayden ... was, when a young man, ... the property of Baxter and

Grant, owners of the Brennan House, in Lexington. Hayden's wife,

Harriet, and his son, a lad of ten years when I first knew them,

were the slaves of Patrick Baine. On a September evening in 1844,

accompanied by Miss D. A. Webster, a young Vermont lady, who was

associated with me in teaching, I left Lexington with the Haydens,

in a hack, crossed the Ohio River on a ferry at nine the next

morning, changed horses, and drove to an Underground Railroad depot

at Hopkins, Ohio, where we left Hayden and his family.... When Miss

Webster and I returned to Lexington, after two days' absence, we

were both arrested, charged by their master with helping Hayden's

wife and son to escape. We were jointly indicted, but Miss Webster

was tried first and sentenced to two years' imprisonment in the

penitentiary at Frankfort.... While my case was still pending I

learned that the governor was inclined to pardon Miss Webster, but

first insisted that I should be tried. When called up for trial in

February, 1845, I pleaded guilty, and received a sentence of fifteen

years. I served four years and eleven months, and then, August 23,

1849, was released by Governor John J. Crittenden, the able and

patriotic man who afterwards saved Kentucky to the Union."[493]

[492] _Boston Weekly Transcript_, Dec. 29, 1893.

[493] The _Chicago Tribune_, Sunday, Jan. 29, 1893.

In spite of his incarceration for aiding slaves to escape, and in

the face of the heavier penalties laid by the new Fugitive Slave

Law, passed shortly after his release from prison, Calvin Fairbank

was soon engaged in similar enterprises. He declares, "I resisted

its [the law's] execution whenever and wherever possible."[494] A

little more than two years after his pardon Mr. Fairbank was again

arrested, this time in Indiana, for carrying off Tamar, a young

mulatto woman, who was claimed as property by A. L. Shotwell, of

Louisville, Kentucky. Without process of law Mr. Fairbank was taken

from the State of Indiana to Louisville, where he was tried in

February, 1853. He was again sentenced to the state prison for a

term of fifteen years, and while there was frequently subjected to

the most brutal treatment. Altogether Mr. Fairbank spent seventeen

years and four months of his life in prison for abducting slaves;

he says that during his second term he received at the hands of

prison officials thirty-five thousand stripes.[495] Having served

more than twelve years of his second sentence, he was pardoned by

acting Governor Richard T. Jacob. It was a singular occurrence

that finally enabled Mr. Fairbank to regain his liberty. Among the

friends upon whose favor he could rely was the lieutenant-governor

of Kentucky, Richard T. Jacob, the son-in-law of Thomas H. Benton,

of Missouri. Mr. Jacob was a man of strong anti-slavery tendencies,

notwithstanding his political prominence and his private interests

as a wealthy planter. The governor, Thomas E. Bramlette, was opposed

to extending the executive clemency to so notorious an offender as

Mr. Fairbank. Early in 1864 General Speed S. Fry was detailed by

President Lincoln to enroll all the negroes of Kentucky, but he

came into collision with Governor Bramlette, who sought to prevent

General Fry from carrying out his orders. Upon receiving information

to this effect the President summoned the executive of Kentucky to

Washington to answer to charges; and thereupon Mr. Jacob became

acting governor. On his first day in office the new executive of

Kentucky was accosted by General Fry with the remark, "Governor,

the President thinks it would be well to make this Fairbank's day."

On the morning following, the prisoner received a full and free

pardon.[496]

[494] _Ibid._

[495] _Rev. Calvin Fairbank During Slavery Times_, pp. 138, 144.

[496] _Rev. Calvin Fairbank During Slavery Times_, pp. 11,

104-143. See also the _Chicago Tribune_, Sunday, Jan. 29, 1893,

p. 33.

Mr. Fairbank gives many interesting devices that he employed in

his work to throw off pursuit. "Forty-seven slaves I guided toward

the north star, in violation of the state codes of Virginia and

Kentucky. I piloted them through the forests, mostly by night;

girls, fair and white, dressed as ladies; men and boys, as

gentlemen, or servants; men in women's clothes, and women in men's

clothes; boys dressed as girls, and girls as boys; on foot or on

horseback, in buggies, carriages, common wagons, in and under loads

of hay, straw, old furniture, boxes and bags; crossing the Jordan

of the slave, swimming or wading chin deep; or in boats, or skiffs;

on rafts, and often on a pine log. And I never suffered one to be

recaptured."[497]

[497] _Rev. Calvin Fairbank During Slavery Times_, pp. 10 and 11.

About 1850, Seth Concklin, a resident of Philadelphia, learned of

the remarkable escape of Peter Still from Alabama to the Quaker

City. Here the runaway was most happily favored in finding friends.

William Still, his brother, from whom he had been separated by

kidnappers long years before, was discovered almost immediately

in the office of the Pennsylvania Anti-Slavery Society; and Seth

Concklin soon proffered himself as an agent to go into the South

and bring away Peter Still's family. The fugitive himself first

visited Alabama to see what could be done for his wife and children;

but failing to accomplish anything he gratefully accepted the

offer of the daring Philadelphian. Mr. Concklin expected to assume

the character of a slave-owner and bring the Stills away as his

servants; he found, however, that the steamboats on the Tennessee

River were too irregular to be depended on. He therefore returned

north to Indiana, and arranged for the escape of the slave family

across that state to Canada. The story of his second attempt at the

South has a tragic ending, notwithstanding its favorable beginning.

Having made a safe start and a long journey of seven days and

nights in a rowboat the whole party was captured in southwestern

Indiana. A letter from the Rev. N. R. Johnston to William Still,

written soon after the catastrophe, gives the following account of

the affair: "On last Tuesday I mailed a letter to you, written by

Seth Concklin. I presume you have received that letter. It gave an

account of the rescue of the family of your brother. If that is the

last news you have had from them I have very painful intelligence

for you. They passed on (north) from near Princeton, where I saw

them.... I think twenty-three miles above Vincennes, Ind., they

were seized by a party of men, and lodged in jail. Telegraphic

despatches were sent all through the South. I have since learned

that the marshal of Evansville received a despatch from Tuscumbia

to look out for them. By some means, he and the master, so says

report, went to Vincennes and claimed the fugitives, chained Mr.

Concklin, and hurried all off...."[498] In a postscript, the same

letter gave the rumor of Seth Concklin's escape from the boat on

which he was being carried South; but the newspapers brought reports

of a different nature. Their statements represented that the man

"Miller"--that is, Concklin--"was found drowned, with his hands and

feet in chains and his skull fractured."[499] The version of the

tragedy given by the claimant of the fugitives, McKiernon, was as

follows: "Some time last march a white man by the name of Miller

appeared in the nabourhood and abducted the above negroes, was

caught at vincanes, Indi. with said negroes and was thare convicted

of steling and remanded back to Ala. to Abide the penalty of the

law and on his return met his Just reward by getting drowned at

the mouth of cumberland River on the Ohio in attempting to make his

escape."[500] Just how Concklin met his death will probably always

remain a mystery. McKiernon's letter offered terms for the purchase

of the poor slaves, but they were so exorbitant that they could not

be accepted. Besides, it was not deemed proper to jeopardize the

life of another agent on a mission so dangerous.

[498] Letter dated Evansville, Ind., March 31, 1851. Printed in

Still's _Underground Railroad Records_, pp. 30, 31.

[499] Still, _Underground Railroad Records_, p. 31.

[500] Still, _Underground Railroad Records_, p. 35. Letter dated

South Florence, Ala., Aug. 6, 1851.

It is well known that John Brown aided fugitive slaves whenever the

opportunity occurred, as did his Puritan-bred father before him.

We have no record, however, of his abducting slaves from the South

except in the case of his famous raid into Missouri in 1858. This

exploit has a peculiar interest for us, not only as one of the most

notable abductions, but as being, in a special way, the prelude of

that great plan in behalf of the enslaved that he sought to carry

out at Harper's Ferry. After Captain Brown's return from the Eastern

states to Kansas in 1858, he and his men encamped for a few days

at Bain's Fort. While here, Brown was appealed to by a slave, Jim

Daniels, the chattel of one James Lawrence, of Missouri. Daniels

had heard of Captain Brown, and, securing a permit to go about and

sell brooms, had used it in making his way to Brown's camp.[501]

His prayer was "For help to get away," because he was soon to be

sold, together with his wife, two children and a negro man.[502]

Such a supplication could not be made in vain to John Brown. On

the following night (December 20) Brown's raid into Missouri was

made. Brown himself gives the account of it:[503] "Two small

companies were made up to go to Missouri and forcibly liberate the

five slaves, together with other slaves. One of these companies

I assumed to direct. We proceeded to the place, surrounded the

buildings, liberated the slaves, and also took certain property

supposed to belong to the estate.

[501] Conversation with Samuel Harper and his wife, Jane Harper,

the two surviving members of the company of slaves escorted to

Canada by Brown in March, 1859. Their home since has been in or

about Windsor. I found them there in the early part of August,

1895.

[502] Halloway, _History of Kansas_. Quoted from John Brown's

letters, January, 1859 (pp. 539-545).

[503] In a letter written by Brown, January, 1859, to the _New

York Tribune_, in which paper it was published. It was also

published in the _Lawrence_ (Kansas) _Republican_. See Sanborn's

_Life and Letters of John Brown_, p. 481.

[Illustration:

SAMUEL HARPER AND WIFE,

OF WINDSOR, ONTARIO,

the two survivors of the company of slaves abducted by John Brown

from Missouri in the winter of 1858-1859.

(From a recent photograph.)]

[Illustration: ELLEN CRAFT.

Disguised as a young planter, she escaped to Boston in 1848,

bringing her husband with her as a valet.

(From a portrait in possession of the Hon. Simeon Dodge, of

Marblehead, Mass.)]

"We, however, learned before leaving that a portion of the articles

we had taken belonged to a man living on the plantation as a

tenant, and who was supposed to have no interest in the estate. We

promptly returned to him all we had taken. We then went to another

plantation, where we found five more slaves; took some property and

two white men. We moved all slowly away into the territory for some

distance and then sent the white men back, telling them to follow us

as soon as they chose to do so. The other company freed one female

slave, took some property, and, as I am informed, killed one white

man (the master) who fought against liberation...."[504]

[504] Sanborn, _Life and Letters of John Brown_, pp. 482, 483;

also Redpath, _The Public Life of Captain John Brown_, pp. 219,

220.

The company responsible for the shooting of the slave-owner, David

Cruse, was in charge of Kagi and Charles Stephens, also known as

Whipple. When this party came to the house of Mr. Cruse the family

had retired. There was no hesitation, however, on the part of the

strangers in requesting quarters for the night. Mrs. Cruse, her

suspicions fully aroused, handed her husband his pistol. Jean

Harper, the slave-woman that was taken from this house, asserts that

her master would certainly have fired upon the intruders had not

Whipple used his revolver first, with deadly effect. When the two

squads came together the march back to Bain's Fort was begun. On

the way thither Brown asked the slaves if they wanted to be free,

and then promised to take them to a free country. Thus was Brown

led to undertake one of his boldest adventures, one of the boldest

indeed in the history of the Underground Road. With a mere handful

of men he purposed to escort his band of freedmen on a journey of

twenty-five hundred miles to Canada, in the dead of winter, and

surrounded by the dangers that the publicity of his foray and the

announcement of a reward of three thousand dollars for his arrest

were likely to bring upon him. Brown and his company tarried only

one day at Bain's Fort; then proceeded northward by way of Topeka

to the place of his friend, Dr. Doyle, five miles beyond, and

then by way of Osawattomie, Holton and the house of Major J. B.

Abbot near Lawrence, into Nebraska. Lawrence was reached January

24, 1859. At Holton a party of pursuers, two or three times as

large as Brown's company, was dispersed in instant and ridiculous

flight, and four prisoners and five horses were taken. The trip,

after leaving Holton, was made amidst great perils. Under an escort

of seventeen "Topeka boys" Brown pressed rapidly on to Nebraska

City. At this point the passage of the Missouri was made on the

ice, and the liberators with their charges arrived at Tabor in the

first week of February. Here, Brown met with rebuff, "contrary to

his expectation, and contrary to the whole former attitude of the

people," we are told, "he was not welcomed, but, at a public meeting

called for the purpose, was severely reprimanded as a disturber of

the peace and safety of the village. Effecting a hasty departure

from Tabor, and taking advantage of the protection offered by a few

friendly families on the way, he and his party of fugitives came,

on February 20, 1859, to Grinnell, Iowa, where they were cordially

received by the Hon. J. B. Grinnell, who entertained them in his

house. Brown's next stop was made at Springdale, which place he

reached on February 25. Here the fugitives were distributed among

the Quaker families for safety and rest before continuing the

journey to Canada. But soon rumors were afloat of the coming of

the United States marshal, and it became necessary to secure for

the negroes railroad transportation to Chicago. Kagi and Stephens,

disguised as sportsmen, walked to Iowa City, enlisted the services

of Mr. William Penn Clark, an influential anti-slavery citizen of

that place, and by his efforts, supplemented by those of Hon. J.

B. Grinnell, a freight car was got and held in readiness at West

Liberty. The negroes were then brought down from Springdale (distant

but six miles) and, after spending a night in a grist-mill near the

railway station, were ready to embark."[505] They were stowed away

in the freight-car by Brown, Kagi and Stephens, and the car was made

fast to a train from the West on the Chicago and Rock Island Road.

"On reaching Chicago, Brown and his party were taken into friendly

charge by Allen Pinkerton, the famous detective, and started for

Detroit. On March 10 they were in Detroit and practically at their

journey's end."[506] On the twelfth the freedmen were, under Brown's

direction, ferried across the Detroit River to Windsor, Canada.

[505] Irving B. Richman, _John Brown among the Quakers, and Other

Sketches_, pp. 46, 47, 48.

[506] Irving B. Richman, _John Brown among the Quakers, and Other

Sketches_, pp. 46, 47, 48.

The trip from southern Kansas to the Canadian destination had

consumed three weeks. The restoration of twelve persons to "their

natural and inalienable rights with but one man killed"[507] was a

result which Brown seems to have regarded as justifiable, but one

the tragedy of which he certainly deplored.[508] The manner in which

this result had been accomplished was highly dramatic, and created

great excitement throughout the country, especially in Missouri.

Brown's biographer, James Redpath, writing in 1860, speaks thus

of the consternation in the invaded state: "When the news of the

invasion of Missouri spread, a wild panic went with it, which in a

few days resulted in clearing Bates and Vernon counties of their

slaves. Large numbers were sold south; many ran into the Territory

and escaped; others were removed farther inland. When John Brown

made his invasion there were five hundred slaves in that district

where there are not fifty negroes now."[509] The success of the

expedition just narrated was well fitted to increase confidence

in John Brown's determination, and to arouse enthusiasm among his

numerous refugee friends in Canada. The story of the adventure was

not unlikely to penetrate the remote regions of the South, and

perhaps find lodgment in the retentive memories of many slaves.

The publication in the _New York Tribune_ of his letter defending

his abduction of the Missouri chattels just as he was beginning

his journey east shows that Brown was not unwilling to have his

act widely known. It was almost the middle of March when Brown

arrived in Canada; his letter had been made public in January;

it had had ample time for circulation. Before he left Kansas he

said significantly, "He would soon remove the seat of the trouble

elsewhere,"[510] and it was but six months after his arrival in

Canada that the attack on Harper's Ferry was made.

[507] Sanborn, _The Life and Letters of John Brown_, p. 483. See

the letter of "The Parallels."

[508] Hinton, _John Brown and His Men_, p. 221.

[509] Redpath, _The Public Life of Captain John Brown_, p. 221.

[510] Hinton, _John Brown and His Men_, p. 222, note.

For more than ten years John Brown had cherished a plan for the

liberation of the slaves, in which abduction was to be in a measure

employed. This plan he had revealed to Frederick Douglass as early

as 1847. It is given in Douglass' words: "'The true object to be

sought,' said Brown, 'is first of all to destroy the money value of

slave property; and that can only be done by rendering such property

insecure. My plan then is to take at first about twenty-five picked

men, and begin on a small scale; supply them arms and ammunition;

post them in squads of five on a line of twenty-five miles, the

most persuasive and judicious of whom shall go down to the fields

from time to time, as opportunity offers, and induce the slaves to

join them, seeking and selecting the most restless and daring.'...

With care and enterprise he thought he could soon gather a force

of one hundred hardy men.... When these were properly drilled, ...

they would run off the slaves in larger numbers, retain the brave

and strong ones in the mountains, and send the weak and timid to

the North by the Underground Railroad: his operations would be

enlarged with increasing numbers, and would not be confined to one

locality.... 'If,' said Brown, 'we could drive slavery out of _one

county_, ... it would weaken the system throughout the state.' The

enemy's country would afford subsistence, the fastnesses of the

Alleghanies abundant protection, and a series of stations through

Pennsylvania to the Canadian border a means of egress for timid

slaves."[511]

[511] _Life of Frederick Douglass_, 1881, pp. 280, 281 and 318,

319. Also Hinton, _John Brown and His Men_, pp. 30, 31, 32.

The plot, as disclosed eleven years later to Richard J. Hinton

(September, 1858) by Brown's lieutenant, Kagi, contains some

additional details of interest. Hinton says: "The mountains of

Virginia were named as the place of refuge, and as a country

admirably adapted in which to carry on a guerilla warfare. In the

course of the conversation, Harper's Ferry was mentioned as a point

to be seized--but not held--on account of the arsenal. The white

members of the company were to act as officers of different guerilla

bands, which, under the general command of John Brown, were to be

composed of Canadian refugees, and the Virginian slaves who would

join them.... They anticipated, after the first blow had been

struck, that, by the aid of the free and Canadian negroes who would

join them, they could inspire confidence in the slaves, and induce

them to rally. No intention was expressed of gathering a large

body of slaves, and removing them to Canada. On the contrary, Kagi

clearly stated, in answer to my inquiries, that the design was to

make the fight in the mountains of Virginia, extending it to North

Carolina and Tennessee, and also to the swamps of South Carolina,

if possible. Their purpose was not the expatriation of one or a

thousand slaves, but their liberation in the states wherein they

were born, and were now held in bondage.... Kagi spoke of having

marked out a chain of counties extending continuously through South

Carolina, Georgia, Alabama, and Mississippi. He had traveled over

a large portion of the region indicated, and from his own personal

knowledge and with the assistance of the Canadian negroes who had

escaped from those States, they had arranged a general plan of

attack.... They expected to be speedily and constantly reinforced;

first, by the arrival of those men who, in Canada, were anxiously

looking and praying for the time of deliverance, and then by the

slaves themselves.... The constitution adopted at Chatham [in the

spring of 1858] was intended as the framework of organization

among the emancipationists, to enable the leaders to effect a more

complete control of their forces...."[512] A comparison of these two

versions of Brown's plan of liberation leads to the conclusion that

the abduction of slaves to the North was a measure to which the

liberator never attached more importance than as a means of ridding

his men of the care of helpless slaves; the brave he would use in

organizing an insurrection amid the mountains of the Southern states

that should wipe away the curse of slavery from the country.

[512] Hinton, _John Brown and His Men_, Appendix, pp. 673, 674,

675. Also Redpath, _The Public Life of Captain John Brown_, pp.

203, 204, 206.

It will be remembered that the occasion, if not the cause, of

John Brown's raid into Missouri was the solicitation of aid by a

slave for himself and companions. Such prayers for succor were not

infrequently addressed to abolitionists by those in bonds or by

their refugee friends. In the anti-slavery host there were many

whose principles wavered not under any test applied to them, and

whose impulses urged them upon humanitarian missions, however hemmed

in by difficulties and dangers. Among those who heard and answered

the cry of the slave were the Rev. Charles T. Torrey, Captain

Jonathan Walker, Mrs. Laura S. Haviland, Captain Daniel Drayton,

Richard Dillingham, William L. Chaplin and Josiah Henson.

The variety of persons represented in this short, incomplete list

is interesting: Mr. Torrey was a Congregational clergyman of New

England stock, and had been educated at Yale College; Messrs. Walker

and Drayton were masters of sailing vessels, and came from the

states of Massachusetts and New Jersey respectively; Mrs. Haviland

was a Wesleyan Methodist, who founded a school or institute in

southeastern Michigan for both white and colored persons; Richard

Dillingham was a Quaker school-teacher in Cincinnati, Ohio; William

L. Chaplin began his professional life as a lawyer in eastern

Massachusetts, but soon became the editor of an anti-slavery

newspaper; and Josiah Henson was a fugitive slave, one of the

founders of the Dawn Institute in Canada West. With the exception of

the last named they were white persons, whose sense of the injustice

of slavery caused them to take a stand that shut them out of that

conventionally respectable society to which their birth, education

and talents would have admitted them.

In 1838 Charles T. Torrey resigned from the pastorate of a

Congregational church in Providence, Rhode Island, and relinquished

ease and quiet to engage in the anti-slavery struggle then

agitating the country. He became a lecturer and a newspaper

correspondent, and, early in the forties, the editor of a paper

called _The Patriot_, at Albany, New York. While acting as

Washington correspondent for several Northern papers he attended

a convention of slave-owners at Annapolis, Maryland, in 1842, and

was thrust into jail on the score of being an abolitionist. He was

released after several days, having been placed under bonds to

keep the peace. While in prison he solemnly reconsecrated himself

to the work of freeing the slaves. Within a year from this time

a refugee entreated Mr. Torrey to help him bring his wife and

children from Virginia. The errand was undertaken, but came to a

most mournful end. Arrested and imprisoned, Mr. Torrey with others

attempted to break jail; he was betrayed, however, and at length,

December 30, 1843, sentenced to the penitentiary for six years.

Under the severities of prison life Mr. Torrey's health gave way.

His pardon was sought by friends, but mercy was withheld from a

man the depth of whose conviction made recantation impossible. In

December, 1844, he wrote: "I cannot afford to concede any truth

or principle to get out of prison. I am not rich enough." While

his trial was pending he wrote his friend, Henry B. Stanton: "If I

am a guilty man, I am a very guilty one; for I have aided nearly

four hundred slaves to escape to freedom, the greater part of

whom would probably, but for my exertions, have died in slavery."

Concerning this confession Henry Wilson writes: "This statement was

corroborated by the testimony of Jacob Gibbs, a colored man, who

was Mr. Torrey's chief assistant in his efforts."[513] On May 9,

1846, Mr. Torrey died in prison. In death as in life, the lesson

of the clergyman's career proclaimed but one truth, the injustice

of slavery. When the remains of Mr. Torrey were conveyed to Boston

for interment in the beautiful cemetery at Mt. Auburn, the use of

Park Street Church, at first granted, was later refused to the

brother-in-law of the dead minister, although as a worshipper he

was entitled to Christian courtesy. Tremont Temple was procured for

the funeral services, and was thronged by a multitude eager to

do honor to a life of self-sacrifice, and show disapproval of the

affront to the dead. A large meeting in Faneuil Hall on the evening

of the funeral day paid tribute to the memory of the liberator. The

occasion was made memorable by a poem by James Russell Lowell, and

addresses by General Fessenden of Maine, Henry B. Stanton and Dr.

Walter Channing. Whittier wrote: "His work for the poor and helpless

was well and nobly done. In the wild woods of Canada, around many

a happy fireside and holy family altar, his name is on the lips

of God's poor. He put his soul in their soul's stead; he gave his

life for those who had no claim on his love save that of human

brotherhood."[514]

[513] Wilson, _Rise and Fall of the Slave Power in America_, Vol.

II, p. 80.

[514] Quoted by Wilson, in his _History of the Rise and Fall of

the Slave Power in America_, Vol. II, p. 80.

In 1844, the year after Mr. Torrey's disastrous attempt to abduct

a slave-family, Captain Jonathan Walker was made a victim of the

law on account of friendly offices undertaken in behalf of some

trusting negroes. Once, while on the coast of Florida, Mr. Walker

consented to ferry seven slaves from Pensacola to one of the

neighboring Bahama Islands, where they might enjoy the freedom

vouchsafed by English law. In the open boat used for the purpose

Captain Walker suffered sunstroke, and on this account his craft was

overhauled, and the escaping party was taken into custody. After two

trials Captain Walker was condemned to punishments that remind one

strongly of the barbarous penalties inflicted upon offenders in the

reign of Charles the First of England: he was sentenced to stand

in the pillory; to be branded on the hand with the letters S. S.

(slave-stealer); to pay a fine and serve a term of imprisonment for

each slave assisted; to pay the costs of prosecution; and to stand

committed until his fines should be paid. His treatment in prison

was brutal, but he was not obliged to endure it long, for, by the

intervention of friends, his fines were paid, and he was released

in the summer of 1848. Subjected to indignities and disgrace in the

South, Captain Walker was the recipient of many demonstrations of

approval on his return to the North. Whittier blazoned his stigmas

into a prophecy of deliverance for the slave. In a poem of welcome

the distinguished Quaker wrote:

"Then lift that manly right hand, bold ploughman of the wave,

Its branded palm shall prophesy 'Salvation to the Slave.'

Hold up its fire-wrought language that whoso reads may feel

His heart swell strong within him, his sinews change to steel."[515]

These words were set to music by Mr. George W. Clark, and sung by

him with thrilling effect at many anti-slavery gatherings throughout

New England. Mr. Walker became at once a conspicuous witness against

the slave power in the great trial that was then going forward at

the bar of public opinion. At Providence, Rhode Island, his return

from the Florida prison was heralded, and a large reception was

given him, attended by the Hon. Owen Lovejoy, brother of the martyr

Lovejoy, Milton Clark, the white slave, and Lewis, his brother.

It is said that three thousand people crowded the seats, aisles

and doorways of the reception hall. In company with Mr. George W.

Clark, Captain Walker was drafted into the work of arousing the

masses, and the two agitators received a cordial hearing at many New

England meetings. Doubtless the recital of the Captain's experiences

intensified anti-slavery feeling throughout the Northern states.[516]

[515] _Liberator_, Aug. 15, 1845, "The Branded Hand," quoted in

part by Wilson, _History of the Rise and Fall of the Slave Power

in America_, Vol. II, p. 83; Whittier's _Poetical Works_, Vol.

III, Riverside edition, 1896, p. 114.

[516] Reminiscences written by George W. Clark, by request, have

been used to secure an intimate acquaintance with some of the men

engaged in the underground service.

About 1847, Mrs. Laura S. Haviland accepted a mission to find

the family of one John White, a slave, who had escaped from the

South and was serving as a farm-hand in the neighborhood of Mrs.

Haviland's school in southeastern Michigan. Mrs. Haviland went to

Cincinnati where she consulted with the Vigilance Committee, and

thence to Rising Sun, Indiana, to secure the services of several

of John White's colored friends. Here a plan was formed for Mrs.

Haviland to go into Kentucky to the plantation where the family

lived, and, disguised as a berry picker, see the wife, inform her

of her husband's whereabouts, and offer to assist in her rescue.

Accomplishing this errand and returning across the border into

Indiana, Mrs. Haviland awaited the slave-woman's appearance; but her

escape had been prevented by the vigilance evoked on account of the

operations of counterfeiters in Kentucky. Then John White started

South intent on saving his wife and children from slavery, but his

efforts also were unsuccessful, and he was thrown into a Kentucky

jail. However, he was soon released by Laura Haviland, who purchased

him for three hundred and fifty dollars.[517]

[517] Laura S. Haviland, _A Woman's Life Work_, pp. 91-110.

In the summer of 1847, Captain Daniel Drayton sailed to Washington

with a cargo of oysters, and while his boat was lying at the wharf

he was cautiously approached by a negro, who wanted to get passage

North for a woman and five children. The negro said the woman was

a slave but that she had, under an agreement with her master, more

than paid for her liberty, and when she asked for her "free papers"

the master only answered by threatening to sell her South.[518]

Captain Drayton allowed the woman and her children and a niece

to stow themselves on board his vessel, and he soon landed them

at Frenchtown, to the great joy of the woman's husband, who was

awaiting them there.

[518] _Personal Memoir of Daniel Drayton_, 1853, p. 23.

It was by the suggestion of these fugitives that Captain Drayton

undertook his important expedition with the schooner Pearl in 1848.

On the evening of April 18 his boat was made fast at one of the

Washington docks ready to receive a company of fugitives. The time

seemed auspicious. The establishment of the new French Republic

was being celebrated in the city by a grand torchlight procession,

and slaves were left for the most part to their own devices. Thus

favored, a large number escaped to the small craft of Captain

Drayton and were carefully stowed away. The start was made without

incident, and the vessel continued quietly on her course to the

mouth of the Potomac; there, contrary winds were encountered, and

the _Pearl_ was brought to shelter in Cornfield Harbor, one hundred

and forty miles from Washington. The disappearance of seventy-six

slaves at one time caused great excitement at the Capitol. The

method of their departure was revealed by a colored hackman, who

had driven two of the fugitives to the wharf. An armed steamer was

sent in pursuit, and the _Pearl_ was obliged to surrender. Her

arrival under guard at Washington was the occasion for rejoicing

to an infuriated mob of several thousand persons. The slaves were

committed to jail as runaways; their helpers were with difficulty

protected from murderous violence, and were escorted to the city

prison. Under instructions from the district attorney twenty-four

indictments were found against both Captain Drayton and his mate,

Mr. Sayres. When the trial began in July, the list of indictments

presented comprised forty-one counts against each of these

prisoners. Three persons were prosecuted; and the aggregate amount

of their bail was two hundred and twenty-eight thousand dollars.

After two trials the accused were heavily sentenced, and remanded

to jail until their fines should be paid. The sentence passed upon

Captain Drayton required the payment of fines and costs together

amounting to ten thousand and sixty dollars, and until paid the

prisoner must remain in jail indefinitely.[519] His accomplices were

treated with equal severity. Such penalties were accounted monstrous

by the friends of the convicted, and efforts were constantly made

to have the sentences mitigated or revoked. In 1852 Senator Sumner

interested himself in behalf of the imprisoned liberators; and

President Fillmore was induced to grant them an unconditional pardon.

[519] _Personal Memoir of Daniel Drayton_, p. 102.

The occurrence of these events at the national capital during

a session of Congress, gave them a significance they would not

otherwise have had. That they would become the subject of much

fierce debate was assured by the presence in Congress of such

champions as Messrs. Giddings and Hale for the anti-slavery party,

and Messrs. Foote, Toombs, Calhoun and Davis for the pro-slavery

party. Mr. Calhoun expressed the view of the South when, speaking

upon a resolution brought before the Senate by Mr. Hale, April 20,

he recorded himself as being in favor of an act making penal "these

atrocities, these piratical attempts, these wholesale captures,

these robberies of seventy odd of our slaves at a single grasp."

In this and in similar utterances made at the time, he foreshadowed

the determination of the South to have a law that would restrain if

possible from all temptations to aid or abet the escape of slaves.

The result of this determination is seen in the Fugitive Slave Law

of 1850.

This notable voyage of the _Pearl_, which caused so great an

excitement at the time, has been frequently chronicled, while the

experiences of the young Quaker, Richard Dillingham, have been

seldom recounted, though marked by the same elements of daring

and resignation. In December, 1848, the close of the year of the

_Pearl_'s adventure, Mr. Dillingham was solicited by some colored

people in Cincinnati, Ohio, to go to Tennessee and bring away their

relatives, who were slaves under a "hard master" at Nashville. He

entered upon the project, made his way into the very heart of the

South and arranged with the slaves for their escape. At the time

appointed his three protégés were placed in a closed carriage and

driven rapidly away, Mr. Dillingham following on horseback. The

party got as far as Cumberland bridge, where they were betrayed by

a colored man in whom confidence had been placed, and the fugitives

and their benefactor were arrested. Mr. Dillingham was committed

to jail, and his bail was fixed at seven thousand dollars. At his

trial, which occurred April 12, 1849, Dillingham confessed, and

asked for clemency, urging by way of explanation the dependence

of his aged parents upon him as a stay and protection. As to the

crime for which he was held he said frankly: "I have violated your

laws.... But I was prompted to it by feelings of humanity. It has

been suspected ... that I was leagued with a fraternity who are

combined for the purpose of committing such offences as the one with

which I am charged. But ... the impression is false, I alone am

guilty, I alone committed the offence, and I alone must suffer the

penalty...." Yielding to his plea for clemency the jury returned a

verdict for three years in the penitentiary, the mildest sentence

allowed by the law for the offence. The _Nashville Daily Gazette_

of April 13 did not conceal the fact that Mr. Dillingham belonged

to a respectable family, and stated that he was not without the

sympathy of those who attended the trial.[520] The prisoner himself

was most grateful for the consideration shown him, and, in a letter

to his betrothed written two days after his trial, he spoke of his

short sentence with the deepest gratitude and thankfulness toward

the court and jury and the prosecutors themselves. "My sentence," he

added, "is far more lenient than my most sanguine hopes have ever

anticipated."[521] The termination of the imprisonment of Dillingham

was most melancholy. Separated from his aged parents, to whom he was

devoted, and from the woman that was to have become his wife, his

health soon proved unequal to the severe experiences of prison life;

his keepers after nine months gave him respite from heavy work about

the prison, and assigned him the place of steward in the hospital.

He had not long been in his new station when cholera broke out

among the convicts, and his services were in constant demand. His

strength was soon exhausted, and about the first of August, 1850, he

succumbed to the dread epidemic raging in the prison.[522]

[520] A. L. Benedict, _Memoir of Richard Dillingham_, 1852, p.

18. Also Harriet Beecher Stowe, _A Key to Uncle Tom's Cabin_, pp.

58, 59.

[521] A. L. Benedict, _Memoir of Richard Dillingham_, p. 18.

[522] This account of Richard Dillingham is based on the _Memoir_

written by his friend, A. L. Benedict, a Quaker, and published

in 1852. Abridged versions of this memoir will be found in the

_Reminiscences of Levi Coffin_, Appendix, pp. 713-718; and Howe's

_Historical Collections of Ohio_, Vol. II, p. 590.

It was the year in which young Dillingham came to his melancholy

end that Mr. William L. Chaplin was found guilty of an offence

similar to that for which Dillingham suffered.[523] When Mr.

Charles T. Torrey, editor of the _Albany Patriot_, was sent to the

Maryland penitentiary for aiding slaves to escape, Mr. Chaplin

assumed control of Mr. Torrey's paper. Like his predecessor, Mr.

Chaplin spent part of his time in the city of Washington reporting

congressional proceedings for the _Patriot_, and like him could not

be deaf to an entreaty in behalf of slaves. In 1850 Mr. Chaplin

was prevailed upon to attempt the release from bondage of two

negroes, one the property of Robert Toombs, the other, of Alexander

H. Stephens. The sequel to this enterprise is thus recounted by

Mr. George W. Clark, an intimate friend of General Chaplin's:

"Suspicion was somehow awakened and watch set; the General was

intercepted, arrested and imprisoned, and the attempt failed. The

General gave bail, Secretary Seward being on his bond for five

thousand dollars. While passing through Baltimore on his return

home he was rearrested and put into ... prison there, on a charge

of aiding slaves to escape from that state. The bonds required

were twenty thousand dollars.... It was arranged that William R.

Smith, a noble and generous-hearted Quaker, and George W. Clark

should traverse the State and appeal to the friends of humanity for

contributions to save the General from the fate we feared awaited

him, for if his case went to trial he would probably be sentenced

to fifteen years in their State Prison, which would no doubt amount

to a death sentence. William R. Smith and I went to work in live

earnest. An abolition merchant, Mr. Chittenden of New York, gave us

three thousand dollars, the always giving Gerrit Smith gave us five

thousand, other friends gave us two thousand, but we still lacked

ten thousand.... We were in great distress and anxiety over the

extreme situation when the generous Gerrit Smith voluntarily came

again to the rescue and advanced the other ten thousand dollars."

It was in this way, through the most open-handed generosity of his

friends, that Mr. Chaplin was enabled to go free after being in jail

only five months. Prudence dictated the sacrificing of the excessive

bail rather than the braving of fortune through a trial certain to

end in conviction.

[523] Wilson, _History of the Rise and Fall of the Slave Power in

America_, Vol. II, pp. 80-82.

We have thus far considered the recorded efforts toward the

abduction of slaves made by six persons in response to the entreaty

of the slaves concerned or of some of their friends. It is

noteworthy that in the case of five of these persons their efforts,

first or last, were calamitous, and that all were white persons. We

come now to the case of Josiah Henson, exceptional in the series,

by reason of the uniform success of his endeavors, and because

of his race connections. Born and bred a slave, Henson at length

resolved to extricate himself and family from the abjectness of

their situation. "With a degree of prudence, courage and address,"

says Mrs. Harriet Beecher Stowe, "which can scarcely find a parallel

in any history, he managed with his wife and two children to escape

to Canada. Here he learned to read, and, by his superior talent

and capacity for management, laid the foundation for the fugitive

settlement of Dawn...."[524] The possession of the qualities

indicated in this characterization of Mr. Henson rendered him equal

to such emergencies as arose in his missions to the South in search

of friends and relatives of Canadian refugees.

[524] _A Key to Uncle Tom's Cabin_, 1853, Boston edition of 1896,

pp. 274, 275; also _Father Henson's Story of His Own Life_, 1858,

chaps. xii, xiii.

Mr. Henson has left us the record of two journeys to the Southern

states, made at the instance of James Lightfoot, a refugee of Fort

Erie, Ontario.[525] Lightfoot had a number of relatives in slavery

near Maysville, Kentucky, and was ready to use the little property

he had accumulated during the short period of his freedom in

securing the liberation of his family. Beginning the journey alone,

Mr. Henson travelled on foot about four hundred miles through New

York, Pennsylvania and Ohio, to his destination. The fact that the

Lightfoots decided it to be unsafe to make their escape at this

time did not prevent their visitor from agreeing to come a year

later for them, nor did it prevent him from returning to Canada

with companions. He went nearly fifty miles into the interior of

Kentucky, where, as he learned, there was a large party eager to

set out for a land of freedom, but waiting until an experienced

leader should appear. In Bourbon County he found about thirty

fugitives collected from different states, and with these he started

northward. Mr. Henson gives his itinerary in the following words:

"We succeeded in crossing the Ohio River in safety, and arrived in

Cincinnati the third night after our departure. Here we procured

assistance; and, after stopping a short time to rest, we started for

Richmond, Indiana. This is a town which had been settled by Quakers,

and there we found friends indeed, who at once helped us on our way,

without loss of time; and after a difficult journey of two weeks

through the wilderness, reached Toledo, Ohio, ... and there we took

passage for Canada."[526] In the autumn of the year following this

abduction Mr. Henson again visited Kentucky. This time several of

the Lightfoots were willing to go North with him, and a Saturday

night after dark was chosen as the time for setting out. In spite

of some untoward happenings during the early part of the journey,

and of pursuit even to Lake Erie, the daring guide and his party

of four or five were put aboard a sailing-vessel and safely landed

on Canadian soil. "Words cannot describe," writes Mr. Henson, "the

feelings experienced by my companions as they neared the shore;

their bosoms were swelling with inexpressible joy as they mounted

the seats of the boat, ready eagerly to spring forward, that they

might touch the soil of the freeman. And when they reached the shore

they danced and wept for joy, and kissed the earth on which they

first stepped, no longer the _Slave_, but the _Free_." Mr. Henson

asserts, that "by similar means to those above narrated," he was

"instrumental in delivering one hundred and eighteen human beings"

from bondage.[527]

[525] _Father Henson's Story of His Own Life_, chaps. xvi, xvii.

[526] _Father Henson's Story of His Own Life_, pp. 149, 150.

[527] _Ibid._, pp. 162, 163.

Important and interesting among the abductors are the few

individuals that we must call, for want of a better designation, the

devotees of abduction. We have already considered a person of this

type in the odd character, John Fairfield, the Virginian. There are

several other persons known to have been not less zealous than he

in their violation of what were held in the South to be legitimate

property rights. The names of these adventurous liberators are Rial

Cheadle, Alexander M. Ross, Elijah Anderson, John Mason and Harriet

Tubman.

Rial Cheadle appears to have been a familiar figure among the

abolitionists of southeastern Ohio. Mr. Thomas L. Gray, a reputable

citizen of Deavertown, Ohio, for many years engaged in underground

operations in Morgan County, vouches for the extended and aggressive

work of Cheadle, who frequently stopped at Mr. Gray's house for

rest and refreshment on his midnight trips to Zanesville and

stations farther on.[528] Cheadle seems to have been a man of

eccentricities, if not of actual aberration of mind; or his oddities

may have been assumed to prevent himself being taken seriously by

those he wanted to despoil. He is said to have lived in Windsor

Township, Morgan County, Ohio, on the site of the present village

of Stockport, and to have engaged in teaching and other occupations

for a time; finally, however, he devoted himself to the work of

the Underground Road. He indulged himself in old-time minstrelsy,

composing songs, which he sang for the entertainment of himself

and others, and he thereby increased, doubtless, the reputation

for harmless imbecility, which he seems to have borne among those

ignorant of his purpose. He paid occasional visits to Virginia. "As

a result it is said the slaves were frequently missing, but as his

arrangements were carefully made the object of his visit was usually

successful.... His habits were so well known to those who gave food

and shelter to the negro that they were seldom unprepared for a

nocturnal visit from him.... After the Emancipation, he said he was

like Simeon of old, 'ready to depart.' He died in 1867."[529]

[528] The _New Lexington_ (Ohio) _Tribune_, winter of 1885-1886.

Some information in regard to Cheadle appears in a series of

articles on the Underground Railroad contributed to this paper by

Mr. Gray.

[529] _History of Morgan County, Ohio_, 1886, published by

Charles Robertson, M.D., article on the Underground Railroad.

A man differing greatly from Rial Cheadle in all respects, save

the intensity of his compassion for the slave, was the abductor

Alexander M. Ross. Born in 1832 in the Province of Ontario, Canada,

Mr. Ross sought, when a young man, to inform himself upon the

question of American slavery, not only from the teachings of some

of the foremost anti-slavery leaders of England and the United

States, but also from the recital of their experiences by a number

of fugitive slaves that had found an asylum in the province of his

birth. While he was engaged in making inquiries among the refugees,

_Uncle Tom's Cabin_ was published, and brought conviction to many

minds. "To me," writes Mr. Ross, "it was a command. A deep and

settled conviction impressed me that it was my duty to help the

oppressed to freedom.... My resolution was taken to devote all

my energies to let the oppressed go free."[530] In accordance

with this resolution young Ross left Canada in November, 1856. He

visited Gerrit Smith, at Peterboro, New York, who was ever ready

to encourage the liberation of the slave, and who went with him to

Boston, New York and Philadelphia, and westward into the states of

Ohio and Indiana. The purpose of these travels was, evidently, to

acquaint the intending liberator with the means to be employed by

him in his new work, and with the persons in connection with whom

he was to operate. Indeed, Mr. Ross distinctly says, in speaking

of these visits, "I was initiated into a knowledge of the relief

societies, and the methods adopted to circulate information among

the slaves of the South; the routes to be taken by the slaves, after

reaching the so-called free states; and the relief posts, where

shelter and aid for transportation could be obtained."[531] His

chief supporters, besides Gerrit Smith, were Theodore Parker and

Lewis Tappan.[532]

[530] Dr. Alexander Milton Ross, _Recollections and Experiences

of an Abolitionist; from 1855 to 1865_, 2d ed., 1876, p. 3. The

first edition of this book was issued in 1867. For this and other

works of Mr. Ross see _Prominent Men of Canada_, pp. 118, 119,

120.

[531] Ross, _Recollections and Experiences of an Abolitionist_,

p. 5.

[532] _Ibid._, p. 8.

During his expeditions Mr. Ross spread the knowledge of Canada among

the slaves in the neighborhood of a number of Southern cities,

such as Richmond, Virginia, Nashville, Tennessee, Columbus and

Vicksburg, Mississippi, Selma and Huntsville, Alabama, Augusta,

Georgia, and Charleston, South Carolina. His method of procedure

was fixed in its details only after his arrival upon the scene of

action; an ostensible interest or purpose was kept to the fore, and

the real business of spreading the gospel of escape was reserved

for clandestine conferences with slaves chosen on the score of

intelligence and trustworthiness. These persons were informed how

Canada could be best reached, and were told to spread with care

the information among their fellows. If any decided within a few

days that they would act upon the advice given them, explicit

instructions were repeated to them, and they were supplied

with compasses, knives, pistols, money and such provisions as

they needed. Thus equipped, they were started on their long

and dangerous journey. Occasionally, when circumstances seemed

to require it, Mr. Ross would personally guide the party to a

station of the Underground Road, or even accompany it to Canada;

otherwise he betook himself in haste to some new field of labor.

The unimpeachable character of Mr. Ross, and the early appearance

of the first edition of his _Recollections_ make his reminiscences

especially valuable and worth quoting. Mr. Ross began his work

at Richmond early in the year 1857. His narrative of his first

venture is as follows: "On my arrival in Richmond, I went to the

house of a gentleman to whom I had been directed, and who was known

at the North to be a friend of freedom. I spent a few weeks in

quietly determining upon the best plans to adopt. Having finally

decided upon my course, I invited a number of the most intelligent,

active and reliable slaves to meet me at the house of a colored

preacher, on a Sunday evening. On the night appointed for this

meeting, forty-two slaves came to hear what prospect there was

for an escape from bondage.... I explained to them my ... purpose

in visiting the slave states, the various routes from Virginia to

Ohio and Pennsylvania, and the names of friends in border towns who

would help them on to Canada. I requested them to circulate this

information discreetly among all upon whom they could rely.... I

requested as many as were ready to accept my offer, to come to the

same house on the following Sunday evening, prepared to take the

'Underground Railroad' to Canada.

[Illustration: DR. ALEXANDER M. ROSS,

AN ABDUCTOR OF SLAVES.

(His distinguished services as a naturalist are attested by his

medals, bestowed by European princes.)]

[Illustration: HARRIET TUBMAN,

"THE MOSES OF HER PEOPLE."

Herself a fugitive, she abducted more than 300 slaves, and also

served as a scout and nurse for the Union forces.]