* * * * *
_Extracts from a Letter written by Mr. Sanborn, Secretary of the
Massachusetts Board of State Charities._
MY DEAR MADAME: Mr. Phillips has sent me your note, asking for
reminiscences of Harriet Tubman, and testimonials to her
extraordinary story, which all her New England friends will, I am
sure, be glad to furnish.
I never had reason to doubt the truth of what Harriet said in
regard to her own career, for I found her singularly truthful. Her
imagination is warm and rich, and there is a whole region of the
marvelous in her nature, which has manifested itself at times
remarkably. Her dreams and visions, misgivings and forewarnings,
ought not to be omitted in any life of her, particularly those
relating to John Brown.
She was in his confidence in 1858-9, and he had a great regard for
her, which he often expressed to me. She aided him in his plans,
and expected to do so still further, when his career was closed by
that wonderful campaign in Virginia. The first time she came to my
house, in Concord, after that tragedy, she was shown into a room
in the evening, where Brackett's bust of John Brown was standing.
The sight of it, which was new to her, threw her into a sort of
ecstacy of sorrow and admiration, and she went on in her
rhapsodical way to pronounce his apotheosis.
She has often been in Concord, where she resided at the houses of
Emerson, Alcott, the Whitneys, the Brooks family, Mrs. Horace
Mann, and other well-known persons. They all admired and respected
her, and nobody doubted the reality of her adventures. She was too
_real_ a person to be suspected. In 1862, I think it was, she went
from Boston to Port Royal, under the advice and encouragement of
Mr. Garrison, Governor Andrew, Dr. Howe, and other leading people.
Her career in South Carolina is well known to some of our
officers, and I think to Colonel Higginson, now of Newport, R.I.,
and Colonel James Montgomery, of Kansas, to both of whom she was
useful as a spy and guide, if I mistake not. I regard her as, on
the whole, the most extraordinary person of her race I have ever
met. She is a negro of pure, or almost pure blood, can neither
read nor write, and has the characteristics of her race and
condition. But she has done what can scarcely be credited on the
best authority, and she has accomplished her purposes with a
coolness, foresight, patience and wisdom, which in a _white man_
would have raised him to the highest pitch of reputation.