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CHAPTER VI
ABDUCTION OF SLAVES FROM THE SOUTH
Pg. 150
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. . . . ”1
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.2
---------------
1
History of Brown County, Ohio, p. 315.
2 Conversation with ex-President James H.
Fairchild, Oberlin, O., Aug. 3, 1892.
[Page 151 - ABDUCTIONS
BY NEGROES
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.1
The largest number of abduction cases occurred through
the activities of those well-disposed towards fugitives
by the v 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.2 In the
neighborhood of Portsmouth, Ohio, slaves were conveyed
across the river by one Poindexter, a barber of the town
of Jackson.3 In Baltimore, Maryland,
two colored women, who engaged in selling vegetables,
were efficient in starting fugitives on the way to
Philadelphia.4 At Louisville, Kentucky,
Wash Spradley, a shrewd negro, was
instrumental in helping many of his enslaved brethren
out of bondage.5 These few instances
---------------
1 See the Annual Reports of the
Massachusetts Anti-Slavery Society.
2 Conversation with Mrs. Joel Woods,
at Martin’s Eerry, Aug. 19, 1892.
3 Conversation with Judge Jesse W. Laird,
Jackson, O., June, 1895.
4 Conversation with Mr. Robert Purvis,
at Philadelphia, Dec. 23, 1895.
5 Conversation with John Evans,
at Windsor, Ont., C. W., Aug. 2, 1896;
[Page 152 -
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.
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.”1 It has been Stated
that the number of these persons visiting the South
annually was about five hundred.2 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.3 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.4 Mr.
Seth Linton,5 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 John Evans was a slave near Louisville,
hut was given his liberty in 1850, when his master
became financially involved.
---------------
1 Howe, The Refugees from Slavery
in Canada West, p. 11.
2 Redpath, The Public Life of
Captain John Brown, p. 229.
3 Letter from Mr. D. B. Hodge, Oct.
9, 1894.
4 Letter from Colonel N. C. Buswell,
March 13, 1896.
5 Letter from Seth Linton
[Page 153 - ABDUCTIONS BY
WHITES -
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.1
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.2
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,
---------------
1 The
Firelands Pioneer, July, 1888, p. 39.
2
Coffin, Reminiscences, pp. 304, 305;
letter of Miss H. N. Wilson, College Hill, O.,
April 14, 1892.
[Page 154 -
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.”1
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
---------------
1 Laura S. Haviland, A Woman's
Life Work, Publ. 1889, p. 199. (Sharon
Wick has copy of this book)
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.”
[Page 155 - ABDUCTIONS BY
WHITES -
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.1
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.2
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 1886, 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
---------------
1 Conversation with Jacob Cummings,
Columbus, O., April, 1894.
2 Conversation with the daughter mentioned,
now the wife of William Burgbardt, Warsaw,
N.Y., June, 1894. Article on the Underground Railroad in
the History of Warsaw, New York, Pg. 364
[Page 156 -
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.1
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.”2
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.3
---------------
1 Letter from N. A. Hunt, of
Riverside, Cal., Feb. 12, 1891.
2 Quoted by Wilson, Rise and Fall of
the Slave Power in America, Vol. II, p. 71.
3 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.
[Pg. 157 - CALVIN FAIRBANK -
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.1
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.”2 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
---------------
1 E. Hicks Trueblood, “Reminiscences
of the Underground Railroad,” in the Republican
Leader, Salem, Ind., March 16, 1894.
2 Rev. Galvin Fairbank
During Slavery Times, or How the Way was Prepared.
Edited from his manuscript. Pp. 1-7.
[Pg. 158 -
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.1
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.2 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
---------------
1 Rev. Calvin
Fairbank During Slavery Times, pp. 12-14.
2 Boston Weekly Transcript, Dec. 29, 1893.
[Pg. 159 - CALVIN FAIRBANK -
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, Aug. 23, 1849,
was released by Governor John J. Crittenden, the
able and patriotic man who afterwards saved Kentucky to
the Union."1
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."2
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.3
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
---------------
1 The
Chicago Tribune, Sunday, Jan. 29, 1893.
2 Ibid.
3 Rev. Calvin Fairbank During Slavery
Times, pp. 138, 144.
[Pg. 160 -
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.1
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."2
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
---------------
1 Rev. Calvin
Fairbank During Slavery Times, pp. 11, 104-143.
See also the Chicago Tribune, Sunday, Jan. 29,
1893, p. 33.
2. Rev. Calvin Fairbank During Slavery Times,
pp. 10 and 11.
[Pg. 161 - SETH
CONCKLIN -
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. . .
."1 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."2
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
---------------
1 Letter
dated Evansville, Ind., Mar. 31, 1851. Printed in
Still's Underground Railroad Records, pp. 30, 31.
2 Still, Underground Railroad Records,
p. 31.
[Pg. 162 -
met his Just reward by getting drowned at the mouth of
Cumberland River on the Ohio in attempting to make his
escape."1 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.
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.'' 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.3
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:4
"Two small companies were made up to go to
Missouri and forcibly liberate the five slaves, together
---------------
1 Still,
Underground Railroad Records, p. 35. Letter
dated south Florence, Ala., Aug. 6, 1851.
2 Conversation with Samuel Harper and
his wife, Jane Harper, the two surviving members
of the company of slave 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.
3 Halloway, History of Kansas.
Quoted from John Brown's letters, January,
1859 (pp. 539-545).
4 In a letter written by Brown,
January, 1859, to the NewYork 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.
SAMUEL HARPER AND WIFE,
of Windsor, Ontario
ELLEN CRAFT.
[Pg. 163 - JOHN BROWN'S
RAID INTO MISSOURI -
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.
"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. . . ."1
The company responsible for the shooting of the
slaveowner, 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
---------------
1 Sanborn, Life and Letters of John Brown,
pp. 482, 483; also Redpath, The Public Life of
Captain John Brown, pp. 219, 220.
[Pg. 164 -
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 Jan. 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 Feb. 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."1 They were
---------------
1 Irving B. Richman, John Brown
among the Quakers, and Other Sketches, pp. 46, 47,
48.
[Pg. 165 - EFFECT OF
BROWN'S RAID -
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."1 On the
twelfth the freedmen were, under Brown's
direction, ferried across the Detroit River to Windsor,
Canada.
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"2
was a result which Brown seems to have regarded
as justifiable, but one the tragedy of which he
certainly deplored.3 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."4 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 begin-
----------------
1 Irving
B. Richman, John Brown among the Quakers,
and Other Sketches, pp. 46, 47, 48.
2 Sanborn, The Life andLetters of
John Brown, p. 483. See the
letter of 'The Parallels."
3. Hinton, John Brown
and His Men, p. 221.
4. Redpath. The Public Life
of Captain John Brown, p. 221.
[Pg. 166 -
ning 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,"1 and it was but six
months after his arrival in Canada that the attack on
Harper's Ferry was made.
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 words: " '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 res less 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."2
The plot, as disclosed eleven years later to Richard
J. Hinton (September, 1858) by Brown's
lieutenant, Kagi, contains
---------------
1 Hinton, John
Brown and His Men, p. 222, note.
2 Life of Frederick Douglass, 1881, pp. 280, 281
and 318, 319. Also Hinton, John
Brown and His Men, pp. 30, 31, 32.
[Pg. 167 - BROWN'S
PLAN OF LIBERATION -
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 refuges, 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 not 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. . . . "1
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
---------------
1 Hinton, John Brown and
His Men, Appendix, pp. 673, 674, 675.
Also Redpath, The Public Life of Captain
John Brown, pp. 203,204, 205
[Pg. 168 -
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.
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 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 make 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
[Pg. 169 - CHARLES T. TORREY -
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, Dec. 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."1 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
---------------
1 "Wilson,
Rise and Fall of the Slave Power in America, Vol.
II, p. 80.
[Pg. 170 -
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 alter, 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 the love save that of human
brotherhood." 1
In 1844, the year 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
---------------
1
Quoted by Wilson, in his History of the Rise
and Fall of the Slave Power in America, Vol. II, p.
80
[Pg. 171 - CAPTAIN
JONATHAN WALKER -
[Pg. 172 -
[Pg. 173 - DRAYTON'S
EXPEDITION WITH THE "PEARL" -
[Pg. 174 -
[Pg. 175 - RICHARD
DILLINGHAM AND WILLIAM L. CHAPLIN -
[Pg. 176 -
[Pg. 177 - JOSIAH HENSON
-
[Pg. 178 -
[Pg. 179 - RIAL CHEADLE -
on his midnight trips to Zanesville and stations
farther on.1 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 him self 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."2
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
---------------
1 The New
Lexington (Ohio) Tribune, winter of
1885-1886. Some in formation in regard to
Cheadle appears in a series of articles on the
Underground Railroad contributed to this paper by Mr.
Gray.
2 History of Morgan County, Ohio,
1886, published by Charles Robertson, M.D.,
article on the Underground Railroad.
[Pg. 180 -
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."1 In
accordance with this resolution young Ross left
Canada in November, 1856. He visited Gerrit
Smith, at 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."2 His chief
supporters, besides Gerrit Smith, was Theodore
Parker and Lewis Tappen.3
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
---------------
1 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.
2 Ross, Recollections and Experiences of an
Abolitionist, p. 5
3 Ibid., p. 8.
[Pg. 181 - ALEXANDER M.
ROSS -
them, and they were supplied with compasses, knives,
pistols, money and such provisions as made 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.
"On the evening appointed nine stout, intelligent young
men declared their determination to gain their freedom,
or die in the attempt. To each I gave a few
dollars in money, a pocket compass, knife, pistol, and
as much cold meat and bread as each could carry with
ease. I again explained to them the route. . . . I
never met more apt students than these poor fellows. . .
. They were to travel only by night, resting in some
secure spot during the day. Their route was to be
through Pennsylvania, to Erie on Lake Erie, and from
thence to Canada. . . . I learned, many months after,
that
[Pg. 182 -
they all had arrived safely in Canada. (In 1863 I
enlisted three of these brave fellows in a colored
regiment in Philadelphia, for service in the war that
gave freedom to their race.)"1
Mr. Ross was a naturalist, and his tastes in
this direction furnished him many god pretexts for
excursions. A journey into the far South was made
in the guise of an ornithologist. Describing his
trip to the cotton states Mr. Ross says: "Finally
my preparations were completed, and, supplied with a
shot-gun and materials for preserving bird-skins, I
began my journey into the interior of the country. . . .
Soon after my arrival at Vicksburg I was busily engaged
in collecting ornithological specimens. I made
frequent visits to the surrounding plantations, seizing
every favorable opportunity to converse with the more
intelligent slaves. Many of these negroes had
heard of Canada from the negroes brought from Virginia
and the border slave states; but the impression they had
was, that Canada being so far away, it would be useless
to try and reach it. On these excursions I was
usually accompanied by one or two smart, intelligent
slaves, to whom I felt I could trust the secret of my
visit. In this way I succeeded in circulating a
knowledge of Canada, the best means of reaching that
country, to all the plantations for many miles around
Vicksburg. . . . I continued my labors in the vicinity
of Vicksburg for several weeks and then went to Selma,
Alabama."2
In the ways described in these selections Mr. Ross
induced companies of slaves to exchange bondage for
freedom. How many he thus liberated we have, of
course, no means of knowing. The risks he
ran were such as to put his life in danger almost
constantly. Betrayal would have ended, probably,
in a lynching; and the disappearance simultaneously of a
band of fugitives and the unknown naturalist was a
coincidence not only sure to be noticed, but also widely
published, thus increasing the dangers many fold.
It is unnecessary to recount the occasions upon which
the scientist found himself in danger of falling a
victim to his zeal in
---------------
1 Ross, Recollections and
Experiences of an Abolitionist,pp. 10, 11, 12.
2 Ibid. pp. 37, 38. 39
[Pg. 183 -
HARRIET TUBMAN THE MOSES OF HER PEOPLE
-
[Pg. 184 -
[Pg. 185 - HARRIET TUBMAN
THE MOSES OF HER PEOPLE -
resisted, but both his arms were broken, and his body
otherwise abused. . . . Though he had changed his
name, as most slaves do on running away, he told his
master’s name and to him he was delivered. He was
eventually sold and was taken to New Orleans. . . .
Yet in one year, five months, and twenty days, I
received a letter from this man, John Mason,
from Hamilton, Canada West. Let a man walk abroad
on Freedom’s Sunny Plains, and having once drunk of its
celestial ‘stream whereof maketh glad the city of our
God,’ afterward reduce this man to slavery, it is next
to an impossibility to retain him in slavery.” 1
Harriet Tubman, like John Mason,
did not reckon the value of her own liberty in
comparison with the liberty of
others who had not tasted its sweets. Like him,
she saw in the oppression of her race the sufferings of
the enslaved Israelites, and was not slow to demand that
the Pharaoh of the South should let her people go.
She was known to many of the anti-slavery leaders of her
generation; her personality and her power were such that
none of them ever forgot the high virtues of this simple
black woman. Governor William H. Seward, of
New York, wrote of her: “I have known Harriet
long, and a nobler, higher spirit or a truer, seldom
dwells in human form.”2 Gerrit
Smith declared: “I am convinced that she is not
only truthful, but that she has a rare discernment, and
a deep and sublime philanthropy.”3
John Brown introduced her to Wendell
Phillips in Boston, saying, “I bring you one of
the best and bravest persons on this continent— General
Tubman as we call her.”4
Frederick Douglass testified: “Excepting
John Brown, of sacred memory, I know of no
one who has willingly encountered more perils and
hardships to serve our enslaved people than you have.
Much that
---------------
1 Mitchell, The Underground Railroad,
p. 20 et seq.
2 Sarah H. Bradford, Harriet the Moses
of Her People, p. 76. See also Appendix, p. 137.
These testimonials were given in 1868 and were printed
in connection with a short biography of Harriet
in the year mentioned. The first edition of this
biography has not been accessible to me, hut it is
mentioned by the Rev. Samuel J. May in his
Recollections of the Anti-Slavery Conflict, published
the following year. The second edition of the book
appeared in 1886.
3 Ibid., p. 139.
4 Hinton, John Brown and His Men,
p. 173
[Pg. 186 -
you have done would seem improbable to those who do not
know you as I know you. . . -”1 Mr.
F. B. Sanborn said: “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. . . .” 2
The Rev. S. J. May
knew Harriet personally, and speaks with
admiration, not only of the work she did in emancipating
numbers of her own people, but also of the important
services she rendered the nation during the Civil War
both as a nurse and as “the leader of soldiers in
scouting-parties and raids. She seemed to know no
fear and scarcely ever fatigue. They called her
their Moses.”3
The name, Moses, was that by which this woman
was commonly known. She earned it by the qualities
of leadership displayed in conducting bands of slaves
through devious ways and manifold perils out of their
“land of Egypt.” She first learned what liberty
was for herself about the year 1849. She made her
way from Maryland, her home as a slave, to Philadelphia,
and there by industry gathered together a sum of money
with which to begin her humane and self-imposed labors.
In December, 1850, she went to Baltimore and abducted
her sister and two children. A few months later
she brought away another company of three persons, one
of whom was her brother. From this time on till
the outbreak of the War of the Rebellion her excursions
were frequent. She is said to have accomplished
nineteen such trips, and emancipated over three hundred
slaves.4
As may be surmised, she had encouragement in her
undertakings; but her main dependence was upon her own
efforts. All her wages were laid aside for the
purpose of emancipating her people. Whenever she
had secured a sufficient sum, she would disappear from
her Northern home, work her passage South, and meet the
band of expectant slaves, whom she had forewarned of her
coming in some mysterious way.
---------------
1 Mrs. Bradford, Harriet the Moses
of Her People, p. 135.
2
Ibid., pp. 136, 137.
3
Ibid., p. 406.
4
James Freeman Clarke, Anti-Slavery Days,
pp. 81, 82. Also M. G. McDougall, Fugitive
Slaves, p. 62.
[Pg. 187 - HARRIET TUBMAN
THE MOSES OF HER PEOPLE -
Her sagacity was one of her most marked traits; it was
displayed constantly in her management of her little
caravans. Thus she would take the precaution to
start with her pilgrims on Saturday night so that they
could be well along on their journey before they were
advertised. Posters giving descriptions of the
runaways and offering a considerable reward for their
arrest were a common means of making public the loss of
slave property. Harriet often paid a negro
to follow the man who posted the descriptions of her
companions and tear them down. When there were
babies in the party she sometimes drugged them with
paregoric and had them carried in baskets. She
knew where friends could be found that would give
shelter to her weary freedmen. If at any stage of
the journey she were compelled to leave her companions
and forage for supplies she would disclose herself on
her return through the strains of a favorite song: —
Dark and thorny is de
pathway,
Where de pilgrim makes his ways;
But Behond dis vale of sorro,
Lie de fields of endless days.
Sometimes when hard pressed by pursuers she would take a
train southward with her companions; she knew that no
one would suspect fugitives travelling in that
direction. Harriet was a well-known visitor
at the offices of the anti-slavery societies in
Philadelphia and New York, and at first she seems to
have been content if her protégés
arrived safely among friends in either of these cities;
but after she comprehended the Fugitive Slave Law she
preferred to accompany them all the way to Canada.
“I wouldn’t,” she said, “trust Uncle Sam
wid my people no longer.”1 She knew the
need of discipline in effecting her rough, overland
marches, and she therefore required strict obedience of
her followers. The discouragement of an individual
could not be permitted to endanger the liberty and
safety of the whole party; accordingly she sometimes
strengthened the fainting heart by threatening to use
her revolver, and declaring, “Dead niggers tell no
tales, you go on or die.” She was
---------------
1 Mrs. Bradford, Harriet
the Moses of Her People, p. 39.
[Pg. 188 -
not less lenient with herself. The safety of her
companions was her chief concern; she would not allow
her labors to be lightened by any course likely to
increase the chances of their discovery. On one
occasion, while leading a company, she experienced a
feeling that danger was near; unhesitatingly she decided
to ford a river near by, because she must do so to be
safe. Her followers were afraid to cross, but Harriet,
despite the severity of the weather (the month was
March), and her ignorance of the depth of the stream,
walked resolutely into the water and led the way to the
op¬ posite shore. It was found that officers were lying
in wait for the party on the route first intended.
Like many of her race Harriet was a thorough-going
mystic. The Quaker, Thomas Garrett,
said of her: “ . . . I never met with any person, of any
color, who had more confidence in the voice of God, as
spoken to her soul. She has frequently told me
that she talked with God, and he talked with her, every
day of her life, and she has declared to me that she
felt no more fear of being arrested by her former
master, or any other person, when in his immediate
neighborhood, than she did in the State of New York, or
Canada, for she said she never ventured only where God
sent her. Her faith in the Supreme Power truly was
great.”1 This faith never deserted her
in her times of peril. She explained her many
deliverances as Harriet Beecher Stowe
accounted for the power and effect of Uncle Tom’s
Cabin. She insisted it was all God’s doing.
“Jes so long as he wanted to use me,” said Mrs. Tubman,
“ he would take keer of me, an’ when he didn’t want me
no longer, I was ready to go. I always tole him,
I’m gwine to hole stiddy on to you, an’ you’ve got to
see me trou.” 2
In 1857, Mrs. Tubman made what has been
called her most venturesome journey. She had
brought several of her brothers and sisters from
slavery, but had not hit upon a method to release her
aged parents. The chief difficulty lay in the fact
that they were unable to walk long distances. At
length she devised a plan and carried it through.
A home-
---------------
1 Mrs. Bradford, Harriet the Moses
of Her People, pp. 83, 84.
2 Ibid., p. 61,
[Pg. 189 - HARRIET TUBMAN THE MOSES OF HER PEOPLE -
made conveyance was patched together, and an old horse
brought into use. Mr. Garrett
describes the vehicle as consisting of a pair of old
chaise-wheels, with a board on the axle to sit on and
another board swinging by ropes from the axle on which
to rest their feet. This rude contrivance
Harriet used in conveying her parents to the
railroad, where they were put aboard the cars for
Wilmington; and she followed them in her novel vehicle.
At Wilmington, Friend Garrett was sought
out by the bold abductor, and he furnished her with
money to take all of them to Canada. He afterwards
sold their horse and sent them the money.
Harriet and her family did not long remain in
Canada; Auburn, New York, was deemed a preferable place;
and here a small property was bought on easy terms of
Governor Seward, to provide a home for the
enfranchised mother and father.
Before Harriet had finished paying for her bit
of real estate, the Civil War broke out.
Governor Andrew of Massachusetts,
appreciating the sagacity, bravery and kindliness of the
woman, soon summoned her to go into the South to serve
as a scout, and when necessary as a hospital nurse.
That her services were valuable was the testimony of
officers under whom she served; thus General
Rufus Saxton wrote in March, 1868: “I can
bear witness to the value of her services in South
Carolina and Florida. She was employed in the
hospitals and as a spy. She made many a raid
inside the enemies’ lines, displaying remarkable
courage, zeal and fidelity.”1
At the conclusion of the great struggle Harriet
returned to Auburn, where she has lived ever since.
Her devotion to her people has never ceased.
Although she is very poor and is subject to the
infirmities of old age, infirmities increased in her
case by the effects of ill treatment received in
slavery, she has managed to transform her house into a
hospital, where she provides and cares for some of the
helpless and deserving of her own race.2
---------------
1 Mrs. Bradford, Harriet the Moses of
Her People, Appendix, p. 142.
2 Lillie B. C. Wyman, in the New
England Magazine, March, 1876, pp. 117, 118.
Conversation with Harriet Tubman,
Cambridge, Mass., April 8, 1897.
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