Читать книгу The Underground Railroad from Slavery to Freedom - Wilbur Henry Siebert - Страница 14

BARN OF SEYMOUR FINNEY, ESQ., DETROIT, MICHIGAN.

A shelter for fugitives in Detroit, formerly standing where the Chamber of Commerce Building now stands.

THE OLD FIRST CHURCH, GALESBURG, ILLINOIS.

Fugitive slaves were sometimes concealed in the gallery of this church.

A similar story is told by Mr. Sidney Speed, of Crawfordsville, Indiana, when recalling the work of his father, John Speed, and that of Fisher Doherty. "In 1858 or 1859, a mulatto girl about eighteen or twenty years old, very good-looking and with some education, … reached our home. The nigger-catchers became so watchful that she could not be moved for several days. In fact, some of them were nearly always at the house either on some pretended business or making social visits. I do not think that the house was searched, or they would surely have found her, as during all this time she remained in the garret over the old log kitchen, where the fugitives were usually kept when there was danger. Her owner, a man from New Orleans, had just bought her in Louisville, and he had traced her surely to this place; she had not struck the Underground before, but had made her way alone this far, and as they got no trace of her beyond here they returned and doubled the watches on Doherty and my father. But at length a day came, or a night rather, when she was led safely out through the gardens to the house of a colored man named Patterson. There she was rigged out in as fine a costume of silk and ribbons as it was possible to procure at that time, and was furnished with a white baby borrowed for the occasion, and accompanied by one of the Patterson girls as servant and nurse." Thus disguised, the lady boarded the train at the station. But what must have been her feelings to find her master already in the same car; he was setting out to watch for her at the end of the line. She kept her courage, and when they reached Detroit she went aboard the ferry-boat for Canada; her pretended nurse returned to shore with the borrowed baby; and as the gang-plank was being raised, the young slave-woman on the boat removed her veil that she might bid her owner good-by. The master's display of anger as he gazed at the departing boat was as real as the situation was gratifying to his former slave and amusing to the bystanders.[166]

John Fairfield, the Virginian, depended largely on disguises in several of his abducting exploits. At one time he was asked by a number of Canadian refugees to help some of their relatives to the North, and when he found that many of them had very light complexions, he decided to send them to Canada disguised as white persons. Having secured for them the requisite wigs and powder, he was gratified with the transformation in appearance they were able to effect. He therefore secured tickets for his party, and placed them aboard a night train for Harrisburg, where they were met by a person who accompanied them to Cleveland and saw them take boat for Detroit. Later Fairfield succeeded in aiding other companies of slaves to escape from Washington and Harper's Ferry by resorting to similar means.[167] Among the Quakers the woman's costume was a favorite disguise for fugitives. No one attired in it was likely to be in the least degree suspicioned of being anything else than what the garb proclaimed. The veiled bonnet also was peculiarly adapted to conceal the features of the person disguised.[168] One incident will suffice to show the utility of the Quaker costume. One evening Joseph G. Walker, a Quaker of Wilmington, Delaware, was appealed to by a slave-woman, who was closely pursued. She was permitted to enter Mr. Walker's house, and a few minutes later, in the gown and bonnet of Mrs. Walker, she passed out of the front door leaning upon the arm of the shrewd Quaker.[169]

It is quite apparent that the Underground Railroad was not a formal organization with officers of different ranks, a regular membership, and a treasury from which to meet expenses. A terminology, it is true, sprang up in connection with the work of the Road, and one hears of station-keepers, agents, conductors, and even presidents of the Underground Railroad; but these titles were figurative terms, borrowed with other expressions from the convenient vocabulary of steam railways; and while they were useful among abolitionists to save circumlocution, they commended themselves to the friends of the slave by helping to mystify the minds of the public. The need of organization was not felt except in a few localities. It was only in towns and cities that the distinctions of "managers," "contributing members," and "agents" began to develop in any significant way, and even in the case of these places the distinctions must not be pushed far, for they indicate merely that certain men by their sagacious activity came to be called "managers," while others less bold, the contributing members, were willing to give money towards defraying the expenses of some trusty person, the agent, who would run the risk of piloting fugitives.

The first reference to an organization devoted to the business of aiding fugitive slaves occurs in a letter of George Washington, bearing date May 12, 1786. Washington speaks of a "society of Quakers in the city [Philadelphia], formed for such purposes. … "[170] We have no means of knowing how this body conducted its work, nor how long it continued to exist. It is sometimes stated that the formal organization of the Underground Road took place in 1838, but this is not an accurate statement. An organized society of the Underground Railroad was formed in Philadelphia about the year 1838. Mr. Robert Purvis, who was the president, has called this body the first of its kind, but this may be doubted in view of the quotation from Washington's letter above cited. The character of the organization appears from the following account of its methods given by Mr. Purvis:[171] "The funds for carrying on this enterprise were raised from our anti-slavery friends, as the cases came up,"[172] and their needs demanded it; for many of the fugitives required no other help than advice and direction how to proceed. To the late Daniel Neall, the society was greatly indebted for his generous gifts, as well as for his encouraging words and fearless independence. … The most efficient helpers or agents we had, were two market-women, who lived in Baltimore. …

"Another most effective worker was a son of a slaveholder, who lived at Newberne, S.C. Through his agency, the slaves were forwarded by placing them on vessels. … Having the address of the active members of the committee, they were enabled to find us, when not accompanied by our agents. … The fugitives were distributed among the members of the society, but most of them were received at my house in Philadelphia, where … I caused a place to be constructed underneath a room, which could only be entered by a trap-door in the floor. … "

This account shows clearly that the organization of 1838 was limited; and while it was officered with a president, secretary and committee, and had helpers at a distance called agents, it can scarcely be said that the plan of action of the society was different in essential points from that which developed without the formality of election of officers in many underground centres throughout the Northern states. Levi Coffin, by his devotion to the cause of the fugitive from boyhood to old age, gained the title of President of the Underground Railroad,[173] but he was not at the head of a formal organization. In northeastern Illinois, Peter Stewart, a prosperous citizen of Wilmington, who was a very active worker in the cause, was sometimes called President of the Underground Railroad,[174] but here again the distinction seems to have been complimentary and figurative. In truth the work was everywhere spontaneous, and its character was such that organization could have added little or no efficiency. Unfaltering confidence among members of neighboring stations served better than a code of rules; special messengers sent on the spur of the moment took the place of conferences held at stated seasons; supplies gathered privately as they were needed sufficed instead of regular dues; and, in general, the decision and sagacity of the individual was required rather than the less rapid efforts of an organization.

In a few centres where the amount of secret service to be done was large, a slight specialization of work is to be noticed. This division of labor consisted in the employment of a regular conductor or agent at these points to manage the work of transportation of passengers to points farther north; while the station-keepers attended more closely to the work of receiving and caring for the new arrivals. The special conductors chosen were men thoroughly acquainted with the different routes of their respective neighborhoods. At Mechanicsburg, Champaign County, Ohio, Udney Hyde, a fearless and well-known citizen, acted as agent between the local stations of J. R. Ware and Levi Rathbun, and stations to the northeast as far as the Alum Creek Quaker Settlement, a distance of forty miles.[175] The stations at Mechanicsburg were among the most widely known in central and southern Ohio. They received fugitives from at least three regular routes, and doubtless had "switch connections" with other lines. Passengers were taken northward over one of the three, perhaps four roads, and as one or two of these lay through pro-slavery neighborhoods a brave and experienced agent was almost indispensable. George W. S. Lucas, a colored man of Salem, Columbiana County, Ohio, made frequent trips with the closed carriage of Philip Evans, between Barnesville, New Philadelphia and Cadiz, and two stations, Ashtabula and Painesville, on the shore of Lake Erie. Occasionally Mr. Lucas conducted parties to Cleveland and Sandusky and Toledo, but in such cases he went on foot or by stage.[176] His trips were sometimes a hundred miles and more in length. George L. Burroughes, a colored man of Cairo, Illinois, became an agent for the Underground Road in 1857, while acting as porter of a sleeping-car running on the Illinois Central Railroad between Cairo and Chicago.[177] At Albany, New York, Stephen Meyers, a negro, was an agent of the Underground Road for a wide extent of territory.[178] At Detroit there were several colored agents; among them George De Baptiste and George Dolarson.[179]

The slight approach to organization manifest in some centres in the division of labor between station-keepers and special agents or conductors was caused by the large number of fugitives arriving at these points, and the extreme caution necessary. When, at length, indignation was aroused in the minds of Northern abolitionists by the passage of the Fugitive Slave Law, September 18, 1850, the determination to resist this measure displayed itself in certain localities in the formation of vigilance committees. Theodore Parker explains that it was in consequence of the enactment of this measure that "people held indignant meetings, and organized committees of vigilance whose duty was to prevent a fugitive from being arrested, if possible, or to furnish legal aid, and raise every obstacle to his rendition. The vigilance committees," he says, "were also the employees of the U. G. R. R. and effectively disposed of many a casus belli by transferring the disputed chattel to Canada. Money, time, wariness, devotedness for months and years, that cannot be computed, and will never be recorded, except, perhaps, in connection with cases whose details had peculiar interest, was nobly rendered by the true anti-slavery men."[180] Such committees of vigilance were organized in Syracuse, New York, Boston, Springfield and some of the smaller towns of Massachusetts, in Philadelphia and other places. New York City, like Philadelphia, had a Vigilance Committee as early as 1838. About this association of the metropolis there is scarcely any information.[181] We must be content then to confine our attention to the committees called into existence by the Fugitive Slave Law of 1850.

Eight days after the enactment of this law citizens of Syracuse, New York, issued a call through the newspapers for a public meeting, and on October 4 members of all parties crowded the city-hall to express their censure of the law. The meeting recommended "the appointment of a Vigilance Commitee of thirteen citizens, whose duty it shall be to see that no person is deprived of his liberty without 'due process of law.' And all good citizens are earnestly requested to aid and sustain them in all needed efforts for the security of every person claiming the protection of our laws." This committee was appointed and an address and resolutions adopted.[182] At an adjourned meeting held on October 12 the assemblage voted to form an association, "pledged to stand by its members in opposing this law, and to share with any of them the pecuniary losses they may incur under the operation of this law." The determination shown in the organization of these two bodies was well sustained a year later when the attempt was made by officers of the law to seize Jerry McHenry as a fugitive slave. The Vigilance Committee decided to storm the court-house, where the colored man was confined under guard, and rescue the prisoner. This daring piece of work was successfully accomplished, and the government never again attempted to recover any slaves in central New York.[183]

The organization of the Vigilance Committee of Syracuse was closely followed by the organization of a similar committee in Boston. At a meeting in Faneuil Hall, October 14, 1850, resolutions were adopted expressing the conviction that no citizen would take part in reënslaving a fugitive, and pledging protection to the colored residents of the city. To make good this pledge a Vigilance Committee of fifty was appointed.[184] This body organized by choosing a president, treasurer, and secretary, a committee of finance, an executive committee, a legal committee and a committee of special vigilance and alarm. An appeal was then issued to the citizens of Boston calling their attention to the arrival of many destitute fugitives in Boston, and to the establishment of an agency for the purpose of securing employment for fugitive applicants. Gifts of money and clothing were asked for. In response to a circular sent out by the finance committee to all the churches in 1851, a sum of about sixteen hundred dollars was raised. That there might be coöperation throughout the state notices were sent to all the towns in Massachusetts urging the formation of local vigilance committees; and as a result such committees were organized in some towns.[185]

The meeting-place of the Boston Committee was Meionaon Hall in Tremont Temple. Members were notified of an intended meeting personally, if possible, by the doorkeeper of the committee, Captain Austin Bearse.[186] The proceedings of the committee were secret, and comparatively little is now known about their work. It is, however, known that for ten years the organization was active, and that although it was not successful in rescuing Sims and Burns from a hard fate, it nevertheless secured the liberty of more than a hundred others.[187]

Soon after the Fugitive Slave Law was passed John Brown visited Springfield, Massachusetts, where he had formerly lived. The valley of the Connecticut had long been a line of underground travel, and citizens of Springfield, colored and white, had become identified with operations on this line. Brown at once decided that the new law made organization necessary, and he formed, therefore, the League of Gileadites to resist systematically the enforcement of the law. The name of this order was significant in that it contained a warning to those of its members that should show themselves cowards. "Whosoever is fearful or afraid let him return and depart early from Mount Gilead."[188] In the "Agreement and Rules" that Brown drafted for the order, adopted January 15, 1851, the following directions for action were laid down: "Should one of your number be arrested, you must collect together as quickly as possible, so as to outnumber your adversaries. … Let no able-bodied man appear on the ground unequipped, or with his weapons exposed to view. … Your plans must be known only to yourselves and with the understanding that all traitors must die, wherever caught and proven to be guilty. … Let the first blow be the signal for all to engage, … make clean work with your enemies, and be sure you meddle not with any others. … After effecting a rescue, if you are assailed, go into the houses of your most prominent and influential white friends with your wives, and that will effectually fasten upon them the suspicion of being connected with you, and will compel them to make a common cause with you. … You may make a tumult in the court-room where a trial is going on by burning gunpowder freely in paper packages. … But in such case the prisoner will need to take the hint at once and bestir himself; and so should his friends improve the opportunity for a general rush. … Stand by one another, and by your friends, while a drop of blood remains; and be hanged, if you must, but tell no tales out of school. Make no confession." By adopting the Agreement and Rules forty-four colored persons constituted themselves "a branch of the United States League of Gileadites," and agreed "to have no officers except a treasurer and secretary pro tem., until after some trial of courage," when they could choose officers on the basis of "courage, efficiency, and general good conduct."[189] Doubtless the Gileadites of Springfield did efficient service, for it appears that the importance of the town as a way-station on the Underground Road increased after the passage of the Fugitive Slave Bill.[190]

WILLIAM STILL,

Chairman of the Acting Vigilance Committee in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, 1852–1860.

We have already learned that Philadelphia had a Vigilance Committee before 1840. In a speech made before the meeting that organized the new committee, December 2, 1852, Mr. J. Miller McKim, the secretary of the Pennsylvania Anti-Slavery Society, gave the reasons for establishing a new committee. He said that the old committee "had become disorganized and scattered, and that for the last two or three years the duties of this department had been performed by individuals on their own responsibility, and sometimes in a very irregular manner." It was accordingly decided to form a new committee, called the General Vigilance Committee, with a chairman and treasurer; and within this body an Acting Committee of four persons, "who should have the responsibility of attending to every case that might require their aid, as well as the exclusive authority to raise the funds necessary for their purpose." The General Committee comprised nineteen members, and had as its head Mr. Robert Purvis, one of the signers of the Declaration of Sentiments of the American Anti-Slavery Society, and the first president of the old committee. The Acting Committee had as its chairman William Still, a colored clerk in the office of the Pennsylvania Anti-Slavery Society and a most energetic underground helper. The Philadelphia Vigilance Committee, thus constituted, continued intact until Lincoln issued the Emancipation Proclamation.[191] Some insight into the work accomplished by the Acting Committee can be obtained by an examination of the book compiled by William Still under the title Underground Railroad Records. The Acting Committee was required to keep a record of all its doings. Mr. Still's volume was evidently amassed by the transcription of many of the incidents that found their way under this order into the archives of the committee. The work was limited to the assistance of such needy fugitives as came to Philadelphia; and was not extended, except in rare cases, to inciting slaves to run away from their masters, or to aiding them in so doing.[192]

The relief of the destitution existing among the wayworn travellers was a matter requiring considerable outlay of time and money on the part of abolitionists. There was occasionally a fugitive or family of fugitives, that, having better opportunity or possessing greater foresight than others, made provision for the journey and escaped to Canada with little or no dependence on the aid of underground operators. Asbury Parker, of Ironton, Ohio, fled from Greenup County, Kentucky, in 1857, clad in a suit of broadcloth, alone befitting, as he thought, the dignity of a free man.[193] The brother of Anthony Bingey, of Windsor, Ontario, came unexpectedly into the possession of five hundred dollars. With this money he instructed a friend in Cincinnati to procure a team and wagon to convey the family of Bingey to Canada. The company arrived at Sandusky after being only three days on the road.[194]

But the mass of fugitives were thinly clad, and had only such food as they could forage until they reached the Underground Railroad. The arrival of a company at a station would be at once followed by the preparation, often at midnight, of a meal for the pilgrims and their guides. It was a common thing for a station to entertain a company of five or six; and companies of twenty-eight or thirty are not unheard of. Levi Coffin says, "The largest company of slaves ever seated at our table, at one time, numbered seventeen."[195] During one month in the year 1854 or 1855 there were sixty runaways at the house of Aaron L. Benedict, a station in the Alum Creek Quaker Settlement in central Ohio. On one occasion twenty sat down to dinner in Mr. Benedict's house.[196] It will thus be seen that the supply of provisions alone was for the average station-keeper no inconsiderable item of expense, and that it was one involving much labor.

The arrangements for furnishing fugitives with clothing, like much of the underground work done at the stations, came within the province of the women of the stations. While the noted fugitive, William Wells Brown, lay sick at the house of his benefactor, Mr. Wells Brown, in southwestern Ohio, the family made him some clothing, and Mr. Brown purchased him a pair of boots.[197] Women's anti-slavery societies in many places conducted sewing-circles, as a branch of their work, for the purpose of supplying clothes and other necessities to fugitives. The Woman's Anti-Slavery Society of Ellington, Chautauqua County, New York, sent a letter to William Still, November 21, 1859, saying: "Every year we have sent a box of clothing, bedding, etc., to the aid of the fugitive, and wishing to send it where it would be of the most service, we have it suggested to us, to send to you the box we have at present. You would confer a favor … by writing us, … whether or not it would be more advantageous to you than some nearer station. … "[198]

The Women's Anti-Slavery Sewing Society of Cincinnati maintained an active interest in underground work going on in their city by supplying clothing to needy travellers.[199] The Female Anti-Slavery Association of Henry County, Indiana, organized a Committee of Vigilance in 1841 "to seek out such colored females as are not suitably provided for, who may now be, or who shall hereafter come, within our limits, and assist them in any way they may deem expedient, either by advice or pecuniary means. … "[200]

In some of the large centres, money as well as clothing and food was constantly needed for the proper performance of the underground work. Thus, for example, at Cincinnati, Ohio, it was frequently necessary to hire carriages in which to convey fugitives out of the city to some neighboring station. From time to time as the occasion arose Levi Coffin collected the funds needed for such purposes from business acquaintances. He called these contributors "stock-holders" in the Underground Railroad.[201] After steam railroads became incorporated in the underground system money was required at different points to purchase tickets for fugitives. The Vigilance Committee of Philadelphia defrayed the travelling expenses of many refugees in sending some to New York City, some to Elmira and a few to Canada.[202] Frederick Douglass, who kept a station at Rochester, New York, received contributions of money to pay the railroad fares of the fugitives he forwarded to Canada and to give them a little more for pressing necessities.[203]

The use of steam railroads as a means of transportation of this class of passengers began with the completion of lines of road to the lakes. This did not take place till about 1850. It was, therefore, during the last decade of the history of the Underground Road that surface lines, as they were sometimes called by abolitionists, became a part of the secret system. There were probably more surface lines in Ohio than in any other state. The old Mad River Railroad, or Sandusky, Dayton and Cincinnati Railroad, of western Ohio, (now a part of the "Big Four" system), began to be used at least as early as 1852 by instructed fugitives.[204] The Sandusky, Mansfield and Newark Railroad (now the Baltimore and Ohio) from Utica, Licking County, Ohio, to Sandusky, was sometimes used by the same class of persons.[205] After the construction of the Cleveland, Columbus and Cincinnati Railroad[206] as far as Greenwich in northern Ohio, fugitives often came to that point concealed in freight-cars. In eastern Ohio there were two additional routes by rail sometimes employed in underground traffic: one of these appears to have been the Cleveland and Canton from Zanesville north,[207] and the other was the Cleveland and Western between Alliance and Cleveland.[208] In Indiana the Louisville, New Albany and Chicago Railroad from Crawfordsville northward was patronized by underground travellers until the activity of slave-hunters caused it to be abandoned.[209] Fugitives were sometimes transported across the State of Michigan by the Michigan Central Railroad. In Illinois there seems to have been not less than three railroads that carried fugitives: these were the Chicago, Burlington and Quincy,[210] the Chicago and Rock Island[211] and the Illinois Central.[212] When John Brown made his famous journey through Iowa in the winter of 1858–1859 he shipped his company of twelve fugitives in a stock car from West Liberty, Iowa, to Chicago, by way of the Chicago and Rock Island route.[213] In Pennsylvania and New York there were several lines over which runaways were sent when circumstances permitted. At Harrisburg, Reading and other points along the Philadelphia and Reading Railroad, fugitives were put aboard the cars for Philadelphia.[214] From Pennsylvania they were forwarded by the Vigilance Committee over different lines, sometimes by way of the Pennsylvania Railroad to New York City; sometimes by way of the Philadelphia and Reading and the Northern Central to Elmira, New York, whence they were sent on by the same line to Niagara Falls. Fugitives put aboard the cars at Elmira were furnished with money from a fund provided by the anti-slavery society. As a matter of precaution they were sent out of town at four o'clock in the morning, and were always placed by the train officials, who knew their destination, in the baggage-car.[215] The New York Central Railroad from Rochester west was an outlet made use of by Frederick Douglass in passing slaves to Canada. At Syracuse, during several years before the beginning of the War, one of the directors of this road, Mr. Horace White, the father of Dr. Andrew D. White, distributed passes to fugitives. This fact did not come to the knowledge of Dr. White until after his father's demise. He relates: "Some years after … I met an old 'abolitionist' of Syracuse, who said to me that he had often come to my father's house, rattled at the windows, informed my father of the passes he needed for fugitive slaves, received them through the window, and then departed, nobody else being the wiser. On my asking my mother, who survived my father several years, about it, she said: 'Yes, such things frequently occurred, and your father, if he was satisfied of the genuineness of the request, always wrote off the passes and handed them out, asking no questions."[216]

In the New England states fugitives travelled, under the instruction of friends, by way of the Providence and Worcester Railroad from Valley Falls, Rhode Island, to Worcester, Massachusetts, where by arrangement they were transferred to the Vermont Road.[217] The Boston and Worcester Railroad between Newton and Worcester, Massachusetts, as also between Boston and Worcester, seems to have been used to some extent in this way.[218] The Grand Trunk, extending from Portland, Maine, through the northern parts of New Hampshire and Vermont into Canada, occasionally gave passes to fugitives, and would always take reduced fares for this class of passengers.[219]

The advantages of escape by boat were early discerned by slaves living near the coast or along inland rivers. Vessels engaged in our coastwise trade became more or less involved in transporting fugitives from Southern ports to Northern soil. Small trading vessels, returning from their voyages to Norfolk and Portsmouth, Virginia, landed slaves on the New England coast.[220] In July, 1853, the brig Florence (Captain Amos Hopkins, of Hallowell, Maine) from Wilmington, North Carolina, was required, while lying in Boston harbor, to surrender a fugitive found on board. In September, 1854, the schooner Sally Ann (of Belfast, Maine), from the same Southern port, was induced to give up a slave known to be on board. In October of the same year the brig Cameo (of Augusta, Maine) brought a stowaway from Jacksonville, Florida, into Boston harbor, and, as in the two preceding cases, the slave was rescued from the danger of return to the South through the activity and shrewdness of Captain Austin Bearse, the agent of the Vigilance Committee of Boston.[221] The son of a slaveholder living at Newberne, North Carolina, forwarded slaves from that point to the Vigilance Committee of Philadelphia on vessels engaged in the lumber trade.[222] In November, 1855, Captain Fountain brought twenty-one fugitives concealed on his vessel in a cargo of grain from Norfolk, Virginia, to Philadelphia.[223]

The tributaries flowing into the Ohio River from Virginia and Kentucky furnished convenient channels of escape for many slaves. The concurrent testimony of abolitionists living along the Ohio is to the effect that streams like the Kanawha River bore many a boat-load of fugitives to the southern boundary of the free states. It is not a mere coincidence that a large number of the most important centres of activity lie along the southern line of the Western free states at points near or opposite the mouths of rivers and creeks. On the Mississippi, Ohio and Illinois rivers north-bound steamboats not infrequently provided the means of escape. Jefferson Davis declared in the Senate that many slaves escaped from his state into Ohio by taking passage on the boats of the Mississippi.[224]

Abolitionists found it desirable to have waterway extensions of their secret lines. Boats, the captains of which were favorable, were therefore drafted into the service when running on convenient routes. Boats plying between Portland, Maine, and St. John, New Brunswick, or other Canadian ports, often took these passengers free of charge.[225] Thomas Garrett, of Wilmington, Delaware, sometimes sent negroes by steamboat to Philadelphia to be cared for by the Vigilance Committee.[226] It happened on several occasions that fugitives at Portland and Boston were put aboard ocean steamers bound for England.[227] William and Ellen Craft were sent to England after having narrowly escaped capture in Boston.[228]

On the great lakes the boat service was extensive. The boats of General Reed touching at Racine, Wisconsin, received fugitives without fare. Among these were the Sultana (Captain Appleby), the Madison, the Missouri, the Niagara and the Keystone State. Captain Steele of the propeller Galena was a friend of fugitives, as was also Captain Kelsey of the Chesapeake. Mr. A. P. Dutton was familiar with these vessels and their officers, and for twenty years or more shipped runaway slaves as well as cargoes of grain from his dock in Racine.[229] The Illinois (Captain Blake), running between Chicago and Detroit, was a safe boat on which to place passengers whose destination was Canada.[230] John G. Weiblen navigated the lakes in 1855 and 1856, and took many refugees from Chicago to Collingwood, Ontario.[231] The Arrow,[232] the United States,[233] the Bay City and the Mayflower plying between Sandusky and Detroit, were boats the officers of which were always willing to help negroes reach Canadian ports. The Forest Queen, the Morning Star and the May Queen, running between Cleveland and Detroit, the Phœbus, a little boat plying between Toledo and Detroit, and, finally, some scows and sail-boats, are among the old craft of the great lakes that carried many slaves to their land of promise.[234] A clue to the number of refugees thus transported to Canada is perhaps given by the record of the boat upon which the fugitive, William Wells Brown, found employment. This boat ran from Cleveland to Buffalo and to Detroit. It quickly became known at Cleveland that Mr. Brown would take escaped slaves under his protection without charge, hence he rarely failed to find a little company ready to sail when he started out from Cleveland. "In the year 1842," he says, "I conveyed, from the first of May to the first of December, sixty-nine fugitives over Lake Erie to Canada."[235]

The account of the method of the Underground Railroad could scarcely be called complete without some notice of the rescue of fugitives under arrest. The first rescue occurred at the intended trial of the first fugitive slave case in Boston in 1793. Mr. Josiah Quincy, counsel for the fugitive, "heard a noise, and, turning around, saw the constables lying sprawling on the floor, and a passage opening through the crowd, through which the fugitive was taking his departure without stopping to hear the opinion of the court."[236]

The prototype of deliverances thus established was, it is true, more or less deviated from in later instances, but the general characteristics of these cases are such that they naturally fall into one class. They are cases in which the execution of the law was interfered with by friends of the prisoner, who was spirited away as quickly as possible. The deliverance in 1812 of a supposed runaway from the hands of his captor by the New England settlers of Worthington, Ohio, has already been referred to in general terms.[237] But some details of the incident are necessary to bring out more clearly the propriety of its being included in the category of instances of violation of the constitutional provision for the rendition of escaped slaves. It appears that word was brought to the village of Worthington of the capture of the fugitive at a neighboring town, and that the villagers under the direction of Colonel James Kilbourne took immediate steps to release the negro, who, it was said, was tied with ropes, and being afoot, was compelled to keep up as best he could with his master's horse. On the arrival of the slave-owner and his chattel, the latter was freed from his bonds by the use of a butcher-knife in the hands of an active villager, and the forms of a legal dismissal were gone through before a court and an audience whose convictions were ruinous to any representations the claimant was able to make. The dispossessed master was permitted to continue his journey southward, while the negro was directed to get aboard a government wagon on its way northward to Sandusky. The return of the slave-hunter a day or two later with a process obtained in Franklinton, authorizing the retaking of his property, secured him a second hearing, but did not change the result. A fugitive, Basil Dorsey, from Liberty, Frederick County, Maryland, was seized in Bucks County, Pennsylvania, in 1836, and carried away. Overtaken by Mr. Robert Purvis at Doylestown, he was brought into court, and the hearing of the case was postponed for two weeks. When the day of trial came the counsel for the slave succeeded in getting the case dismissed on the ground of certain objections. Thereupon the claimants of the slave hastened to a magistrate for a new warrant, but just as they were returning to rearrest the fugitive, he was hustled into the buggy of Mr. Purvis and driven rapidly out of the reach of the pursuers.[238] In October, 1853, the case of Louis, a fugitive from Kentucky on trial in Cincinnati, was brought to a conclusion in an unexpected way. The United States commissioner was about to pronounce judgment when the prisoner, taking advantage of a favorable opportunity, slipped from his chair, had a good hat placed upon his head by some friend, passed out of the court-room among a crowd of colored visitors and made his way cautiously to Avondale. A few minutes after the disappearance of the fugitive his absence was discovered by the marshal that had him in charge; and although careful search was made for him, he escaped to Canada by means of the Underground Railroad.[239] In April, 1859, Charles Nalle, a slave from Culpeper County, Virginia, was discovered in Troy, New York, and taken before the United States commissioner, who remanded him back to slavery. As the news of this decision spread, a crowd gathered about the commissioner's office. In the meantime, a writ of habeas corpus was served upon the marshal that had arrested Nalle, commanding that officer to bring the prisoner before a judge of the Supreme Court. When the marshal and his deputies appeared with the slave, the crowd made a charge upon them, and a hand-to-hand melée resulted. Inch by inch the progress of the officers was resisted until they were worn out, and the slave escaped. In haste the fugitive was ferried across the river to West Troy, only to fall into the hands of a constable and be again taken into custody. The mob had followed, however, and now stormed the door behind which the prisoner rested under guard. In the attack the door was forced open, and over the body of a negro assailant, struck down in the fray, the slave was torn from his guards, and sent on his way to Canada.[240] Well-known cases of rescue, such as the Shadrach case, which occurred in Boston in January, 1851, and the Jerry rescue, which occurred in Syracuse nine months later, may be omitted here. They, like many others that have been less often chronicled, show clearly the temper of resolute men in the communities where they occurred. It was felt by these persons that the slave, who had already paid too high a penalty for his color, could not expect justice at the hands of the law, that his liberty must be preserved to him, and a base statute be thwarted at any cost.