Chapter VII: Part 7

They were soon arrested, Marsh among them. He was tried for breaking his patrol, and sent to an inland district, 100 miles through the bush and swamps. "It was all punishment," he says pathetically, in describing this journey on which he nearly perished. So down-hearted and distressed were they, so appalled by the war of nature and man against them, that one of Marsh's companions, with fagged-out brain, came to the conclusion that they were really in hell and that the devil himself was in charge of them. But there is always a turn to the tide. They trapped a kangaroo and did not starve. Marsh reached his district and this time found work, which had to be light, for he was weak, emaciated and troubled day and night with a pain in his chest. And finally the glad word came that he was gazetted for pardon and could go to Hobart. There, on January 27, 1845, after ten months in Canada prisons, four and a half months in a transport ship, and five years in a convict colony, he went on board the American whaler Steiglitz of Sag Harbor, Selah Young, master, a free man.

The Steiglitz was bound out on a whaling voyage. No matter, she would take Marsh away from that hell. She cruised for whale off New Zealand, then made north, and in April anchored off Honolulu. King Hamehameha III., on hearing the story of the convict Americans, welcomed them ashore, and there Marsh stayed for four months, exploring the islands and waiting for a chance to get home. At last it came in the welcome shape of the whaler Samuel Robertson, Capt. Warner, bound for New Bedford. She touched at the Society Islands and Pernambuco, and on March 13, 1846, after seven years four and a half months absence, Marsh stepped ashore in his own country again. The people of New Bedford helped him and a few others as far as Utica. There one of his comrades in exile left him for his home in Watertown, and others went their several ways. Marsh was helped as far as Canandaigua, where his brother met him and took him to his home in Avon; and after a time of recuperation there, they came on to Buffalo, where he met his father, his mother and sister. He soon crossed the river, visited Toronto, and probably looked over the scenes of his early cracker-peddling and subsequent campaigning, up and down the Niagara. He had traveled 77,000 miles, but here his journey ended; and here the Patriot exile told his story, which I have drawn on in an imperfect way, for this true chronicle of old trails.

Underground Trails.

UNDERGROUND TRAILS.

It was Dame Nature who decreed that the Niagara region should be peculiarly a place of trails. When she set the great cataract midway between two lakes, she thereby ordained that in days to come the Indian should go around the falls, on foot. The Indian trail was a footpath; nothing more. Here it followed the margin of a stream; there, well nigh indiscernable, it crossed a rocky plateau; again, worn deep in yielding loam, it led through thick woods, twisting and turning around trees and boulders, with detours for swamps or bad ground, and long stretches along favorable slopes or sightly ridges. Who can hazard a guess as to the time when, or by what manner of men, these trails were first established in our region? Immemorial in their source--akin in natural origins to the path the deer makes in going to the salt-lick or to drink--they were old, established, when our history begins. And when the white man came he followed the old trails. Traveling like the Indian, by water when he could; when lakes and rivers did not serve, he found the footpaths ready made for him in the forest. Armies came, cutting military roads. Settlers followed to banish forests, drain swamps, and make new highways. And yet the horseman, the military train, the wagon of the pioneer, the early stage-coach, the railroad, each in its day, along many of the most direct and important thoroughfares, has but followed the ancient ways. The thing is axiomatic. Nature for the most part decrees where men shall walk. Her lakes and rivers and her hills may be strewn by whim; but there are plain reasons enough for our road-building. We go where we can, with safety and expedition. So ran the red man. We still follow the old trails.

Other aspects of our frontier are worthy of a thought. Two nations look across the Niagara, so that, even though its flow were placid from lake to lake, it would still be a political barrier, a halting-place. This fact has filled it full of trails in history. Again, as the gateway of the West, the paths of immigration and of commerce for a century have here converged. The early settlers of Michigan and Wisconsin went by the old Lewiston ferry. From Buffalo by boat, and from old Suspension Bridge by rail, who can estimate the thousands who have gone on to create the New West? From the earliest Iroquois raid upon the Neuters, down to yesterday's excursion, the Niagara frontier has been peculiarly a region of passing, of coming and going, along old trails.

Now of all the paths that have led hitherward, none has greater significance in American history than that known as the Underground Railroad. Other paths, touching here, have led to war, to wealth, to pleasure; but this led to Liberty. Thousands of negro slaves, gaining after infinite hardships these shores of the lake or river, have looked across the smiling expanse to such an elysium as only a slave can dream of. Once the passage made, no matter how poor the passenger, freedom became his possession and the heritage of his children. The chattel became a man. I can never sail upon the blue lake, or down the pleasant river, without seeing in fancy this throng of famished, frightened, blindly hopeful blacks, for whom these waters were the gateway to new life. The most vital part of the Underground Railroad was the over-water ferry. Bark canoe and great steamer alike leave no lasting trail; but to him who reads the history of our region, this fair waterway at our door is thronged as a street; and every secret traveler thereby is worthy of his attention. Much has been recorded of these refugees, who came, singly or in small parties, for more than thirty years preceding the Civil War. Indeed, runaway slaves passed this way to Canada soon after the War of 1812. The tales of soldiers returning to Kentucky from the Niagara frontier and other campaigns of that war, first planted in the minds of Southern slaves the idea that Canada was a land of freedom. By 1830 many earnest people who disapproved of slavery, the Quakers prominent among them, were giving organized aid to the escaping blacks. In many secret ways the refugees were passed on from one friend to another. Hiding-places were established, and routes which were found advantageous were regularly followed.

It is no part of my present plan to enter upon a general sketch of the Underground Railroad. That task has already been admirably performed, at voluminous length, by careful students. My aim in this paper is to bring together a number of incidents and narratives, particularly illustrative of its work at the eastern end of Lake Erie and along the Niagara frontier, in order that the student may the better appreciate how vital this phase of the slavery issue was, even in this region, for more than a generation preceding the Civil War. There were established routes for the passage of fugitive slaves: From the seaboard States to the North, by water from Newberne, S. C, and Portsmouth, Va.; or by land routes from Washington and Philadelphia, to and through New England and so into Quebec. There was "John Brown's route" through Eastern Kansas and Nebraska; and there were many routes through Iowa and Illinois, most of them leading to Chicago and other Lake Michigan ports, whence the refugees came by boat to Canadian points, chiefly along the north shore of Lake Erie; or even, in some cases, by water to Collingwood on Georgian Bay, where a considerable number of runaway slaves were carried prior to the Civil War. But the travel by these extreme East and West routes was insignificant as compared with the number that came through Western Pennsylvania, Ohio and Indiana, to points on the south shore of Lake Erie and the Detroit and Niagara rivers at either end. The region bounded by the Ohio, the Allegheny, and the western border of Indiana was a vast plexus of Underground routes. The negroes were taken across to Canada in great numbers from Detroit and other points on that river; from Sandusky to Point Pelee; from Ashtabula to Port Stanley; from Conneaut to Port Burwell; from Erie to Long Point; and from all south-shore points on Lake Erie they were brought by steamer to Buffalo. Often, the vessel captains would put the refugees ashore between Long Point and Buffalo. At other times, the fugitives were sent to stations at Black Rock or Niagara Falls, whence they were soon set across the river and were free. There were some long routes across New York State, the chief one being up the Hudson and Mohawk valleys to Lake Ontario ports. There was some crossing to Kingston, and some from Rochester to Port Dalhousie or Toronto. Another route led from Harrisburg up the Susquehanna to Williamsport, thence to Elmira, and northwesterly, avoiding large towns, to Niagara Falls. But the most active part in the Underground Railroad operations in New York State was borne by the western counties. There were numerous routes through Allegany, Chautauqua and Cattaraugus counties, along which the negroes were helped; all converging at Buffalo or on the Niagara. In the old towns of this section are still many houses and other buildings which are pointed out to the visitor as having been former stations on the Underground. The Pettit house at Fredonia is a distinguished example.

It is impossible to state even approximately the number of refugee negroes who crossed by these routes to Upper Canada, now Ontario. In 1844 the number was estimated at 40,000;[50] in 1852 the Anti-Slavery Society of Canada stated in its annual report that there were about 30,000 blacks in Canada West; in 1858 the number was estimated as high as 75,000.[51] This figure is probably excessive; but since the negroes continued to come, up to the hour of the Emancipation Proclamation, it is probably within the fact to say that more than 50,000 crossed to Upper Canada, nearly all from points on Lake Erie, the Detroit and Niagara rivers.

Runaway slaves appeared in Buffalo at least as early as the '30's. "Professor Edward Orton recalls that in 1838, soon after his father moved to Buffalo, two sleigh-loads of negroes from the Western Reserve were brought to the house in the night-time; and Mr. Frederick Nicholson of Warsaw, N. Y., states that the Underground work in his vicinity began in 1840. From this time on there was apparently no cessation of migrations of fugitives into Canada at Black Rock, Buffalo and other points."[52] Those too were the days of much passenger travel on Lake Erie, and certain boats came to be known as friendly to the Underground cause. One boat which ran between Cleveland and Buffalo gave employment to the fugitive William Wells Brown. It became known at Cleveland that 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 1st of May to the 1st of December, sixty-nine fugitives over Lake Erie to Canada."[53] Many anecdotes are told of the search for runaways on the lake steamers. Lake travel in the _ante-bellum_ days was ever liable to be enlivened by an exciting episode in a "nigger-chase"; but usually, it would seem, the negroes could rely upon the friendliness of the captains for concealment or other assistance.

There are chronicled, too, many little histories of flights which brought the fugitive to Buffalo. I pass over those which are readily accessible elsewhere to the student of this phase of our home history.[54] It is well, however, to devote a paragraph or two to one famous affair which most if not all American writers on the Underground Railroad appear to have overlooked.

One day in 1836 an intelligent negro, riding a thoroughbred but jaded horse, appeared on the streets of Buffalo. His appearance must have advertised him to all as a runaway slave. I do not know that he made any attempt to conceal the fact. His chief concern was to sell the horse as quickly as possible, and get across to Canada. And there, presently, we find him, settled at historic old Niagara, near the mouth of the river. Here, even at that date, so many negroes had made their way from the South, that more than 400 occupied a quarter known as Negro Town. The newcomer, whose name was Moseby, admitted that he had run away from a plantation in Kentucky, and had used a horse that formerly belonged to his master to make his way North. A Kentucky grand jury soon found a true bill against him for horse-stealing, and civil officers traced him to Niagara, and made requisition for his arrest and extradition. The year before, Sir Francis Bond Head had succeeded Sir John Colborne as Governor of Canada West, and before him the case was laid. Sir Francis regarded the charge as lawful, notwithstanding the avowal of Moseby's owners that if they could get him back to Kentucky they would "make an example of him"; in plainer words, would whip him to death as a warning to all slaves who dared to dream of seeking freedom in Canada.

Moseby was arrested and locked up in the Niagara jail; whereupon great excitement arose, the blacks and many sympathizing whites declaring that he should never be carried back South. The Governor, Sir Francis, was petitioned not to surrender Moseby; he replied that his duty was to give him up as a felon, "although he would have armed the province to protect a slave." For more than a week crowds of negroes, men and women, camped before the jail, day and night. Under the leadership of a mulatto schoolmaster named Holmes, and of Mrs. Carter, a negress with a gift for making fiery speeches, the mob were kept worked up to a high pitch of excitement, although, as a contemporary writer avers, they were unarmed, showed "good sense, forbearance and resolution," and declared their intention not to commit any violence against the English law. They even agreed that Moseby should remain in jail until they could raise the price of the horse, but threatened, "if any attempt were made to take him from the prison, and send him across to Lewiston, they would resist it at the hazard of their lives." The order, however, came for Moseby's delivery to the slave-hunters, and the sheriff and a party of constables attempted to execute it. Moseby was brought out from the jail, handcuffed and placed in a cart; whereupon the mob attacked the officers. The military was called out to help the civil force and ordered to fire on the assailants. Two negroes were killed, two or three wounded, and Moseby ran off and was not pursued. The negro women played a curiously-prominent part in the affair. "They had been most active in the fray, throwing themselves fearlessly between the black men and the whites, who, of course, shrank from injuring them. One woman had seized the sheriff, and held him pinioned in her arms; another, on one of the artillery-men presenting his piece, and swearing that he would shoot her if she did not get out of his way, gave him only one glance of unutterable contempt, and with one hand knocking up his piece, and collaring him with the other, held him in such a manner as to prevent his firing."[55]

Soon after, in the same year, the Governor of Kentucky made requisition on the Governor of the province of Canada West for the surrender of Jesse Happy, another runaway slave, also on a charge of horse-stealing. Sir Francis held him in confinement in Hamilton jail, but refused to deliver him up until he had laid the case before the Home Government. In a most interesting report to the Colonial Secretary, under date of Toronto, Oct. 8, 1837, he asked for instructions "as a matter of general policy," and reviewed the Moseby case in a fair and broad spirit, highly creditable to him alike as an administrator and a friend of the oppressed. "I am by no means desirous," he wrote, "that this province should become an asylum for the guilty of any color; at the same time the documents submitted with this dispatch will I conceive show that the subject of giving up fugitive slaves to the authorities of the adjoining republican States is one respecting which it is highly desirable I should receive from Her Majesty's Government specific instructions.... It may be argued that the slave escaping from bondage on his master's horse is a vicious struggle between two guilty parties, of which the slave-owner is not only the aggressor, but the blackest criminal of the two. It is a case of the dealer in human flesh _versus_ the stealer of horse-flesh; and it may be argued that, if the British Government does not feel itself authorized to pass judgment on the plaintiff, neither should it on the defendant." Sir Francis continues in this ingenious strain, observing that "it is as much a theft in the slave walking from slavery to liberty in his master's shoes as riding on his master's horse." To give up a slave for trial to the American laws, he argued, was in fact giving him back to his former master; and he held that, until the State authorities could separate trial from unjust punishment, however willing the Government of Canada might be to deliver up a man for trial, it was justified in refusing to deliver him up for punishment, "unless sufficient security be entered into in this province, that the person delivered up for trial shall be brought back to Upper Canada as soon as his trial or the punishment awarded by it shall be concluded." And he added this final argument, begging that instructions should be sent to him at once:

It is argued, that the republican states have no right, under the
pretext of any human treaty, to claim from the British Government,
which does not recognize slavery, beings who by slave-law are not
recognized as _men_ and who actually existed as brute beasts in
moral darkness, until on reaching British soil they suddenly heard,
for the first time in their lives, the sacred words, "Let there be
light; and there was light!" From that moment it is argued they
were created _men_, and if this be true, it is said they cannot be
held responsible for conduct prior to their existence.[56]

Sir Francis left the Home Government in no doubt as to his own feelings in the matter; and although I have seen no further report regarding Jesse Happy, neither do I know of any case in which a refugee in Canada for whom requisition was thus made was permitted to go back to slavery. It did sometimes happen, however, that refugees were enticed across the river on one pretext or another, or grew careless and took their chances on the American side, only to fall into the clutches of the ever-watchful slave-hunters.

British love of fair play could be counted on to stand up for the rights of the negro on British soil; but that by no means implies that this inpouring of ignorant blacks, unfitted for many kinds of pioneer work and ill able to withstand the climate, was welcomed by the communities in which they settled. At best, they were tolerated. Very different from the spirit shown in Sir Francis Bond Head's plea, is the tone of much tourist comment, especially during the later years of the Abolition movement. Thus, in 1854, the Hon. Amelia M. Murray wrote, just after her Niagara visit:

"One of the evils consequent upon Southern Slavery, is the ignorant and miserable set of coloured people who throw themselves into Canada.... I must regret that the well-meant enthusiasm of the Abolitionists has been without judgment."[57] Another particularly unamiable critic, W. Howard Russell, a much-exploited English war correspondent who wrote voluminously of the United States during the Civil War, and who showed less good will to this country than any other man who ever wrote so much, came to Niagara in the winter of 1862, and in sourly recording his unpleasant impressions wrote: "There are too many free negroes and too many Irish located in the immediate neighborhood of the American town, to cause the doctrines of the Abolitionists to be received with much favor by the American population; and the Irish of course are opposed to free negroes, where they are attracted by paper mills, hotel service, bricklaying, plastering, housebuilding, and the like--the Americans monopolizing the higher branches of labor and money-making, including the guide business."[58] A few pages farther on, however, describing his sight-seeing on the Canadian side, he speaks of "our guide, a strapping specimen of negro or mulatto." Quotations of like purport from English writers during the years immediately preceding the Civil War, might be multiplied. One rarely will find any opinion at all favorable to the refugee black, and never any expression of sympathy with the Abolitionists by English tourists who wrote books, or endorsal of the work accomplished by the Underground Railroad.

From its importance as a terminal of the Underground, one would look to Buffalo for a wealth of reminiscence on this subject. On the contrary, comparatively little seems to have been gathered up regarding Buffalo stations and workers. The Buffalo of _ante-bellum_ days was not a large place, and many "personally-escorted" refugees were taken direct from country stations to the river ferries, without having to be hid away in the city. Certain houses there were, however, which served as stations. One of these, on Ferry Street near Niagara, long since disappeared. When the "Morris Butler house," at the corner of Utica Street and Linwood Avenue, built about 1857, was taken down a few years ago, hiding-places were found on either side of the front door, accessible only from the cellar. Old residents then recalled that Mr. Butler was reputed to keep the last station on the Underground route to Canada.[59]

Many years before Mr. Butler's time runaway slaves used to appear in Buffalo, eagerly asking the way to Canada. Those days were recalled by the death, on Aug. 2, 1899, in the Kent County House of Refuge, Chatham, Ont., of "Mammy" Chadwick, reputed to be over 100 years old. She was born a slave in Virginia; was many times sold, once at auction in New Orleans, and later taken to Kentucky. She escaped and made her way by the Underground to Buffalo in 1837. She always fixed her arrival at Fort Erie as "in de year dat de Queen was crowned." She married in Fort Erie, but after a few years went to Chatham, in the midst of a district full of refugee blacks, and there she lived for sixty years, rejoicing in the distinction of having nursed in their infancy many who became Chatham's oldest and most prominent citizens.

There still lives at Fort Erie an active old woman who came to Buffalo, a refugee from slavery, some time prior to 1837; she herself says, "a good while before the Canadian Rebellion," and her memory is so clear and vigorous in general that there appears no warrant for mistrusting it on this point. This interesting woman is Mrs. Betsy Robinson, known throughout the neighborhood as "Aunt Betsy." She lately told her story to me at length. Robbed of all the picturesque detail with which she invested it, the bare facts are here recorded. Her father, mother, and their seven children were slaves on a plantation in Rockingham County, Virginia. There came a change of ownership, and Baker (her father) heard he was to be sold to New Orleans--the fate which the Virginia slave most dreaded; "and yet," says Aunt Betsy, "I've seen dem slaves, in gangs bein' sent off to New Orleans, singin' and playin' on jewsharps, lettin' on to be that careless an' happy." But not so Baker. He made ready to escape. For a week beforehand his wife hid food in the woods. On a dark night the whole family stole away from the plantation, crossed a river, probably the north fork of the Shenandoah, and pushed northward. The father had procured three "passes," which commended them for assistance to friends along the way. According to Aunt Betsy, there were a good many white people in the South in those days who helped the runaway. She was a little girl then, and she now recalls the child's vivid impressions of the weeks they spent traveling and hiding in the mountains, which she says were full of rattlesnakes, wolves and deer. It was a wild country that they crossed, for they came out near Washington, Pa. Here the Quakers helped them; and her father and brothers worked in the coal mines for a time. Then they came on to Pittsburg. From that city north there was no lack of help. "We walked all the way," she says. "There was no railroads in them days, an' I don't remember's we got any wagon-rides. You see, we was so many, nine in all. I remember we went to Erie, and came through Fredonia. We walked through Buffalo--it was little then, you know--and down the river road. My father missed the Black Rock ferry an' we went away down where the bridge is now. I remember we had to walk back up the river, and then we got brought across to Fort Erie. That was a good while before the Canadian Rebellion."[60]

Samuel Murray, a free-born negro, came to Buffalo from Reading, Pa., in 1852. For a time he was employed at the American Hotel, and went to work very early in the morning. It was, he has said, a common occurrence to meet strange negroes, who would ask him the way to Canada. "Many a time," said Murray, "I have gone into the hotel and taken food for them. Then I would walk out Niagara Street to the ferry and see them on the boat bound for Canada." Mr. Murray has related the following incidents:

"There was a free black man living in Buffalo in the '50's who made a business of going to the South after the wives of former slaves who had found comfortable homes, either in the Northern States or in Canada. They paid him well for his work, and he rarely failed to accomplish his mission.

"While connected with the Underground Railroad in Buffalo word was sent us that a colored man from Detroit, a traitor to his color, was coming to Buffalo. This man made a business of informing Southerners of the whereabouts of their slaves, and was paid a good sum per head for those that they recovered. When we heard that he was coming a meeting was held and a committee appointed to arrange for his reception. After being here a few days, not thinking that he was known, he was met by the committee and taken out in the woods where the Parade House now stands. Here he was tied to a tree, stripped and cow-hided until he was almost dead. He lay for a time insensible in a pool of his own blood. Finally regaining consciousness, he made his way back into Buffalo and as soon as he was able complained to the city authorities. His assailants were identified, arrested, and locked up in the old jail to await the result of his injuries. After a time the excitement caused by the affair subsided and the men were let out one day without having been tried." The sympathy of the sheriff, and probably that of the community as a whole, was plainly not with the renegade who got flogged.

Another celebrated Underground case was the arrest at Niagara Falls of a slave named Sneedon, on a charge of murder, undoubtedly trumped up to procure his return South. Sneedon is described as a fine-looking man, with a complexion almost white. He was brought to trial in Buffalo, when Eli Cook pleaded his case so successfully that he was acquitted. No sooner was he released than he was spirited away _via_ the Underground Railroad.

Niagara Falls, far more than Buffalo, was the scene of interesting episodes in the Underground days. Not only did many refugee negroes find employment in the vicinity, especially on the Canada side, but many Southern planters used to visit there, bringing their retinue of blacks. Many a time the trusted body-servant, or slave-girl, would leave master or mistress in the discharge of some errand, and never come back. Instances are related, too, of sudden meetings, at the Falls hotels, between negro waiters and the former masters they had run away from. It is recorded that when Gen. Peter B. Porter brought his Kentucky wife home with him to Niagara Falls, she was attended by a numerous retinue of negro servants, but that one by one they "scented freedom in the air" and ran away, though probably not to any immediate betterment of their condition.

Henry Clay visited Buffalo in September, 1849. When he left for Cleveland his black servant Levi was missing, but whether he had gone voluntarily or against his wishes Mr. Clay was uncertain. "There are circumstances having a tendency both ways," he wrote to Lewis L. Hodges of Buffalo, in his effort to trace the lost property. "If voluntarily, I will take no trouble about him, as it is probable that in a reversal of our conditions I would have done the same thing."[61] The absentee had merely been left in Buffalo--probably he missed the boat--and reported in due time to his master at Ashland. The incident, however, suggests the hazards of Northern travel which in those years awaited wealthy Southerners, who were fond of making long sojourns at Niagara Falls, accompanied by many servants.

An "old resident of Buffalo" is to be credited with the following reminiscence:

"I remember one attempt that was made to capture a runaway slave. It was right up here on Niagara Street. The negro ventured out in daytime and was seized by a couple of men who had been on the watch for him. The slave was a muscular fellow, and fought desperately for his liberty; but his captors began beating him over the head with their whips, and he would have been overpowered and carried off if his cries had not attracted the attention of two Abolitionists, who ran up and joined in the scuffle. It was just above Ferry Street, and they pulled and hauled at that slave and pounded him and each other until it looked as though somebody would be killed. At last, however, the slave, with the help of his friends, got away and ran for his life, and the slave-chasers and the Abolitionists dropped from blows to high words, the former threatening prosecutions and vengeance, but I presume nothing came of it."[62]

Nowhere were the friends of the fugitive more active or more successful than in the towns along the south shore of Lake Erie, from Erie to Buffalo.[63] Some years ago it was my good fortune to become acquainted with Mr. Frank Henry of Erie, who had been a very active "conductor" on the Underground.[64] From him I had the facts of the following experiences, which he had not in earlier years thought it prudent to make public. These I now submit, partly in Mr. Henry's own language, as fairly-illustrative episodes in the history of Underground trails at the eastern end of Lake Erie.

In the year 1841 Capt. David Porter Dobbins, afterwards Superintendent of Life Saving Stations in the Ninth U. S. District, including Lakes Erie and Ontario, was a citizen of Erie. In politics he was one of the sturdy, old-time Democrats, not a few of whom, in marked contrast to their "Copperhead" neighbors, secretly sympathized with and aided the runaway slaves. Capt. Dobbins had in his employ a black man named William Mason, his surname being taken, as was the usual, but not invariable, custom among slaves, from that of his first master. Now Mason, some time before he came into the employ of Capt. Dobbins, had apparently become tired of getting only the blows and abuse of an overseer in return for his toil; so one night he quietly left his "old Kentucky home," determined to gain his freedom or die in the attempt. In good time he succeeded in getting to Detroit, then a small town; and there he found work, took unto himself a wife, and essayed to settle down. Instead, however, of settling, he soon found himself more badly stirred up than ever before, for his wife proved to be a veritable she-devil in petticoats, with a tongue keener than his master's lash. They parted, and the unfaithful wife informed against him to the slave-hunters. Mason fled, made his way to Erie, and was given work by Capt. Dobbins. He was a stalwart negro, intelligent above the average, altogether too fine a prize to let slip easily, and the professional slave-hunters lost no time in hunting him out.

For many years prior to the Civil War a large class of men made their living by ferreting out and recapturing fugitive slaves and returning them to their old masters; or, as was often the case, selling them into slavery again. Free black men, peaceful citizens of the Northern States, were sometimes seized, to be sold to unscrupulous men who stood ever ready to buy them. There was but little hope for the negro who found himself carried south of Mason and Dixon's line in the clutches of these hard men, who were generally provided with a minute description of runaways from the border States, and received a large commission for capturing and returning them into bondage.

One day, as Mason was cutting up a quarter of beef in Capt. Dobbins's house, two men came in, making plausible excuses. Mason saw they were watching him closely, and his suspicions were at once aroused.

"Is your name William?" one of them asked.

"No," said Mason curtly, pretending to be busy with his beef.

Then they told him to take off his shoe and let them see if there was a scar on his foot. On his refusing to do so, they produced handcuffs and called on him to surrender. Livid with desperation and fear, Mason rushed upon them with his huge butcher-knive, and the fellows took to their heels to save their heads. They lost no time in getting a warrant from a magistrate on some pretext or other, and placed it in the hands of an officer for execution.

While the little by-play with the butcher-knife was going on, Capt. Dobbins had entered the house, and to him Mason rushed in appeal. Swearing "by de hosts of heaben" that he would never be captured, he piteously begged for help and the protection of his employer. And in Capt. Dobbins he had a friend who was equal to any emergency. Calling Mason from the room his employer hurried with him to Josiah Kellogg's house, then one of the finest places in Erie, with a commanding view from its high bank over lake and bay.[65] To this house Mason was hurried, and Mrs. Kellogg comprehended the situation at a glance. The fugitive was soon so carefully hidden that, to use the Captain's expression, "The Devil himself couldn't have found him, sir!"

Expeditious as they were, they had been none too quick. Capt. Dobbins had scarcely regained his own door, when the two slave-hunters came back with the sheriff and demanded Mason.

"Search the premises at your pleasure," was the response.

The house was ransacked from cellar to garret, but, needless to say, Mason was not to be found.

There was living in Erie at that time a big burly negro, Lemuel Gates by name, whose strength was only surpassed by his good nature. He was willing enough to lend himself to the cause of humanity. The Captain owned a very fast horse, and while the officer and his disappointed and suspicious companions were still lurking around, just at nightfall, he harnessed his horse into the buggy and seated the Hercules by his side. All this was quietly done in the barn with closed doors. At a given signal, the servant-girl threw open the doors, the Captain cracked his whip, and out they dashed at full speed. He took good care to be seen and recognized by the spies on watch, and then laid his course for Hamlin Russell's house at Belle Valley. Mr. Russell was a noted Abolitionist, and lived on a cross-road between the Wattsburg and Lake Pleasant roads. Just beyond Marvintown, at Davison's, the Lake Pleasant road forks off from the Wattsburg road to the right. The travelers took the Lake road. When Mr. Russell's house was reached, the Captain slipped a half-eagle into the hand of his grinning companion, with the needless advice that it would be well to make tracks for home as fast as possible. Mr. Russell was told of the clever ruse, and then Capt. Dobbins drove leisurely homeward. At the junction of the two roads he met the officer and his comrades in hot pursuit.

"Where is Mason?" they demanded.

"Find out," was the Captain's only answer, as he drove quietly along, chuckling to himself over the success of his strategy; while the slave-hunters worked themselves into a passion over a fruitless search of Mr. Russell's innocent premises.

Early one morning a few days afterward, as Capt. Dobbins was on the bank of the lake, he saw a vessel round the point of the Peninsula, sail up the channel, and cast anchor in Misery Bay, then, and for many years afterwards, a favorite anchorage for wind-bound vessels. Soon a yawl was seen to put off for the shore with the master of the vessel aboard. Capt. Dobbins contrived to see him during the day, and was delighted to find him an old and formerly intimate shipmate. The ship-master heartily entered into the Captain's plans, and it was agreed to put Mason aboard of the vessel at two o'clock the next morning.

At the time of which we write, the steamer docks and lumber-yards which later were built along the shore at that point, were yet undreamed of, and the waters of the bay broke unhindered at the foot of the high bank on which stood Mrs. Kellogg's house, where Mason was hid. It would not do openly to borrow a boat, and Capt. Dobbins had no small difficulty in getting a craft for the conveyance of his _protege_ to the vessel. At last, late at night, a little, leaky old skiff was temporarily confiscated. By this time a strong breeze had sprung up, and it was difficult to approach the shore. A tree had fallen over the bank with its top in the water, and the Captain found precarious anchorage for his leaky tub by clinging to its branches. With a cry like the call of the whip-poor-will the runaway was summoned. In his hurry to get down the bank he slipped and fell headlong into the fallen treetop; while a small avalanche of stones and earth came crashing after and nearly swamped the boat. When the boat had been lightened of its unexpected cargo, the voyage across the bay began. The poor darky, however, was no sooner sure that his neck was not broken by the tumble, than he was nearly dead with the fear of drowning. Their boat, a little skiff just big enough for one person, leaked like a sieve, and soon became water-logged in the seaway. Mason's hat was a stiff "plug," a former gift of charity. It had suffered sorely by the plunge down the bank, but its ruin was made complete by the Captain ordering its owner to fall to and bail out the boat with it. The brim soon vanished, but the upper part did very well as a bucket; and the owner consoled himself that in thus sacrificing his hat he saved his life. It was a close call for safety. The Captain tugged away at the oars as never before, and the shivering negro scooped away for dear life to keep the boat afloat. In after years Capt. Dobbins experienced shipwreck more than once, but he used to say that never had he been in greater peril than when making that memorable trip across Presque Isle Bay in the wild darkness and storm of midnight. The vessel was at length reached. She was loaded with staves, and a great hole was made in the deck load, within which Mason was snugly stowed away, while the staves were piled over him again. Capt. Dobbins reached the mainland in safety before daylight, and during the morning had the satisfaction of seeing the wind haul around off land, when the vessel weighed anchor and sailed away.

Knowing that pursuit was impossible (there were no steam tugs on the bay in those days), Capt. Dobbins quietly told the officer that he was tired of being watched, and that if he would come along, he would show him where Mason was. The Captain had notified some of his friends, and when the bank of the lake was reached, a crowd had gathered, for the affair had created quite a stir in the village.

"Do you see that sail?" said the Captain, pointing to the retreating vessel.

"Well?" was the impatient answer.

"Mason is aboard of her," was the quiet reply. The befooled magistrate of the law, who had taken great care to bring handcuffs for his expected prisoner, acknowledged himself beaten; while the "nigger-chasers" were glad to sneak off, followed by the shouts and jeers of the crowd. "Pretty well done--for a Democrat," said Mr. Russell to the Captain a few days afterwards. "After your conversion to our principles you will make a good Abolitionist."

Some years after the event above narrated, as Capt. Dobbins[66] was in the cabin of his vessel as she lay at Buffalo, a respectably-dressed black man was shown into the cabin. It was Mason, who had come to repay his benefactor with thanks and even with proffered money. He had settled somewhere back of Kingston, Ontario, on land which the Canadian Government at that time gave to actual settlers. He had married an amiable woman, and was prosperous and happy.

* * * * *

I give the following incident substantially as it was set down for me by Mr. Frank Henry:

In the summer of 1858 Mr. Jehiel Towner (now deceased) sent me a note from the city of Erie, asking me to call on him that evening. When night came I rode into town from my home in Harborcreek, and saw Mr. Towner. "There are three 'passengers' hidden in town, Henry," said he, "and we must land them somewhere on the Canada shore. You are just the man for this work; will you undertake to get them across?"

You must remember that we never had anything to do with "runaway niggers" in those days, nor even with "fugitive slaves"; we simply "assisted passengers." I knew well enough that there was a big risk in the present case, but I promised to do my part, and so after talking over matters a little I drove home.

The next night just about dusk a wagon was driven into my yard. The driver, one Hamilton Waters, was a free mulatto, known to everybody around Erie. He had brought a little boy with him as guide, for he was almost as blind as a bat. In his wagon were three of the strangest-looking "passengers" I ever saw; I can remember how oddly they looked as they clambered out of the wagon. There was a man they called Sam, a great strapping negro, who might have been forty years old. He was a loose-jointed fellow, with a head like a pumpkin, and a mouth like a cavern, its vast circumference always stretched in a glorious grin; for no matter how badly Sam might feel, or how frightened, the grin had so grown into his black cheeks that it never vanished. I remember how, a few nights after, when the poor fellow was scared just about out of his wits, his grin, though a little ghastly, was as broad as ever. Sam was one of the queerest characters I ever met. His long arms seemed all wrists, his legs all ankles; and when he walked, his nether limbs had a flail-like flop that made him look like a runaway windmill. The bases upon which rested this fearfully-and wonderfully-made superstructure were abundantly ample. On one foot he wore an old shoe--at least number twelve in size--and on the other a heavy boot; and his trousers-legs, by a grim fatality, were similarly unbalanced, for while the one was tucked into the boot-top, its fellow, from the knee down, had wholly vanished. Sam wore a weather-beaten and brimless "tile" on his head, and in his hand carried an old-fashioned long-barreled rifle. He set great store by his "ole smooth bo'," though he handled it in a gingerly sort of way, that suggested a greater fear of its kicks than confidence in its aim. Sam's companions were an intelligent-looking negro about twenty-five years old, named Martin, and his wife, a pretty quadroon girl, with thin lips and a pleasant voice, for all the world like _Eliza_ in "Uncle Tom's Cabin." She carried a plump little piccaninny against her breast, over which a thin shawl was tightly drawn. She was an uncommonly attractive young woman, and I made up my mind then and there that she shouldn't be carried back to slavery if I had any say in the matter.

The only persons besides myself who knew of their arrival were William P. Trimble and Maj. F. L. Fitch. The party was conducted to the old Methodist church in Wesleyville, which had served for a long time as a place of rendezvous and concealment. Except for the regular Sunday services, and a Thursday-night prayer-meeting, the church was never opened, unless for an occasional funeral, and so it was as safe a place as could well have been found. In case of unexpected intruders, the fugitives could crawl up into the attic and remain as safe as if in Liberia.

It was my plan to take the "passengers" from the mouth of Four-Mile Creek across the lake to Long Point light-house, on the Canada shore, but the wind hung in a bad quarter for the next two or three days, and our party had to keep in the dark. One rainy night, however--it was a miserable, drizzling rain, and dark as Egypt--I was suddenly notified that a sailboat was in readiness off the mouth of Four-Mile Creek. At first I was at a loss what to do. I didn't dare go home for provisions, for I had good reason to believe that my house was nightly watched by a cowardly wretch, whose only concern was to secure the $500 offered by Sam's former master for the capture of the slaves. In the vicinity lived a well-to-do farmer, a devoted pro-slavery Democrat. Notwithstanding his politics, I knew the man was the soul of honor, and possessed a great generous heart. So I marshaled my black brigade out of the church, and marched them off, through the rain, single file, to his house. In answer to our knock, our friend threw open the door; then, with a thousand interrogation points frozen into his face, he stood for a minute, one hand holding a candle above his head, the other shading his eyes, as he stared at the wet and shivering group of darkies, the very picture of dumfounded astonishment. In less time than it takes to tell it, however, he grasped the situation, hustled us all into the house and shut the door with a most expressive slam.

"What in ---- does all this mean?" was his pious ejaculation.

He saw what it meant, and it needed but few words of explanation on my part. "They are a party of fugitives from slavery," said I, calling our friend by name. "We are about to cross the lake to Canada; the party are destitute and closely pursued; their only crime is a desire for freedom. This young woman and mother has been sold from her husband and child to a dealer in the far South, and if captured, she will be consigned to a life of shame." The story was all too common in those days, and needed no fine words. The young girl's eyes pleaded more forcibly than any words I could have spoken.

"Well--what do you want of me?" demanded our host, trying hard to look fierce and angry.

"Clothing and provisions," I replied.

"Now look here," said he, in his gruffest voice, "this is a bad job--bad job." Then, turning to the negroes: "Better go back. Canada is full of runaway niggers now. They're freezin' and starvin' by thousands. Was over in Canada t'other day. Saw six niggers by the roadside, with their heads cut off. Bones of niggers danglin' in the trees. Crows pickin' their eyes out. _You_ better go back, d'ye _hear_?" he added, turning suddenly towards Sam.

Poor Sam shook in his shoes, and his eyes rolled in terror. He fingered his cherished smooth-bore as though uncertain whether to shoot his entertainer, or save all his ammunition for Canada crows, while he cast a helpless look of appeal upon his companions. The young woman, however, with her keener insight, had seen through the sham brusqueness of their host; and although she was evidently appalled by the horrible picture of what lay before them across the lake, her heart told her it was immeasurably to be preferred to a return to the only fate which awaited her in the South. Her thoughts lay in her face, and our friend read them; and not having a stone in his broad bosom, but a big, warm, thumping old heart, was moved to pity and to aid. He set about getting a basket of provisions. Then he skirmished around and found a blanket and hood for the woman; all the time declaring that _he_ never would help runaway niggers, no sir! and drawing (for Sam's especial delectation) the most horrible pictures of Canadian hospitality that he could conjure up. "You'll find 'em on shore waitin' for ye," said he; "they'll catch ye and kill ye and string ye up for a scare-crow." Seeing that Sam was coatless, he stripped off his own coat and bundled it upon the astonished darky with the consoling remark: "When they get hold of _you_ they'll tan your black hide, stretch it for drum-heads, and beat 'God Save the Queen' out of ye every day in the year."

All being in readiness, our benefactor plunged his hand into his pocket, and pulling it out full of small change thrust it into the woman's hands, still urging them to go back to the old life. At the door Sam turned back and spoke for the first time:

"Look 'e hyar, Massa, you's good to we uns an' 'fo' de Lo'd I tank yer. Ef enny No'then gemmen hankah fur my chances in de Souf, I' zign in dair favo'. 'Fo' de good Lo'd I tank ye, Massa, I does, _shuah_!"

Here Sam's feelings got the better of him, and we were hurrying off, when our entertainer said:

"See here, now, Henry, remember you were never at my house with a lot of damned niggers in the night. Do you understand?"

"All right, sir. You are the last man who would ever be charged with Abolitionism, and that's the reason why we came here tonight. Mum is the word."