Chapter III: The Methods of the Underground Railroad (2)

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.

[180] Weiss, _Life and Correspondence of Theodore Parker_, Vol.
II, pp. 92, 93.

[181] Frederick Douglass relates that when he escaped from
Maryland to New York, in 1838, he was befriended by David
Ruggles, the secretary of the New York Vigilance Committee; _Life
of Frederick Douglass_, 1881, p. 205.

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]

[182] The Rev. J. W. Loguen gives the names of the committee in
his autobiography, p. 396.

[183] Samuel J. May, _Recollections of the Anti-Slavery
Conflict_, pp. 349-364; Wilson, _Rise and Fall of the Slave Power
in the United States_, Vol. II, pp. 305, 306.

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]

[184] _Ibid._, p. 308. The list of members of the Committee
of Vigilance given by Austin Bearse, the doorkeeper of the
Committee, contains two hundred and nine names. Among these are
A. Bronson Alcott, Edward Atkinson, Henry I. Bowditch, Richard
H. Dana, Jr., Lewis Hayden, William Lloyd Garrison, Samuel G.
Howe, Francis Jackson, Ellis Gray Loring, James Russell Lowell,
Theodore Parker, Edmund Quincy and others of distinction. See pp.
3, 4, 5, 6, in Mr. Bearse's _Reminiscences of Fugitive-Slave-Law
Days in Boston_.

[185] For much valuable material relating to the Vigilance
Committee of Boston, see Theodore Parker's _Scrap-Book_, in the
Boston Public Library.

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]

[186] Mr. Bearse says: "There were printed tickets of notice
which I delivered to each member in person, if possible, of which
the following copies are specimens:

'BOSTON, June 7, 1854.

There will be a meeting of the Vigilance Committee at the
Meionaon (Tremont Temple), on _Thursday evening_, June 8, at
half-past seven.

Pass in by the _Office Entrance_, and through the _Meionaon
Ante-Room_.

THEODORE PARKER, _Chairman of Executive Committees_.'

'VIGILANCE COMMITTEE! The members of the Vigilance Committee are
hereby notified to meet at ---- ----

By order of the Committee,

A. BEARSE, _Doorkeeper_.'"

--_Reminiscences of Fugitive-Slave-Law Days in Boston_, pp. 15,
16.

[187] _Ibid._, p. 14.

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]

[188] Judg. vii. 3; Deut. xx. 8; referred to by Brown in his
"Agreement and Rules."

[189] F. B. Sanborn, in his _Life and Letters of John Brown_, pp.
125, 126, gives the agreement, rules, and signatures. See also R.
J. Hinton's John _Brown and His Men_, Appendix, pp. 585, 588.

[190] Mason A. Green, _History of Springfield_, Massachusetts,
1636-1886, p. 506.

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]

[191] Article, "Meeting to Form a Vigilance Committee," in the
_Pennsylvania Freeman_, Dec. 9, 1852; quoted in _Underground
Railroad Records_, by William Still, pp. 610-612.

[192] Still's _Underground Railroad Records_, p. 177. References
to the action of the committee of which Mr. Still was chairman
will be found scattered through the Records. See, for example,
pp. 70, 98, 102, 131, 150, 162, 173, 176, 204, 224, 274, 275,
303, 325, 335, 388, 412, 449, 493, 500.

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]

[193] Conversation with Asbury Parker, Ironton, O., Sept. 30,
1894.

[194] Conversation with Anthony Bingey, Windsor, Ont., July 3,
1895.

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.

[195] _Reminiscences_, p. 178.

[196] Conversation with M. J. Benedict, Alum Creek Settlement,
Dec. 2, 1893. See also _Underground Railroad_, Smedley, pp. 56,
136, 142, 174.

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]

[197] _Narrative of William W. Brown, A Fugitive Slave_, written
by himself, 2d ed., 1848, p. 102.

[198] The letter is printed in full, together with other letters,
in Still's _Underground Railroad Records_, pp. 590, 591.

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]

[199] Levi Coffin, _Reminiscences_, p. 316.

[200] _Protectionist_, Arnold Buffum, Editor, New Garden, Ind.,
7th mo., 1st, 1841.

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]

[201] _Reminiscences_, pp. 317, 321.

[202] Still's _Underground Railroad Records_, p. 613.

[203] _Ibid._, p. 598. In the fragment of a letter from which
Mr. Still quotes, Mr. Douglass says, "They [the fugitives]
usually tarry with us only during the night, and are forwarded to
Canada by the morning train. We give them supper, lodging, and
breakfast, pay their expenses, and give them a half-dollar over."

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]

[204] The _Firelands Pioneer_, July, 1888, p. 21.

[205] _Ibid._, pp. 23, 57, 79.

[206] _Ibid._, p. 74. The "Three C's" is now the Cleveland,
Cincinnati, Chicago and St. Louis Railroad, or "Big Four" Route.

[207] Conversation with Thomas Williams, of Pennsville, O.;
letter of H. C. Harvey, Manchester, Kan., Jan. 16, 1893.

[208] Letter of I. Newton Peirce, Folcroft, Pa., Feb. 1, 1893.

[209] Letter of Sidney Speed, Crawfordsville, Ind., March 6,
1896. Mr. Speed and his father were both connected with the
Crawfordsville centre.

[210] _Life and Poems of John Howard Bryant_, p. 30; letter of
William H. Collins, Quincy, Ill., Jan. 13, 1896; _History of Knox
County, Illinois_, p. 211.

[211] Letter of George L. Burroughes, Cairo, Ill., Jan. 6, 1896.

[212] _Ibid._; conversation with the Rev. R. G. Ramsey, Cadiz,
O., Aug. 18, 1892.

[213] J. B. Grinnell, _Men and Events of Forty Years_, p. 216.

[214] Smedley, _Underground Railroad_, pp. 174, 176, 177, 365.
The following letter is in point:--

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

WILLIAM STILL, _Respected Friend_:--There are three colored
friends at my house now, who will reach the city by the
Philadelphia and Reading train this evening. Please meet them.

Thine, etc.,
E. F. PENNYPACKER."

[215] Letter of John W. Jones, Elmira, N.Y., Jan. 18, 1897.

[216] Letter of the Hon. Andrew D. White, Ithaca, N.Y., April 10,
1897.

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]

[217] Mrs. Elizabeth Buffum Chace, _Anti-Slavery Reminiscences_,
pp. 28, 38.

[218] Letter of William I. Bowditch, Boston, April 5, 1893. Mr.
Bowditch says: "Generally I passed them (the fugitives) on to
William Jackson, at Newton. His house being on the Worcester
Railroad, he could easily forward any one." Captain Austin
Bearse, _Reminiscences of Fugitive-Slave Law Days in Boston_, p.
37.

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

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]

[220] Mrs. Elizabeth Buffum Chace, _Anti-Slavery Reminiscences_,
pp. 27, 30.

[221] Austin Bearse, _Reminiscences of Fugitive-Slave Law Days in
Boston_, 1880, pp. 34-39.

[222] Smedley, _Underground Railroad_, letter of Robert Purvis,
of Philadelphia, p. 335.

[223] Still, _Underground Railroad Records_, pp. 165-172. For
other cases, see pp. 211, 379-381, 437, 558, 559-565.

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]

[224] See p. 312, Chapter X.

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]

[225] Letters of Brown Thurston, Portland, Me., Jan. 13, 1893,
and Oct. 21, 1895.

[226] For letters from Mr. Garrett to William Still, of the
Acting Committee of Vigilance of Philadelphia, notifying him
that fugitives had been sent by boat, see Still's _Underground
Railroad Records_, pp. 380, 387.

[227] Letter of S. T. Pickard, Portland, Me., Nov. 18, 1893.

[228] Still, _Underground Railroad Records_, p. 368; Wilson,
_Rise and Fall of the Slave Power_, Vol. II, p. 325; _New England
Magazine_, January, 1890, p. 580.

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]

[229] Letter of A. P. Dutton, of Racine, Wis., April 7, 1896.
As a shipper of grain and an abolitionist for twenty years in
Racine, Mr. Dutton was able to turn his dock into a place of
deportation for runaway slaves.

[230] A. J. Andreas, _History of Chicago_, Vol. I, p. 606.

[231] Letter of Mr. Weiblen, Fairview, Erie Co., Pa., Nov. 26,
1895.

[232] The _Firelands Pioneer_, July, 1888, p. 46.

[233] _Ibid._, p. 50.

[234] The names of the last six boats given, as well as several
of the others, were obtained from freedmen in Canada, who keep
them in grateful remembrance.

[235] _Narrative of William W. Brown_, by himself, 1848, pp. 107,
108.

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]

[236] Mr. Quincy's report of the case, quoted by M. G. McDougall,
_Fugitive Slaves_, p. 35.

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.

[237] See p. 38.

[238] Smedley, _Underground Railroad_, pp. 356-361.

[239] Levi Coffin, _Reminiscences_, pp. 548-554.

[240] This account is condensed from a report given in the _Troy
Whig_, April 28, 1859, and printed in the book entitled, _Harriet
the Moses of Her People_, pp. 143-149.

Mr. Coffin and his wife aided more than 3000 slaves in their flight.]