University of Virginia Library

CHAPTER III

THE METHODS OF THE UNDERGROUND RAILROAD

By the enactment of the first Fugitive Slave Law, February
12, 1793, the aiding of fugitive slaves became a penal offence.
This measure laid a fine of five hundred dollars upon any one
harboring escaped slaves, or preventing their arrest. The provisions
of the law were of a character to stimulate resistance to
its enforcement. The master or his agent was authorized to
arrest the runaway, wherever found; to bring him before a
judge of the circuit or the district court of the United States,
or before a local magistrate where the capture was made;
and to receive, on the display of satisfactory proof, a certificate
operating as a full warrant for taking the prisoner back
to the state from which he had fled. This summary method
of disposing of cases involving the high question of human
liberty was regarded by many persons as unjust; they freely
denounced it, and, despite the penalty attached, many violated
the law. Secrecy was the only safeguard of these persons,
as it was of those they were attempting to succor; hence
arose the numerous artifices employed.

The uniform success of the attempts to evade this first
Fugitive Slave Law, and doubtless, also, the general indisposition
of Northern people to take part in the return of refugees
to their Southern owners, led, as early as in 1823, to negotiations
between Kentucky and the three adjoining states across
the Ohio. It is unnecessary to trace the history of these
negotiations, or to point out the statutes in which the legislative
results are recorded. It is notable that sixteen years
elapsed before the legislature of Ohio passed a law to secure
the recovery of slave property, and that the new enactment
remained on the statute books only four years. The penalties
imposed by this law for advising or for enticing a slave

to leave his master, or for harboring a fugitive, were a fine,
not to exceed five hundred dollars, and, at the discretion of
the court, imprisonment not to exceed sixty days. In addition,
the offender was to be liable in an action at the suit of
the party injured.[1] It can scarcely be supposed that a state
Fugitive Slave Law like this would otherwise affect persons
that were already engaged in aiding runaways than to make
them more certain than ever that their cause was just.

The loss of slave property sustained by Southern planters
was not diminished, and the outcry of the South for a more
rigorous national law on the subject was by no means hushed.
In 1850 Congress met the case by substituting for the Fugitive
Slave Act of 1793 the measure called the second Fugitive Slave
Law. The penalties provided by this law were, of course,
more severe than those of the act of 1793. Any person hindering
the claimant from arresting the fugitive, or attempting
the rescue or concealment of the fugitive, became "subject to
a fine not exceeding one thousand dollars, or imprisonment
not exceeding six months," and was liable for "civil damages
to the party injured by such illegal conduct in the sum of one
thousand dollars for each fugitive so lost." These provisions
of the new law only added fresh fuel to the fire. The determination
to prevent the recovery of escaped slaves by their
owners spread rapidly among the inhabitants of the free states.
Many of these persons, who had hitherto refrained from acting
for or against the fugitive, were provoked into helping defeat
the action of a law commanding them "to aid and assist in
the prompt and efficient execution" of a measure that would
have set them at the miserable business of slave-catching.
Clay only expressed a wish instead of a fact, when he maintained
in 1851 that the law was being executed in Indiana,
Ohio and other states. Another Southern senator was much
nearer the truth when he complained of the small number of
recaptures under the recent act.

The risk of suffering severe penalties by violating the Fugitive
Slave laws was less wearing, probably, on abolitionists
than was the social disdain they brought upon themselves by
acknowledging their principles. During a generation, or more

they were in a minority in many communities, and were forced
to submit to the taunts and insults of persons that did not
distinguish between abolition of slavery and fusion of the
white and the black races. "Black abolitionist," "niggerite,"
"amalgamationist" and "nigger thief" were convenient epithets
in the mouths of pro-slavery champions in many Northern
neighborhoods. The statement was not uncommonly
made about those suspected of harboring slaves, that they
did so from motives of thrift and gain. It was said that some
underground helpers made use of the labor of runaways, especially
in harvest-time, as long as it suited their convenience,
then on the pretext of danger hurried the negroes off without
pay. Unreasoning malice alone could concoct so absurd an
explanation of a philanthropy involving so much cost and
risk.[2] Abolitionists were often made uncomfortable in their
church relations by the uncomplimentary attentions they received,
or by the discovery that they were regarded as unwelcome
disturbers of the household of faith.[3] Even the Society
of Friends is not above the charge of having lost sight, in
some quarters, of the precepts of Anthony Benezet and John
Woolman. Uxbridge monthly meeting is known to have disowned
Abby Kelly because she gave anti-slavery lectures.[4]
The church certificate given to Mrs. Elizabeth Buffum Chace
when she transferred her membership from Swanzey monthly
meeting to Providence (Rhode Island) monthly meeting was
without the acknowledgment usually contained in such certificates
that the bearer "was of orderly life and conversation."[5]
A popular Hicksite minister of New York City, in commending
the fugitive Thomas Hughes for consenting to return South
with his master, said, "I had a thousand times rather be a
slave, and spend my days with slaveholders, than to dwell in
companionship with abolitionists."[6] In the Methodist Church
there came to be such stress of feeling between the abolitionists
and the other members, that in many places the former
withdrew and organized little congregations apart, under the
denominational name, Wesleyan Methodist. The truth is,
the mass of the people of the free states were by no means
abolitionists; they cherished an intense prejudice against the
negro, and permitted it to extend to all anti-slavery advocates.
They were willing to let slavery alone, and desired that others
should let it alone. In the Western states the character of
public sentiment is evidenced by the fact that generally the
political party considered to be most favorable to slavery
could command a majority, and "black laws" were framed at
the behest of Southern politicians for the purpose of making
residence in the Northern states a disagreeable thing for the
negro.[7]

Abolitionists were frequently subjected to espionage; the
arrival of a party of colored people at a house after daybreak
would arouse suspicion and cause the place to be closely
watched; a chance meeting with a neighbor in the highway
would perhaps be the means by which some abolitionists'
secrets would become known. In such cases it did not always
follow that the discovery brought ruin upon the head of the
offender, even when the discoverer was a person of pro-slavery
views. Nevertheless, accidents of the kind described served
to fasten the suspicions of a locality upon the offender. Gravner
and Hannah Marsh, Quakers, living near Downington, in
Chester County, Pennsylvania, became known to their pro-slavery
neighbors as agents on the Underground Road. These
neighbors were not disposed to inform against them, although.
one woman, intent on finding out how many slaves they aided
in a year, with much watching counted sixty.[8] The Rev.
John Cross, a Presbyterian minister living in Elba Township,
Knox County, Illinois, about the year 1840, had neighbors
that insisted on his answering to the law for the help he gave
to some fugitives. Mr. Cross made no secret of his principles
and accordingly became game for his enemies. One of
these was Jacob Kightlinger, who observed a wagon-load of

negroes being taken in the direction of Mr. Cross's house. Investigation
by Mr. Kightlinger and several of his friends proved
their suspicions to be true, and by their action Mr. Cross was
indicted for harboring fugitive slaves.[9]

Parties in pursuit of fugitives were compelled to make careful
and often long-continued search to find traces of their wayfaring
chattels. During such missions they were, of course,
inquisitive and vigilant, and when circumstances seemed to
warrant it, they set men to watch the premises of the persons
most suspicioned, and to report any mysterious actions occurring
within the district patrolled. The houses of many noted
abolitionists along the Ohio River were frequently under the
surveillance of slave-hunters. It was not a rare thing that
towns and villages in regions adjacent to the Southern states
were terrorized by crowds of roughs eager to find the hiding-places
of slaves, recently missed by masters bent on their recovery.
The following extracts from a letter written by Mr.
William Steel to Mr. David Putnam, Jr., of Point Harmar,
Ohio, will show the methods practised by slave-hunters when
in eager pursuit of fugitives:—

A case that well illustrates the method of search employed
by pursuing parties is that of the escape of the Nuckolls slaves
through Iowa, the incidents of which are still vivid in the
memories of some that witnessed them. Mr. Nuckolls, of
Nebraska City, Nebraska, lost two slave-girls in December,
1858. He instituted search for them in Tabor, an abolitionist
centre, and did not neglect to guard the crossings of two
streams in the vicinity, Silver Creek and the Nishnabotna
River. As the slaves had been promptly despatched to Chicago,
this search availed him nothing. A second and more
thorough hunt was decided on, and the aid of a score or
more fellows was secured. These men made entrance into
houses by force and violence, when bravado failed to gain
them admission.[11] At one house where the remonstrance
against intrusion was unusually strong the person remonstrating
was struck over the head and injured for life. The outcome
of the whole affair was that Mr. Nuckolls had some ten
thousand dollars to pay in damages and costs, and, after all,
failed to recover his slaves.[12]

Many were the inducements to practise espionage on abolitionists.
Large sums were offered for the capture of fugitives,
and rewards were offered also for the arrest and delivery

south of Mason and Dixon's line of certain abolitionists,
who were well-enough known to have the hatred of many
Southerners. "At an anti-slavery meeting of the citizens of
Sardinia and vicinity, held on November 21,1838, a committee
of respectable citizens presented a report, accompanied with
affidavits in support of its declarations, stating that for more
than a year past there had been an unusual degree of hatred
manifested by the slave-hunters and slaveholders towards the
abolitionists of Brown County, and that rewards varying from
$500 to $2,500 had been repeatedly offered by different persons
for the abduction or assassination of the Rev. John B.
Mahan; and rewards had also been offered for Amos Pettijohn,
William A. Frazier and Dr. Isaac M. Beck, of Sardinia,
the Rev. John Rankin and Dr. Alexander Campbell, of Ripley,
William McCoy, of Russellville, and citizens of Adams
County."[13] A resolution was offered in the Maryland Legislature,
in January, 1860, proposing a reward for the arrest of
Thomas Garrett, of Wilmington, for "stealing" slaves.[14] It is
perhaps an evidence of the extraordinary caution and shrewdness
employed by managers of the Road generally that so
many of them escaped without suffering the penalties of the
law or the inflictions of private vengeance.

Slave-owners occasionally tried to find out the secrets of an
underground station or of a route by visiting various localities
in disguise. A Kentucky slaveholder clad in the Friends'
peculiar garb went to the house of John Charles, a Quaker
of Richmond, Indiana, and meeting a son of Mr. Charles,
accosted him with the words, "Well, sir, my little mannie,
hasn't thee father gone to Canada with some niggers?"
Young Charles quickly perceived the disguise, and pointing
his finger at the man declared him to be a "wolf in sheep's
clothing."[15] About the year 1840 there came into Cass County,
Indiana, a man from Kentucky by the name of Carpenter,
who professed to be an anti-slavery lecturer and an agent for

certain anti-slavery papers. He visited the abolitionists and
seemed zealous in the cause. In this way he learned the
whereabouts of seven fugitives that had arrived in the neighborhood
from Kentucky a few weeks before. He sent word
to their masters, and in due time they were all seized, but had
not been taken far before the neighborhood was aroused,
masters and victims were overtaken and carried to the county-seat,
a trial was procured, and the slaves were again set free.

Thus the penalties of the law, the contempt of neighbors,
and the espionage of persons interested in returning fugitives
to bondage made secrecy necessary in the service of the
Underground Railroad.

Night was the only time, of course, in which the fugitive
and his helpers could feel themselves even partially secure.
Probably most slaves that started for Canada had learned to
know the north star, and to many of these superstitious persons
its light seemed the enduring witness of the divine interest
in their deliverance. When clouds obscured the stars
they had recourse, perhaps, to such bits of homely knowledge
as, that in forests the trunks of trees are commonly moss-grown
on their north sides. In Kentucky and western Virginia
many fugitives were guided to free soil by the tributaries
of the Ohio; while in central and eastern Virginia the ranges
of the Appalachian chain marked the direction to be taken.
After reaching the initial station of some line of Underground
Road the fugitive found himself provided with such accommodations
for rest and refreshment as circumstances would
allow; and after an interval of a day or more he was conveyed,
usually in the night, to the house of the next friend.
Sometimes, however, when a guide was thought to be unnecessary
the fugitive was sent on foot to the next station,
full and minute instructions for finding it having been given
him. The faltering step, and the light, uncertain rapping of
the fugitive at the door, was quickly recognized by the family
within, and the stranger was admitted with a welcome at once
sincere and subdued. There was a suppressed stir in the
house while the fire was building and food preparing; and
after the hunger and chill of the wayfarer had been dispelled,
he was provided with a bed in some out-of-the-way part of the

house, or under the hay in the barn loft, according to the
degree of danger. Often a household was awakened to find
a company of five or more negroes at the door. The arrival
of such a company was sometimes announced beforehand by
special messenger.

That the amount of time taken from the hours of sleep by
underground service was no small item may be seen from the
following record covering the last half of August, 1843. The
record or memorandum is that of Mr. David Putnam, Jr., of
Point Harmar, Ohio, and is given with all the abbreviations:

               

Aug.	13/43 Sunday Morn.	2 o'clock arrived
	Sunday Eve.	8½ " departed for B.
	16 Wednesday Morn.	2 " arrived
	20 Sunday eve.	10 " departed for N.
Wife & children	21 Monday morn.	2 " arrived from B.
	" eve.	10 " left for Mr. H.
	22 Tuesday "	11 " left for W.
A. L. & S. J.	28 Monday morn.	1 " arrived left 2 o'clock.[16]

This is plainly a schedule of arriving and departing "trains"
on the Underground Road. It is noticeable that the schedule
contains no description, numerical or otherwise, of the parties
coming and going; nor does it indicate, except by initial, to
what places or persons the parties were despatched; further,
it does not indicate whether Mr. Putnam accompanied them
or not. It does, however, give us a clue to the amount
of night service that was done at a station of average activity
on the Ohio River as early as the year 1843. The demands
upon operators increased, we know, from this time on till
1860. The memorandum also shows the variation in the
length of time during which different companies of fugitives
were detained at a station; thus, the first fugitive, or company
of fugitives, as the case may have been, departed on
the evening of the day of arrival; the second party was kept
in concealment from Wednesday morning until the Sunday
night next following before it was sent on its way; the third
party seems to have been divided, one section being forwarded
the night of the day of arrival, the other the next night following;
in the case of the last company there seems to have
existed some especial reason for haste, and we find it hurried
away at two o'clock in the morning, after only an hour's
intermission for rest and refreshment. The memorandum of
night service at the Putnam station may be regarded as fairly
representative of the night service at many other posts or
stations throughout Ohio and the adjoining states.

Much of the communication relating to fugitive slaves was
had in guarded language. Special signals, whispered conversations,
passwords, messages couched in figurative phrases,
were the common modes of conveying information about
underground passengers, or about parties in pursuit of fugitives.
These modes of communication constituted what abolitionists
knew as the "grape-vine telegraph."[17] The signals
employed were of various kinds, and were local in usage.
Fugitives crossing the Ohio River in the vicinity of Parkersburg,
in western Virginia, were sometimes announced at stations
near the river by their guides by a shrill tremolo-call
like that of the owl. Colonel John Stone and Mr. David
Putnam, Jr., of Marietta, Ohio, made frequent use of this signal.[18]
Different neighborhoods had their peculiar combinations
of knocks or raps to be made upon the door or window
of a station when fugitives were awaiting admission. In
Harrison County, Ohio, around Cadiz, one of the recognized
signals was three distinct but subdued knocks. To the inquiry,

[ILLUSTRATION] "Who's there?" the reply
was, "A friend with friends."[19] Passwords
were used on some sections of
the Road. The agents at York in
southeastern Pennsylvania made use
of them, and William Yokum, a constable
of the town, who was kindly
disposed towards runaways, was able
to be most helpful in times of emergency
by his knowledge of the watch-words,
one of which was "William
Penn."[20] Messages couched in figurative
language were often sent. The
following note, written by Mr. John
Stone, of Belpre, Ohio, in August,
1843, is a good example:—

Mr. I. Newton Peirce forwarded a
number of fugitives from Alliance,
Ohio, to Cleveland, over the Cleveland
and Western Railroad. He sent
with each company a note to a Cleveland
merchant, Mr. Joseph Garretson,
saying: "Please forward immediately
the U. G. baggage this day sent to
you. Yours truly, I. N. P."[22] Mr.

G. W. Weston, of Low Moor, Iowa, was the author of similar
communications addressed to a friend, Mr. C. B. Campbell,
of Clinton.

The Hon. Thomas Mitchell, founder of Mitchellville, near
Des Moines, Iowa, forwarded fugitives to Mr. J. B. Grinnell,
after whom the town of Grinnell was named. The latter
gives the following note as a sample of the messages that
passed between them:—

There were many persons engaged in underground work
that did not always take the precaution to veil their communications.
Judge Thomas Lee, of the Western Reserve, was
one of this class, as the following letter to Mr. Putnam, of
Point Harmar, will show:—

In the conveyance of fugitives from station to station
there existed all the variety of method one would expect to
find. In the early days of the Underground Road the fugitives
were generally men. It was scarcely thought necessary
to send a guide with them unless some special reason
for so doing existed. They were, therefore, commonly given
such directions as they needed and left to their own devices.
As the number of refugees increased, and women and children
were more frequently seen upon the Road, and pursuit
was more common, the practice of transporting fugitives on
horseback, or by vehicle, was introduced. The steam railroad
was a new means furnished to abolitionists by the
progress of the times, and used by them with greater or less
frequency as circumstances required, and when the safety
of passengers would not be sacrificed.

When fugitive travellers afoot or on horseback found
themselves pursued, safety lay in flight, unless indeed the
company was large enough, courageous enough, and sufficiently
well armed to give battle. The safety of fugitives
while travelling by conveyance lay mainly in their concealment,
and many were the stratagems employed. Characteristic
of the service of the Underground Railroad were the
covered wagons, closed carriages and deep-bedded farm-wagons
that hid the passengers. There are those living
who remember special day-coaches of more peculiar construction.
Abram Allen, a Quaker of Oakland, Clinton
County, Ohio, had a large three-seated wagon, made for the
purpose of carrying fugitives. He called it the Liberator.
It was curtained all around, would hold eight or ten persons,
and had a mechanism with a bell, invented by Mr. Allen, to

record the number of miles travelled.[25] A citizen of Troy,
Ohio, a bookbinder by trade, had a large wagon, built about
with drawers in such a way as to leave a large hiding-place
in the centre of the wagon-bed. As the bookbinder drove
through the country he found opportunity to help many a
fugitive on his way to Canada.[26] Horace Holt, of Rutland,
Meigs County, Ohio, sold reeds to his neighbors in southern
Ohio. He had a box-bed wagon with a lid that fastened
with a padlock. In this he hauled his supply of reeds; it
was well understood by a few that he also hauled fugitive
slaves.[27] Joseph Sider, of southern Indiana, found his
pedler wagon well adapted to the transportation of slaves
from Kentucky plantations.[28] William Still gives instances
of negroes being placed in boxes, and shipped as freight by
boat, and also by rail, to friends in the North. William Box
Peel Jones was boxed in Baltimore and sent to Philadelphia
by way of the Ericsson line of steamers, being seventeen hours
on the way.[29] Henry Box Brown had the same thrilling and
perilous experience. His trip consumed twenty-four hours,
during which time he was in the care of the Adams Express
Company in transit from Richmond, Virginia, to Philadelphia.[30]

Abolitionists that drove wagons or carriages containing
refugees, "conductors" as they came to be called in the
terminology of the Railroad service, generally took the precaution
to have ostensible reasons for their journeys. They
sought to divest their excursions of the air of mystery by
seeming to be about legitimate business. Hannah Marsh, of
Chester County, Pennsylvania, was in the habit of taking

garden produce to the Philadelphia markets to sell; when,
therefore, she sometimes used her covered market-wagon,
even in daytime, to convey fugitives, she attracted no attention,
and made her trips without molestation.[31] Calvin Fairbank
abducted the Stanton family, father, mother and six
children, from the neighborhood of Covington, Kentucky, by
packing them in a load of straw.[32] James W. Torrence, of
Northwood, Ohio, together with some of his neighbors exported
grain, and sometimes feathers, to Sandusky. These
products were generally shipped when there were fugitives
to go with the load. As the distance to Sandusky was a
hundred and twenty miles, refugees who happened to profit
by this arrangement were saved much time and no small
amount of risk in getting to their destination.[33] Mr. William
I. Bowditch, of Boston, used a two-horse carryall on one occasion
to take a single fugitive to Concord.[34] Mr. John
Weldon and other abolitionists, of Dwight, Illinois, took
negroes to Chicago concealed in wagons loaded with sacks of
bran.[35] Levi Coffin, of Cincinnati, Ohio, frequently received
large companies for which safe transportation had to be supplied.
On one occasion a party of twenty-eight negroes arrived,
towards daylight, in the suburbs of Cincinnati, from
Boone County, Kentucky, and it was necessary to send them
on at once. Accordingly at Friend Coffin's suggestion a
number of carriages were procured, formed into a long
funeral-like procession and started solemnly on the road to
Cumminsville.[36] An almost endless array of incidents similar
to these can be given, but enough have been recited to illustrate
the caution that prevailed in the transportation of
fugitive slaves toward Canada.

The routes were very far from being straight. They are
perhaps best described by the word zigzag. The exigencies

that determined in what direction an escaping slave should go
during any particular part of his journey were, in the nature
of the case, always local. The ultimate goal was Canada,
but a safe passage was of greater importance than a quick
one. When speed would contribute safety the guide would
make a long trip with his charge, or perhaps resort to the
steam railroad; but under ordinary circumstances, in those
regions where the Underground Railroad was most patron
ized, a guide had almost always a choice between two or
more routes; he could, as seemed best at the time, take the
right-hand road to one station, or the left-hand road to
another. In truth, the underground paths in these regions
formed a great and intricate network, and it was in no small
measure because the lines forming the meshes of this great
system converged and branched again at so many stations
that it was almost an impossibility for slave-hunters to trace
their negroes through even a single county without finding
themselves on the wrong trail. It was a common stratagem
in times of special emergency to switch off travellers from
one course to another, or to take them back on their track
and then, after a few days of waiting, send them forward
again. It is, then, proper to say that zigzag was one of the
regular devices to blind and throw off pursuit. It served
moreover to avoid unfriendly localities. It seems probable
that the circuitous land route from Toledo to Detroit as an
expedient of this sort, for slave-owners and their agents were
often known to be on the lookout along the direct thoroughfare
between the places named. The two routes between
Millersburgh and Lodi in northern Ohio are explained by
the statement that the most direct route, the western one,
fell under suspicion for a while, and in the meantime a
more circuitous path was followed through Holmesville and
Seville.[37]

During the long process by which the slave with the help of
friends was being transmuted into the freeman he spent much
of his time in concealment. His progress was made in the
night-time. When a station was reached he was provided

with a hiding-place, and he scarcely left it until his host
decided it would be safe for him to continue his journey.
The hiding-places the fugitive entered first and last were as
dissimilar as can well be imagined. Slaves that crossed the
Ohio River at Ripley, and fell into the hands of the Rev.
John Rankin, were often concealed in his barn, which is said
to have been provided with a secret cellar for use by the
slaves when pursuers approached. The barn of Deacon Jireh
Platt at Mendon, Illinois, was a haven into which many
slaves from Missouri were piloted by way of Quincy. A
hazel thicket in Mr. Platt's pasture-lot was sometimes resorted
to,[38] as was one of his hayricks that was hollow and
had a blind entrance.[39] Joshua R. Giddings, the sturdy antislavery
Congressman from the Western Reserve, had an out-of-the-way
bedroom in one wing of his house at Jefferson,
Ohio, that was kept in readiness for fugitive slaves.[40] The
attic over the Liberator office in Boston is said to have been
a rendezvous for such persons.[41] A station-keeper at Plainfield,
Illinois, had a woodpile with a room in the centre for
a hiding-place.[42] The Rev. J. Porter, pastor of a Congregational
church at Green Bay, Wisconsin, was asked to furnish
a place of hiding for a family of fugitives, and at his wife's
suggestion he put them in the belfry of his, church, where
they remained three days before a vessel came by which
they could be safely transported to Canada.[43] Mr. James
M. Westwater and other citizens of Columbus, Ohio, fitted
up an old smoke-house standing on Chestnut Street near
Fourth Street as a station of the Underground Railroad.[44]
A fugitive reaching Canton, Washington County, Indiana,
was secreted for a while in a low place in a thick, dark
woods; and afterwards in a rail pen covered with straw.[45]
Eli F. Brown, of Amesville, Athens County, Ohio, writes:
"I built an addition to my house in which I had a room
with its partition in pannels. One pannel could be raised
about a half inch and then slid back, so as to permit a man
to enter the room. When the pannel was in place it
appeared like its fellows. . . . In the abutment of Zanesville
bridge on the Putnam side there was a place of concealment
prepared."[46] "Conductors" Levi Coffin, Edward
Harwood, and W. H. Brisbane, of Cincinnati, Ohio, had a
number of hiding-places for slaves. "One was in the dark
cellar of Coffin's store; another was at Mr. Coffin's out-of-the-way
residence between Avondale and Walnut Hills;
another was a dark sub-cellar under the rear part of Dr.
Bailey's residence, corner of Sixth and College Streets."[47]
The gallery of the old First Church at Galesburg, Illinois,
was utilized as a place of concealment for refugees by certain
members of that church.[48] Gabe N. Johnson, a colored
man of Ironton, on the Ohio River, sometimes hid fugitives
in a coal-bank back of his house.[49] This list of illustrations
could be almost indefinitely continued. A sufficient number
has been given to show the ingenuity necessarily used to
secure safety.

In the transit from station to station some simple disguise
was often assumed. Thomas Garrett, a Quaker of Wilmington,
Delaware, kept a quantity of garden tools on hand for
this purpose. He sometimes gave a man a scythe, rake, or
some other implement to carry through town. Having
reached a certain bridge on the way to the next station, the
pretending laborer concealed his tool under it, as he had been
directed, and journeyed on. Later the tool was taken back
to Mr. Garrett's to be used for a similar purpose.[50] Valentine
Nieholson, a station-keeper at Harveysburg, Warren County,

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,
(From a recent photograph.)

Ohio, concealed the identity of a fugitive, a mulatto, who
was known to be pursued, by blacking his face and hands
with burnt cork.[51] Slight disguises like these were probably
not used as often as more elaborate ones. The Rev. Calvin
Fairbank, and John Fairfield, the Virginian, who abducted
many slaves from the South, resorted frequently to this means
of securing the safety of their followers. Mr. Fairbank tells
us that he piloted slave-girls attired in the finery of ladies,
men and boys tricked out as gentlemen and the servants of
gentlemen; and that sometimes he found it necessary to
require his followers to don the garments of the opposite
sex.[52] In May, 1848, Mr. Fairbank went to Arkansas for
the purpose of rescuing William Minnis from bondage. He
found that the slave was a young man of light complexion
and prepossessing appearance, and that he closely resembled
a gentleman living in the vicinity of Little Rock. Minnis
was, therefore, fitted out with the necessary wig, beard and
moustache, and clothes like those of his model; he was
quickly drilled in the deportment of his assumed rank,
and, as the test proved, he sustained himself well in his part.
On boarding the boat that was to carry him to freedom he
discovered his owner, Mr. Brennan, but so effectual was the
slave's make-up that the master failed to penetrate the
disguise.[53]

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 busi
ness 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.[54]

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.[55] 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 suspected of being anything else than what the
garb proclaimed. The veiled bonnet also was peculiarly
adapted to conceal the features of the person disguised.[56]
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.[57]

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. . . ."[58] 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:[59] "The funds
for carrying on this enterprise were raised from our antislavery
friends, as the cases came up,[60] 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 atNewberne, 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,[61] 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,[62] 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.[63] 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.[64] 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.[65] At Albany, New York,
Stephen Meyers, a negro, was an agent of the Underground
Road for a wide extent of territory.[66] At Detroit there were
several colored agents; among them George De Baptiste and
George Dolarson.[67]

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."[68] 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.[69]
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.[70] 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.[71]

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 reenslaving a fugitive, and
pledging protection to the colored residents of the city. To
make good this pledge a Vigilance Committee of fifty was
appointed.[72] 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.[73]

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.[74] 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.[75]

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."[76] 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."[77] Doubtless the Gileadites of Springfield

WILLIAM STILL,
Chairman of The Acting Vigilance Committee in Philadelphia,
Pennsylvania, 1852–1860.

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.[78]

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.[79] 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.[80]

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.[81] 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.[82]

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."[83] 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.[84] 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.[85] Women's anti-slavery
societies in many places conducted sewing-circles, as a
branch of their work, for the purpose of supplying clothe's
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. . . ."[86]

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.[87] 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. . . ."[88]

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.[89] 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.[90] 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.[91]

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.[92] 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.[93] After

the construction of the Cleveland, Columbus and Cincinnati
Railroad[94] 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,[95]
and the other was the Cleveland and Western between
Alliance and Cleveland.[96] 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.[97] 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,[98] the
Chicago and Rock Island[99] and the Illinois Central.[100] 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.[101] 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.[102] 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.[103] 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."[104]

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.[105] 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,[106] 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.[107]

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.[108] In July, 1853, the brig Florence(Captain
Amos Hopkins, of Hallo well, 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.[109] 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.[110] In November,
1855, Captain Fountain brought twenty-one fugitives
concealed on his vessel in a cargo of grain from Norfolk,
Virginia, to Philadelphia.[111]

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.[112]

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.[113] Thomas
Garrett, of Wilmington, Delaware, sometimes sent negroes by
steamboat to Philadelphia to be cared for by the Vigilance
Committee.[114] It happened on several occasions that fugitives
at Portland and Boston were put aboard ocean steamers bound
for England.[115] William and Ellen Craft were sent to England
after having narrowly escaped capture in Boston.[116]

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. Button 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.[117] The Illinois (Captain Blake), running
between Chicago and Detroit, was a safe boat on which to
place passengers whose destination was Canada.[118] John G.
Weiblen navigated the lakes in 1855 and 1856, and took
many refugees from Chicago to Collingwood, Ontario.[119] The
Arrow,[120] the United States,[121] 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.[122]
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."[123]

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."[124]

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.[125] 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.[126] 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.[127] 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.[128] Well-known eases
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.