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Title: Scenes in the Life of Harriet Tubman
Author: Sarah Hopkins Bradford
Release Date: August 31, 2018 [EBook #57821]
Language: English
*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK LIFE OF HARRIET TUBMAN ***
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SCENES IN THE LIFE OF HARRIET TUBMAN.
BY
SARAH H. BRADFORD.
AUBURN:
W. J. MOSES, PRINTER.
1869.
[Illustration: HARRIET TUBMAN.]
Entered according to Act of Congress, in the year 1869,
BY WILLIAM G. WISE,
In the Clerk's Office of the District Court for the Northern District
of New York.
STEREOTYPED BY
DENNIS BRO'S & CO.,
AUBURN, N. Y.
INTRODUCTION.
The following little story was written by Mrs. Sarah H. Bradford, of
Geneva, with the single object of furnishing some help to the subject of
the memoir. Harriet Tubman's services and sufferings during the
rebellion, which are acknowledged in the letters of Gen. Saxton, and
others, it was thought by many, would justify the bestowment of a
pension by the Government. But the difficulties in the way of procuring
such relief, suggested other methods, and finally the present one. The
narrative was prepared on the eve of the author's departure for Europe,
where she still remains. It makes no claim whatever to literary merit.
Her hope was merely that the considerably numerous public already in
part acquainted with Harriet's story, would furnish purchasers enough to
secure a little fund for the relief of this remarkable woman. Outside
that circle she did not suppose the memoir was likely to meet with much
if any sale.
In furtherance of the same benevolent scheme, and in order to secure the
whole avails of the work for Harriet's benefit, a subscription has been
raised more than sufficient to defray the entire cost of publication.
This has been effected by the generous exertions of Wm. G. Wise, Esq.,
of this city. The whole amount was contributed by citizens of Auburn,
with the exception of two liberal subscriptions by Gerrit Smith, Esq.,
and Mr. Wendell Phillips.
Mr. Wise has also consented, at Mrs. Bradford's request, to act as
trustee for Harriet; and will receive, invest, and apply, for her
benefit, whatever may accrue from the sale of this book.
The spirited wood-cut likeness of Harriet, in her costume as scout, was
furnished by the kindness of Mr. J. C. Darby, of this city.
S. M. H.
AUBURN, Dec. 1, 1868.
[Illustration: Decoration]
PREFACE.
It is proposed in this little book to give a plain and unvarnished
account of some scenes and adventures in the life of a woman who, though
one of earth's lowly ones, and of dark-hued skin, has shown an amount of
heroism in her character rarely possessed by those of any station in
life. Her name (we say it advisedly and without exaggeration) deserves
to be handed down to posterity side by side with the names of Joan of
Arc, Grace Darling, and Florence Nightingale; for not one of these women
has shown more courage and power of endurance in facing danger and death
to relieve human suffering, than has this woman in her heroic and
successful endeavors to reach and save all whom she might of her
oppressed and suffering race, and to pilot them from the land of Bondage
to the promised land of Liberty. Well has she been called "_Moses_," for
she has been a leader and deliverer unto hundreds of her people.
Worn down by her sufferings and fatigues, her health permanently
affected by the cruelties to which she has been subjected, she is still
laboring to the utmost limit of her strength for the support of her aged
parents, and still also for her afflicted people--by her own efforts
supporting two schools for Freedmen at the South, and supplying them
with clothes and books; never obtruding herself, never asking for
charity, except for "her people."
It is for the purpose of aiding her in ministering to the wants of her
aged parents, and in the hope of securing to them the little home which
they are in danger of losing from inability to pay the whole amount
due--which amount was partly paid when our heroine left them to throw
herself into the work of aiding our suffering soldiers--that this little
account, drawn from her by persevering endeavor, is given to the friends
of humanity.
The writer of this story has till very lately known less personally of
the subject of it, than many others to whom she has for years been an
object of interest and care. But through relations and friends in
Auburn, and also through Mrs. Commodore Swift of Geneva, and her
sisters, who have for many years known and esteemed this wonderful
woman, she has heard tales of her deeds of heroism which seemed almost
too strange for belief, and were invested with the charm of romance.
During a sojourn of some months in the city of Auburn, while the war was
in progress, the writer used to see occasionally in her Sunday-school
class the aged mother of Harriet, and also some of those girls who had
been brought from the South by this remarkable woman. She also wrote
letters for the old people to commanding officers at the South, making
inquiries about Harriet, and received answers telling of her untiring
devotion to our wounded and sick soldiers, and of her efficient aid in
various ways to the cause of the Union.
By the graphic pen of Mrs. Stowe, the incidents of such a life as that
of the subject of this little memoir might be wrought up into a tale of
thrilling interest, equaling, if not exceeding, anything in her
world-renowned "Uncle Tom's Cabin;" but the story of Harriet Tubman
needs not the drapery of fiction; the bare unadorned facts are enough to
stir the hearts of the friends of humanity, the friends of liberty, the
lovers of their country.
There are those who will sneer, there are those who have already done
so, at this _quixotic attempt_ to make a heroine of a black woman, and a
slave; but it may possibly be that there are some natures, though
concealed under fairer skins, who have not the capacity to comprehend
such general and self-sacrificing devotion to the cause of others as
that here delineated, and therefore they resort to scorn and ridicule,
in order to throw discredit upon the whole story.
Much has been left out which would have been highly interesting, because
of the impossibility of substantiating by the testimony of others the
truth of Harriet's statements. But whenever it has been possible to find
those who were cognizant with the facts stated, they have been
corroborated in every particular.
A few years hence and we seem to see a gathering where the wrongs of
earth will be righted, and Justice, long delayed, will assert itself,
and perform its office. Then not a few of those who had esteemed
themselves the wise and noble of this world, "will begin with shame to
take the lowest place;" while upon Harriet's dark head a kind hand will
be placed, and in her ear a gentle voice will sound, saying: "Friend!
come up higher!"
S. H. B.
The following letters to the writer from those well-known and
distinguished philanthropists, Hon. Gerrit Smith and Wendell Phillips,
and one from Frederick Douglass, addressed to Harriet, will serve as the
best introduction that can be given of the subject of this memoir to its
readers:
_Letter from Hon. Gerrit Smith._
PETERBORO, June 13, 1868.
MY DEAR MADAME: I am happy to learn that you are to speak to the
public of Mrs. Harriet Tubman. Of the remarkable events of her life
I have no _personal_ knowledge, but of the truth of them as she
describes them I have no doubt.
I have often listened to her, in her visits to my family, and I am
confident that she is not only truthful, but that she has a rare
discernment, and a deep and sublime philanthropy.
With great respect your friend,
GERRIT SMITH.
_Letter from Wendell Phillips._
JUNE 16, 1868.
DEAR MADAME: The last time I ever saw John Brown was under my own
roof, as he brought Harriet Tubman to me, saying: "Mr. Phillips, I
bring you one of the best and bravest persons on this
continent--_General_ Tubman, as we call her."
He then went on to recount her labors and sacrifices in behalf of
her race. After that, Harriet spent some time in Boston, earning
the confidence and admiration of all those who were working for
freedom. With their aid she went to the South more than once,
returning always with a squad of self-emancipated men, women, and
children, for whom her marvelous skill had opened the way of
escape. After the war broke out, she was sent with indorsements
from Governor Andrew and his friends to South Carolina, where in
the service of the Nation she rendered most important and efficient
aid to our army.
In my opinion there are few captains, perhaps few colonels, who
have done more for the loyal cause since the war began, and few men
who did before that time more for the colored race, than our
fearless and most sagacious friend, Harriet.
Faithfully yours,
WENDELL PHILLIPS.
_Letter from Frederick Douglass._
ROCHESTER, August 29, 1868.
DEAR HARRIET: I am glad to know that the story of your eventful
life has been written by a kind lady, and that the same is soon to
be published. You ask for what you do not need when you call upon
me for a word of commendation. I need such words from you far more
than you can need them from me, especially where your superior
labors and devotion to the cause of the lately enslaved of our land
are known as I know them. The difference between us is very marked.
Most that I have done and suffered in the service of our cause has
been in public, and I have received much encouragement at every
step of the way. You on the other hand have labored in a private
way. I have wrought in the day--you in the night. I have had the
applause of the crowd and the satisfaction that comes of being
approved by the multitude, while the most that you have done has
been witnessed by a few trembling, scared, and foot-sore bondmen
and women, whom you have led out of the house of bondage, and whose
heartfelt "_God bless you_" has been your only reward. The midnight
sky and the silent stars have been the witnesses of your devotion
to freedom and of your heroism. Excepting John Brown--of sacred
memory--I know of no one who has willingly encountered more perils
and hardships to serve our enslaved people than you have. Much that
you have done would seem improbable to those who do not know you
as I know you. It is to me a great pleasure and a great privilege
to bear testimony to your character and your works, and to say to
those to whom you may come, that I regard you in every way truthful
and trustworthy.
Your friend,
FREDERICK DOUGLASS.
SOME SCENES
IN THE
LIFE OF HARRIET TUBMAN.
Harriet Tubman, known at various times, and in various places, by many
different names, such as "Moses," in allusion to her being the leader
and guide to so many of her people in their exodus from the Land of
Bondage; "the Conductor of the Underground Railroad;" and "Moll
Pitcher," for the energy and daring by which she delivered a fugitive
slave who was about to be dragged back to the South; was for the first
twenty-five years of her life a slave on the eastern shore of Maryland.
Her own master she represents as never unnecessarily cruel; but as was
common among slaveholders, he often hired out his slaves to others, some
of whom proved to be tyrannical and brutal to the utmost limit of their
power.
She had worked only as a field-hand for many years, following the oxen,
loading and unloading wood, and carrying heavy burdens, by which her
naturally remarkable power of muscle was so developed that her feats of
strength often called forth the wonder of strong laboring men. Thus was
she preparing for the life of hardship and endurance which lay before
her, for the deeds of daring she was to do, and of which her ignorant
and darkened mind at that time never dreamed.
The first person by whom she was hired was a woman who, though married
and the mother of a family, was still "Miss Susan" to her slaves, as is
customary at the South. This woman was possessed of the good things of
this life, and provided liberally for her slaves--so far as food and
clothing went. But she had been brought up to believe, and to act upon
the belief, that a slave could be taught to do nothing, and _would_ do
nothing but under the sting of the whip. Harriet, then a young girl, was
taken from her life in the field, and having never seen the inside of a
house better than a cabin in the negro quarters, was put to house-work
without being told how to do anything. The first thing was to put a
parlor in order. "Move these chairs and tables into the middle of the
room, sweep the carpet clean, then dust everything, and put them back in
their places!" These were the directions given, and Harriet was left
alone to do her work. The whip was in sight on the mantel-piece, as a
reminder of what was to be expected if the work was not done well.
Harriet fixed the furniture as she was told to do, and swept with all
her strength, raising a tremendous dust. The moment she had finished
sweeping, she took her dusting cloth, and wiped everything "so you could
see your face in 'em, de shone so," in haste to go and set the table for
breakfast, and do her other work. The dust which she had set flying only
settled down again on chairs, tables, and the piano. "Miss Susan" came
in and looked around. Then came the call for "Minty"--Harriet's name was
Araminta at the South.
She drew her up to the table, saying, "What do you mean by doing my work
this way, you--!" and passing her finger on the table and piano, she
showed her the mark it made through the dust. "Miss Susan, I done sweep
and dust jus' as you tole me." But the whip was already taken down, and
the strokes were falling on head and face and neck. Four times this
scene was repeated before breakfast, when, during the fifth whipping,
the door opened, and "Miss Emily" came in. She was a married sister of
"Miss Susan," and was making her a visit, and though brought up with the
same associations as her sister, seems to have been a person of more
gentle and reasonable nature. Not being able to endure the screams of
the child any longer, she came in, took her sister by the arm, and said,
"If you do not stop whipping that child, I will leave your house, and
never come back!" Miss Susan declared that "she _would_ not mind, and
she slighted her work on purpose." Miss Emily said, "Leave her to me a
few moments;" and Miss Susan left the room, indignant. As soon as they
were alone, Miss Emily said: "Now, Minty, show me how you do your work."
For the sixth time Harriet removed all the furniture into the middle of
the room; then she swept; and the moment she had done sweeping, she took
the dusting cloth to wipe off the furniture. "Now stop there," said Miss
Emily; "go away now, and do some of your other work, and when it is time
to dust, I will call you." When the time came she called her, and
explained to her how the dust had now settled, and that if she wiped it
off now, the furniture would remain bright and clean. These few words an
hour or two before, would have saved Harriet her whippings for that day,
as they probably did for many a day after.
While with this woman, after working from early morning till late at
night, she was obliged to sit up all night to rock a cross, sick child.
Her mistress laid upon her bed with a whip under her pillow, and slept;
but if the tired nurse forgot herself for a moment, if her weary head
dropped, and her hand ceased to rock the cradle, the child would cry
out, and then down would come the whip upon the neck and face of the
poor weary creature. The scars are still plainly visible where the whip
cut into the flesh. Perhaps her mistress was preparing her, though she
did not know it then, by this enforced habit of wakefulness, for the
many long nights of travel, when she was the leader and guide of the
weary and hunted ones who were escaping from bondage.
"Miss Susan" got tired of Harriet, as Harriet was determined she should
do, and so abandoned her intention of buying her, and sent her back to
her master. She was next hired out to the man who inflicted upon her the
life-long injury from which she is suffering now, by breaking her skull
with a weight from the scales. The injury thus inflicted causes her
often to fall into a state of somnolency from which it is almost
impossible to rouse her. Disabled and sick, her flesh all wasted away,
she was returned to her _owner_. He tried to sell her, but no one would
buy her. "Dey said dey wouldn't give a sixpence for me," she said.
"And so," she said, "from Christmas till March I worked as I could, and
I _prayed_ through all the long nights--I groaned and prayed for ole
master: 'Oh Lord, convert master!' 'Oh Lord, change dat man's heart!'
'Pears like I prayed all de time," said Harriet; "'bout my work,
everywhere, I prayed an' I groaned to de Lord. When I went to de
horse-trough to wash my face, I took up de water in my han' an' I said,
'Oh Lord, wash me, make me clean!' Den I take up something to wipe my
face, an' I say, 'Oh Lord, wipe away all my sin!' When I took de broom
and began to sweep, I groaned, 'Oh Lord, wha'soebber sin dere be in my
heart, sweep it out, Lord, clar an' clean!'" No words can describe the
pathos of her tones, as she broke out into these words of prayer, after
the manner of her people. "An' so," said she, "I prayed all night long
for master, till the first of March; an' all the time he was bringing
people to look at me, an' trying to sell me. Den we heard dat some of us
was gwine to be sole to go wid de chain-gang down to de cotton an' rice
fields, and dey said I was gwine, an' my brudders, an' sisters. Den I
changed my prayer. Fust of March I began to pray, 'Oh Lord, if you ant
nebber gwine to change dat man's heart, kill him, Lord, an' take him out
ob de way.'
"Nex' ting I heard old master was dead, an' he died jus' as he libed.
Oh, then, it 'peared like I'd give all de world full ob gold, if I had
it, to bring dat poor soul back. But I couldn't pray for him no longer."
The slaves were told that their master's will provided that none of them
should be sold out of the State. This satisfied most of them, and they
were very happy. But Harriet was not satisfied; she never closed her
eyes that she did not imagine she saw the horsemen coming, and heard the
screams of women and children, as they were being dragged away to a far
worse slavery than that they were enduring there. Harriet was married at
this time to a free negro, who not only did not trouble himself about
her fears, but did his best to betray her, and bring her back after she
escaped. She would start up at night with the cry, "Oh, dey're comin',
dey're comin', I mus' go!"
Her husband called her a fool, and said she was like old Cudjo, who when
a joke went round, never laughed till half an hour after everybody else
got through, and so just as all danger was past she began to be
frightened. But still Harriet in fancy saw the horsemen coming, and
heard the screams of terrified women and children. "And all that time,
in my dreams and visions," she said, "I seemed to see a line, and on the
other side of that line were green fields, and lovely flowers, and
beautiful white ladies, who stretched out their arms to me over the
line, but I couldn't reach them nohow. I always fell before I got to the
line."
One Saturday it was whispered in the quarters that two of Harriet's
sisters had been sent off with the chain-gang. That morning she started,
having persuaded three of her brothers to accompany her, but they had
not gone far when the brothers, appalled by the dangers before and
behind them, determined to go back, and in spite of her remonstrances
dragged her with them. In fear and terror, she remained over Sunday, and
on Monday night a negro from another part of the plantation came
privately to tell Harriet that herself and brothers were to be carried
off that night. The poor old mother, who belonged to the same mistress,
was just going to milk. Harriet wanted to get away without letting her
know, because she knew that she would raise an uproar and prevent her
going, or insist upon going with her, and the time for this was not
yet. But she must give some intimation to those she was going to leave
of her intention, and send such a farewell as she might to the friends
and relations on the plantation. These communications were generally
made by singing. They sang as they walked along the country roads, and
the chorus was taken up by others, and the uninitiated knew not the
hidden meaning of the words--
When dat ar ole chariot comes,
I'm gwine to lebe you;
I'm boun' for de promised land,
I'm gwine to lebe you.
These words meant something more than a journey to the Heavenly Canaan.
Harriet said, "Here, mother, go 'long; I'll do the milkin' to-night and
bring it in." The old woman went to her cabin. Harriet took down her
sun-bonnet, and went on to the "big house," where some of her relatives
lived as house servants. She thought she could trust Mary, but there
were others in the kitchen, and she could say nothing. Mary began to
frolic with her. She threw her across the kitchen, and ran out, knowing
that Mary would follow her. But just as they turned the corner of the
house, the master to whom Harriet was now hired, came riding up on his
horse. Mary darted back, and Harriet thought there was no way now but
to sing. But "the Doctor," as the master was called, was regarded with
special awe by his slaves; if they were singing or talking together in
the field, or on the road, and "the Doctor" appeared, all was hushed
till he passed. But Harriet had no time for ceremony; her friends must
have a warning; and whether the Doctor thought her "_imperent_" or not,
she must sing him farewell. So on she went to meet him, singing:
I'm sorry I'm gwine to lebe you,
Farewell, oh farewell;
But I'll meet you in the mornin',
Farewell, oh farewell.
The Doctor passed, and she bowed as she went on, still singing:
I'll meet you in the mornin',
I'm boun' for de promised land,
On the oder side of Jordan,
Boun' for de promised land.
She reached the gate and looked round; the Doctor had stopped his horse,
and had turned around in the saddle, and was looking at her as if there
might be more in this than "met the ear." Harriet closed the gate, went
on a little way, came back, the Doctor still gazing at her. She lifted
up the gate as if she had not latched it properly, waved her hand to
him, and burst out again:
I'll meet you in the mornin',
Safe in de promised land,
On the oder side of Jordan,
Boun' for de promised land.
And she started on her journey, "not knowing whither she went," except
that she was going to follow the north star, till it led her to liberty.
Cautiously and by night she traveled, cunningly feeling her way, and
finding out who were friends; till after a long and painful journey she
found, in answer to careful inquiries, that she had at last crossed that
magic "line" which then separated the land of bondage from the land of
freedom; for this was before _we_ were commanded by law to take part in
the iniquity of slavery, and aid in taking and sending back those poor
hunted fugitives who had manhood and intelligence enough to enable them
to make their way thus far towards freedom.
"When I found I had crossed dat _line_," she said, "I looked at my hands
to see if I was de same pusson. There was such a glory ober ebery ting;
de sun came like gold through the trees, and ober the fields, and I felt
like I was in Heaben."
But then came the bitter drop in the cup of joy. She said she felt like
a man who was put in State Prison for twenty-five years. All these
twenty-five years he was thinking of his home, and longing for the time
when he would see it again. At last the day comes--he leaves the prison
gates--he makes his way to his old home, but his old home is not there.
The house has been pulled down, and a new one has been put up in its
place; his family and friends are gone nobody knows where; there is no
one to take him by the hand, no one to welcome him.
"So it was with me," she said. "I had crossed the line. I was _free_;
but there was no one to welcome me to the land of freedom. I was a
stranger in a strange land; and my home, after all, was down in
Maryland; because my father, my mother, my brothers, and sisters, and
friends were there. But I was free, and _they_ should be free. I would
make a home in the North and bring them there, God helping me. Oh, how I
prayed then," she said; "I said to de Lord, 'I'm gwine to hole stiddy on
to _you_, an' I _know_ you'll see me through.'"
She came to Philadelphia, and worked in hotels, in club houses, and
afterwards at Cape May. Whenever she had raised money enough to pay
expenses, she would make her way back, hide herself, and in various ways
give notice to those who were ready to strike for freedom. When her
party was made up, they would start always on Saturday night, because
advertisements could not be sent out on Sunday, which gave them one day
in advance.
Then the pursuers would start after them. Advertisements would be posted
everywhere. There was one reward of $12,000 offered for the head of the
woman who was constantly appearing and enticing away parties of slaves
from their master. She had traveled in the cars when these posters were
put up over her head, and she heard them read by those about her--for
she could not read herself. Fearlessly she went on, trusting in the
Lord. She said, "I started with this idea in my head, 'Dere's _two_
things I've got a _right_ to, and dese are, Death or Liberty--one or
tother I mean to have. No one will take me back alive; I shall fight for
my liberty, and when de time has come for me to go, de Lord will let dem
kill me." And acting upon this simple creed, and firm in this trusting
faith, she went back and forth _nineteen times_, according to the
reckoning of her friends. She remembers that she went eleven times from
Canada, but of the other journeys she kept no reckoning.
While Harriet was working as cook in one of the large hotels in
Philadelphia, the play of "Uncle Tom's Cabin" was being performed for
many weeks every night. Some of her fellow-servants wanted her to go and
see it. "No," said Harriet, "I haint got no heart to go and see the
sufferings of my people played on de stage. I've heard 'Uncle Tom's
Cabin' read, and I tell you Mrs. Stowe's pen hasn't begun to paint what
slavery is as I have seen it at the far South. I've seen de _real ting_,
and I don't want to see it on no stage or in no teater."
I will give here an article from a paper published nearly a year ago,
which mentions that the price set upon the head of Harriet was much
higher than I have stated it to be. When asked about this, Harriet said
she did not know whether it was so, but she heard them read from one
paper that the reward offered was $12,000.
"Among American women," says the article referred to, "who has shown a
courage and self-devotion to the welfare of others, equal to Harriet
Tubman? Hear her story of going down again and again into the very jaws
of slavery, to rescue her suffering people, bringing them off through
perils and dangers enough to appall the stoutest heart, till she was
known among them as 'Moses.'
"_Forty thousand dollars_ was not too great a reward for the Maryland
slaveholders to offer for her.
"Think of her brave spirit, as strong as Daniel's of old, in its
fearless purpose to serve God, even though the fiery furnace should be
her portion. I have looked into her dark face, and wondered and admired
as I listened to the thrilling deeds her lion heart had prompted her to
dare. 'I have heard their groans and sighs, and seen their tears, and I
would give every drop of blood in my veins to free them,' she said.
"The other day, at Gerrit Smith's, I saw this heroic woman, whom the pen
of genius will yet make famous, as one of the noblest Christian hearts
ever inspired to lift the burdens of the wronged and oppressed, and what
do you think she said to me? She had been tending and caring for our
Union black (and white) soldiers in hospital during the war, and at the
end of her labors was on her way home, coming in a car through New
Jersey. A white man, the conductor, thrust her out of the car with such
violence that she has not been able to work scarcely any since; and as
she told me of the pain she had and still suffered, she said she did not
know what she should have done for herself, and the old father and
mother she takes care of, if Mr. Wendell Phillips had not sent her $60,
that kept them warm through the winter. She had a letter from W. H.
Seward to Maj.-Gen. Hunter, in which he says, 'I have known her long,
and a nobler, higher spirit, or truer, seldom dwells in the human
form.'"
It will be impossible to give any connected account of the different
journeys taken by Harriet for the rescue of her people, as she herself
has no idea of the dates connected with them, or of the order in which
they were made. She thinks she was about 25 when she made her own
escape, and this was in the last year of James K. Polk's administration.
From that time till the beginning of the war, her years were spent in
these journeyings back and forth, with intervals between, in which she
worked only to spend the avails of her labor in providing for the wants
of her next party of fugitives. By night she traveled, many times on
foot, over mountains, through forests, across rivers, mid perils by
land, perils by water, perils from enemies, "perils among false
brethren." Sometimes members of her party would become exhausted,
foot-sore, and bleeding, and declare they could not go on, they must
stay where they dropped down, and die; others would think a voluntary
return to slavery better than being overtaken and carried back, and
would insist upon returning; then there was no remedy but force; the
revolver carried by this bold and daring pioneer would be pointed at
their heads. "Dead niggers tell no tales," said Harriet; "Go on or die;"
and so she compelled them to drag their weary limbs on their northward
journey.
At one time she collected and sent on a gang of thirty-nine fugitives in
the care of others, as from some cause she was prevented from
accompanying them. Sometimes, when she and her party were concealed in
the woods, they saw their pursuers pass, on their horses, down the high
road, tacking up the advertisements for them on the fences and trees.
"And den how we laughed," said she. "_We_ was de fools, and _dey_ was de
wise men; but we wasn't fools enough to go down de high road in de broad
daylight." At one time she left her party in the woods, and went by a
long and roundabout way to one of the "stations of the Underground
Railway," as she called them. Here she procured food for her famished
party, often paying out of her hardly-gained earnings, five dollars a
day for food for them. But she dared not go back to them till night, for
fear of being watched, and thus revealing their hiding-place. After
nightfall, the sound of a hymn sung at a distance comes upon the ears
of the concealed and famished fugitives in the woods, and they know that
their deliverer is at hand. They listen eagerly for the words she sings,
for by them they are to be warned of danger, or informed of safety.
Nearer and nearer comes the unseen singer, and the words are wafted to
their ears:
Hail, oh hail ye happy spirits,
Death no more shall make you fear,
No grief nor sorrow, pain nor anger (anguish)
Shall no more distress you there.
Around him are ten thousan' angels,
Always ready to 'bey comman'.
Dey are always hobring round you,
Till you reach the hebbenly lan'.
Jesus, Jesus will go wid you;
He will lead you to his throne;
He who died has gone before you,
Trod de wine-press all alone.
He whose thunders shake creation;
He who bids the planets roll;
He who rides upon the temple, (tempest)
An' his scepter sways de whole.
Dark and thorny is de desert,
Through de pilgrim makes his ways,
Yet beyon' dis vale of sorrow,
Lies de fiel's of endless days.
I give these words exactly as Harriet sang them to me to a sweet and
simple Methodist air. "De first time I go by singing dis hymn, dey don't
come out to me," she said, "till I listen if de coast is clar; den when
I go back and sing it again, dey come out. But if I sing:
Moses go down in Egypt,
Till ole Pharo' let me go;
Hadn't been for Adam's fall,
Shouldn't hab to died at all,
den dey don't come out, for dere's danger in de way."
And so by night travel, by hiding, by signals, by threatening, she
brought the people safely to the land of liberty. But after the passage
of the Fugitive Slave law, she said, "I wouldn't trust Uncle Sam wid my
people no longer; I brought 'em all clar off to Canada."
Of the very many interesting stories told me by Harriet, I cannot
refrain from telling to my readers that of _Joe_, who accompanied her
upon her seventh or eighth journey from Maryland to Canada.
Joe was a noble specimen of a negro, and was hired out by his master to
a man for whom he worked faithfully for six years, saving him the
expense of an overseer, and taking all trouble off his hands. At length
this man found him so absolutely necessary to him, that he determined to
buy him at any cost. His master held him proportionably high. However,
by paying a thousand dollars down for him, and promising to pay another
thousand in a certain time, Joe passed into the hands of his new
master.
As may be imagined, Joe was somewhat surprised when the first order
issued from his master's lips, was, "Now, Joe, strip and take a
whipping!" Joe's experience of _whippings_, as he had seen them
inflicted upon others, was not such as to cause him particularly to
desire to go through the same operation on his own account; and he,
naturally enough, demurred, and at first thought of resisting. But he
called to mind a scene which he had witnessed a few days before, in the
field, the particulars of which are too horrible and too harassing to
the feelings to be given to my readers, and he thought it best to
submit; but first he tried remonstrance.
"Mas'r," said he, "habn't I always been faithful to you? Habn't I worked
through sun an' rain, early in de mornin', and late at night; habn't I
saved you an oberseer by doin' his work; hab you anyting to complain of
agin me?"
"No, Joe; I've no complaint to make of you; you're a good nigger, and
you've always worked well; but the first lesson my niggers have to learn
is that I am _master_, and that they are not to resist or refuse to obey
anything I tell 'em to do. So the first thing they've got to do, is to
be whipped; if they resist, they get it all the harder; and so I'll go
on, till I kill 'em, but they've got to give up at last, and learn that
I'm master."
Joe thought it best to submit. He stripped off his upper clothing, and
took his whipping without a word; but as he drew his clothes up over his
torn and bleeding back, he said, "Dis is de last!" That night he took a
boat and went a long distance to the cabin of Harriet's father, and
said, "Next time Moses comes, let me know." It was only a week or two
after that, that the mysterious woman whom no one could lay their finger
on appeared, and men, women, and children began to disappear from the
plantations. One fine morning Joe was missing, and his brother William,
from another plantation; Peter and Eliza, too, were gone; and these made
part of Harriet's next party, who began their pilgrimage from Maryland
to Canada, or as they expressed it, from "Egypt to de land of Canaan."
Their adventures were enough to fill a volume; they were pursued; they
were hidden in "potato holes," while their pursuers passed within a few
feet of them; they were passed along by friends in various disguises;
they scattered and separated, to be led by guides by a roundabout way,
to a meeting-place again. They were taken in by Sam Green, the man who
was afterwards sent to State Prison for ten years for having a copy of
"Uncle Tom's Cabin" in his house; and so, hunted and hiding and
wandering, they came at last to the long bridge at the entrance of the
city of Wilmington, Delaware. The rewards posted up everywhere had been
at first five hundred dollars for Joe, if taken within the limits of the
United States; then a thousand, and then fifteen hundred dollars, "an'
all expenses clar an' clean, for his body in Easton Jail." Eight hundred
for William, and four hundred for Peter, and twelve thousand for the
woman who enticed them away. The long Wilmington Bridge was guarded by
police officers, and the advertisements were everywhere. The party were
scattered, and taken to the houses of different colored friends, and
word was sent secretly to Thomas Garrett, of Wilmington, of their
condition, and the necessity of their being taken across the bridge.
Thomas Garrett is a Quaker, and a man of a wonderfully large and
generous heart, through whose hands, Harriet tells me, two thousand
self-emancipated slaves passed on their way to freedom. He was always
ready, heart and hand and means, in aiding these poor fugitives, and
rendered most efficient help to Harriet on many of her journeys back and
forth. A letter received a few days since by the writer, from this
noble-hearted philanthropist, will be given presently.
As soon as Thomas Garrett heard of the condition of these poor people,
his plan was formed. He engaged two wagons, filled them with
bricklayers, whom of course he paid well for their share in the
enterprise, and sent them across the bridge. They went as if on a
frolic, singing and shouting. The guards saw them pass, and of course
expected them to re-cross the bridge. After nightfall (and fortunately
it was a dark night) the same wagons went back, but with an addition to
their party. The fugitives were on the bottom of the wagons, the
bricklayers on the seats, still singing and shouting; and so they passed
by the guards, who were entirely unsuspicious of the nature of the load
the wagons contained, or of the amount of property thus escaping their
hands. And so they made their way to New York. When they entered the
anti-slavery office there, Joe was recognized at once by the description
in the advertisement. "Well," said Mr. Oliver Johnson, "I am glad to
see the man whose head is worth fifteen hundred dollars." At this Joe's
heart sank. If the advertisement had got to New York, that place which
it had taken them so many days and nights to reach, he thought he was in
danger still. "And how far is it now to Canada?" he asked. When told how
many miles, for they were to come through New York State, and cross the
Suspension Bridge, he was ready to give up. "From dat time Joe was
silent," said Harriet; "he sang no more, he talked no more; he sat wid
his head on his hand, and nobody could 'muse him or make him take any
interest in anyting." They passed along in safety, and at length found
themselves in the cars, approaching Suspension Bridge. The rest were
very joyous and happy, but Joe sat silent and sad. Their
fellow-passengers all seemed interested in and for them, and listened
with tears, as Harriet and all their party lifted up their voices and
sang:
I'm on my way to Canada,
That cold and dreary land;
The sad effects of slavery,
I can't no longer stand.
I've served my master all my days,
Widout a dime's reward;
And now I'm forced to run away,
To flee the lash abroad.
Farewell, ole master, don't think hard of me,
I'll travel on to Canada, where all the slaves are free.
The hounds are baying on my track,
Ole master comes behind,
Resolved that he will bring me back,
Before I cross de line;
I'm now embarked for yonder shore,
There a man's a man by law;
The iron horse will bear me o'er,
To shake de lion's paw.
Oh, righteous Father, wilt thou not pity me,
And aid me on to Canada where all the slaves are free.
Oh, I heard Queen Victoria say,
That if we would forsake
Our native land of slavery,
And come across the lake;
That she was standin' on de shore,
Wid arms extended wide,
To give us all a peaceful home
Beyond de rolling tide.
Farewell, ole master, etc.
The cars began to cross the bridge. Harriet was very anxious to have her
companions see the Falls. William, Peter, and Eliza came eagerly to look
at the wonderful sight; but Joe sat still, with his head upon his hand.
"Joe, come look at de Falls! Joe, you fool you, come see de Falls! its
your last chance." But Joe sat still and never raised his head. At
length Harriet knew by the rise in the center of the bridge, and the
descent on the other side, that they had crossed "the line." She sprang
across to Joe's seat, shook him with all her might, and shouted, "Joe,
you've shook de lion's paw!" Joe did not know what she meant. "Joe,
you're _free_!" shouted Harriet. Then Joe's head went up, he raised his
hands on high, and his face, streaming with tears, to heaven, and broke
out in loud and thrilling tones:
"Glory to God and Jesus too,
One more soul is safe!
Oh, go and carry de news,
One more soul got safe."
"Joe, come and look at de Falls!" called Harriet.
"Glory to God and Jesus too,
One more soul got safe."
was all the answer. The cars stopped on the other side. Joe's feet were
the first to touch British soil, after those of the conductor.
Loud roared the waters of Niagara, but louder still ascended the anthem
of praise from the overflowing heart of the freeman. And can we doubt
that the strain was taken up by angel voices, and that through the
arches of Heaven echoed and re-echoed the strain:
Glory to God in the Highest,
Glory to God and Jesus too,
One more soul is safe.
"The ladies and gentlemen gathered round him," said Harriet, "till I
couldn't see Joe for the crowd, only I heard 'Glory to God and Jesus
too!' louder than ever." William went after him, and pulled him,
saying, "Joe, stop your noise! you act like a fool!' Then Peter ran in
and jerked him mos' off his feet,--"Joe, stop your hollerin'! Folks'll
think you're crazy!" But Joe gave no heed. The ladies were crying, and
the tears like rain ran down Joe's sable cheeks. A lady reached over her
fine cambric handkerchief to him. Joe wiped his face, and then he spoke.
"Oh! if I'd felt like dis down South, it would hab taken _nine_ men to
take me; only one more journey for me now, and dat is to Hebben!" "Well,
you ole fool you," said Harriet, with whom there seems but one step from
the sublime to the ridiculous, "you might a' looked at the Falls fust,
and den gone to Hebben afterwards." She has seen Joe several times
since, a happy and industrious freeman in Canada.
When asked, as she often is, how it was possible that she was not afraid
to go back, with that tremendous price upon her head, Harriet always
answers, "Why, don't I tell you, Missus, t'wan't _me_, 'twas _de Lord_!
I always _tole_ him, 'I trust to you. I don't know where to go or what
to do, but I expect you to lead me,' an' he always did." At one time she
was going down, watched for everywhere, after there had been a meeting
of slaveholders in the court-house of one of the large cities of
Maryland, and an added reward had been put upon her head, with various
threats of the different cruel devices by which she should be tortured
and put to death; friends gathered round her, imploring her not to go on
directly in the face of danger and death, and this was Harriet's answer
to them:
"Now look yer! John saw the city, didn't he? Yes, John saw the city.
Well, what did he see? He saw twelve gates--three of dose gates was on
de north--three of 'em was on the east--and three of 'em was on de
west--but dere was three of 'em on de _South_ too; an' I reckon if dey
kill me down dere, I'll git into one of dem gates, don't you?"
Whether Harriet's ideas of the geographical bearings of the gates of the
Celestial City, as seen in the Apocalyptic vision, were correct or not,
we cannot doubt that she was right in the deduction her faith drew from
them; and that _somewhere_, whether north, south, east, or west, to our
dim vision, there is a gate to be opened for Harriet, where the welcome
will be given, "Come in thou blessed of my Father."
Many of the stories told me by Harriet, in answer to questions, have
been corroborated by letters, some of which will appear in this book.
Of others, I have not been able to procure confirmation, owing to
ignorance of the address of those conversant with the facts. I find
among her papers, many of which are defaced by being carried about with
her for years, portions of letters addressed to myself, by persons at
the South, and speaking of the valuable assistance Harriet was rendering
our soldiers in the hospital, and our armies in the field. At this time
her manner of life, as related by herself, was this:
"Well, Missus, I'd go to de hospital, I would, early eb'ry mornin'. I'd
get a big chunk of ice, I would, and put it in a basin, and fill it with
water; den I'd take a sponge and begin. Fust man I'd come to, I'd thrash
away de flies, an' dey'd rise, dey would, like bees roun' a hive. Den
I'd begin to bathe der wounds, an' by de time I'd bathed off three or
four, de fire and heat would have melted de ice and made de water warm,
an' it would be as red as clar blood. Den I'd go an' git more ice, I
would, an' by de time I got to de nex' ones, de flies would be roun' de
fust ones black an' thick as eber." In this way she worked, day after
day, till late at night; then she went home to her little cabin, and
made about fifty pies, a great quantity of ginger-bread, and two casks
of root beer. These she would hire some contraband to sell for her
through the camps, and thus she would provide her support for another
day; for this woman never received pay or pension, and never drew for
herself but twenty days' rations during the four years of her labors. At
one time she was called away from Hilton Head, by one of our officers,
to come to Fernandina, where the men were "dying off like sheep," from
dysentery. Harriet had acquired quite a reputation for her skill in
curing this disease, by a medicine which she prepared from roots which
grew near the waters which gave the disease. Here she found thousands of
sick soldiers and contrabands, and immediately gave up her time and
attention to them. At another time, we find her nursing those who were
down by hundreds with small-pox and malignant fevers. She had never had
these diseases, but she seems to have no more fear of death in one form
than another. "De Lord would take keer of her till her time came, an'
den she was ready to go."
When our armies and gun-boats first appeared in any part of the South,
many of the poor negroes were as much afraid of "de Yankee Buckra" as
of their own masters. It was almost impossible to win their confidence,
or to get information from them. But to Harriet they would tell
anything; and so it became quite important that she should accompany
expeditions going up the rivers, or into unexplored parts of the
country, to control and get information from those whom they took with
them as guides.
Gen. Hunter asked her at one time if she would go with several gun-boats
up the Combahee River, the object of the expedition being to take up the
torpedoes placed by the rebels in the river, to destroy railroads and
bridges, and to cut off supplies from the rebel troops. She said she
would go if Col. Montgomery was to be appointed commander of the
expedition. Col. Montgomery was one of John Brown's men, and was well
known to Harriet. Accordingly, Col. Montgomery was appointed to the
command, and Harriet, with several men under her, the principal of whom
was J. Plowden, whose pass I have, accompanied the expedition. Harriet
describes in the most graphic manner the appearance of the plantations
as they passed up the river; the frightened negroes leaving their work
and taking to the woods, at sight of the gun-boats; then coming to peer
out like startled deer, and scudding away like the wind at the sound of
the steam-whistle. "Well," said one old negro, "Mas'r said de Yankees
had horns and tails, but I nebber beliebed it till now." But the word
was passed along by the mysterious telegraphic communication existing
among these simple people, that these were "Lincoln's gun-boats come to
set them free." In vain, then, the drivers used their whips, in their
efforts to hurry the poor creatures back to their quarters; they all
turned and ran for the gun-boats. They came down every road, across
every field, just as they had left their work and their cabins; women
with children clinging around their necks, hanging to their dresses,
running behind, all making at full speed for "Lincoln's gun-boats."
Eight hundred poor wretches at one time crowded the banks, with their
hands extended towards their deliverers, and they were all taken off
upon the gun-boats, and carried down to Beaufort.
"I nebber see such a sight," said Harriet; "we laughed, an' laughed, an'
laughed. Here you'd see a woman wid a pail on her head, rice a smokin'
in it jus as she'd taken it from de fire, young one hangin' on behind,
one han' roun' her forehead to hold on, 'tother han' diggin' into de
rice-pot, eatin' wid all its might; hold of her dress two or three more;
down her back a bag wid a pig in it. One woman brought two pigs, a
white one, an' a black one; we took 'em all on board; named de white pig
Beauregard, an' de black pig Jeff Davis. Sometimes de women would come
wid twins hangin' roun' der necks; 'pears like I nebber see so many
twins in my life; bags on der shoulders, baskets on der heads, and young
ones taggin' behin', all loaded; pigs squealin', chickens screamin',
young ones squallin'." And so they came pouring down to the gun-boats.
When they stood on the shore, and the small boats put out to take them
off, they all wanted to get in at once. After the boats were crowded,
they would hold on to them so that they could not leave the shore. The
oarsmen would beat them on their hands, but they would not let go; they
were afraid the gun-boats would go off and leave them, and all wanted to
make sure of one of these arks of refuge. At length Col. Montgomery
shouted from the upper deck, above the clamor of appealing tones,
"Moses, you'll have to give 'em a song." Then Harriet lifted up her
voice and sang:
"Of all the whole creation in the east or in the west,
The glorious Yankee nation is the greatest and the best,
Come along! Come along! don't be alarmed,
Uncle Sam is rich enough to give you all a farm."
At the end of every verse, the negroes in their enthusiasm would throw
up their hands and shout "Glory," and the row-boats would take that
opportunity to push off; and so at last they were all brought on board.
The masters fled; houses and barns and railroad bridges were burned,
tracks torn up, torpedoes destroyed, and the expedition was in all
respects successful.
This fearless woman was often sent into the rebel lines as a spy, and
brought back valuable information as to the position of armies and
batteries; she has been in battle when the shot was falling like hail,
and the bodies of dead and wounded men were dropping around her like
leaves in autumn; but the thought of fear never seems to have had place
for a moment in her mind. She had her duty to perform, and she expected
to be taken care of till it was done.
Would that instead of taking them in this poor way at second-hand, my
readers could hear this woman's graphic accounts of scenes she herself
witnessed, could listen to her imitations of negro preachers in their
own very peculiar dialect, her singing of camp-meeting hymns, her
account of "experience meetings," her imitations of the dances, and the
funeral ceremonies of these simple people. "Why, der language down dar
in de far South is jus' as different from ours in Maryland, as you can
think," said she. "Dey laughed when dey heard me talk, an' I could not
understand dem, no how." She described a midnight funeral which she
attended; for the slaves, never having been allowed to bury their dead
in the day time, continued the custom of night funerals from habit.
The corpse was laid upon the ground, and the people all sat round, the
group being lighted up by pine torches.
The old negro preacher began by giving out a hymn, which was sung by
all. "An' oh! I wish you could hear 'em sing, Missus," said Harriet.
"Der voices is so sweet, and dey can sing eberyting we sing, an' den dey
can sing a great many hymns dat we can't nebber catch at all."
The old preacher began his sermon by pointing to the dead man, who lay
in a rude box on the ground before him.
"_Shum?_ Ded-a-de-dah! _Shum, David?_ Ded-a-de-dah! Now I want you all
to _flec'_ for moment. Who ob all dis congregation is gwine next to lie
ded-a-de-dah? You can't go nowheres, my frien's and bredren, but Deff'll
fin' you. You can't dig no hole so deep an' bury yourself dar, but God
A'mighty's far-seein' eye'll fine you, an' Deff'll come arter you. You
can't go into that big fort (pointing to Hilton Head), an' shut
yourself up dar; dat fort dat Sesh Buckner said de debil couldn't take,
but Deff'll fin' you dar. All your frien's may forget you, but Deff'll
nebber forget you. Now, my bredren, prepare to lie ded-a-de-dah!"
This was the burden of a very long sermon, after which the whole
congregation went round in a sort of solemn dance, called the "spiritual
shuffle," shaking hands with each other, and calling each other by name
as they sang:
My sis'r Mary's boun' to go;
My sis'r Nanny's boun' to go;
My brudder Tony's boun' to go;
My brudder July's boun' to go.
This to the same tune, till every hand had been shaken by every one of
the company. When they came to Harriet, who was a stranger, they sang:
Eberybody's boun' to go!
The body was then placed in a Government wagon, and by the light of the
pine torches, the strange, dark procession moved along, singing a rude
funeral hymn, till they reached the place of burial.
Harriet's account of her interview with an old negro she met at Hilton
Head, is amusing and interesting. He said, "I'd been yere seventy-three
years, workin' for my master widout even a dime wages. I'd worked
rain-wet sun dry. I'd worked wid my mouf full of dust, but would not
stop to get a drink of water. I'd been whipped, an' starved, an' I was
always prayin', 'Oh! Lord, come an' delibber us!' All dat time de birds
had been flyin', an' de rabens had been cryin', and de fish had been
sunnin' in de waters. One day I look up, an' I see a big cloud; it
didn't come up like as de clouds come out far yonder, but it 'peared to
be right ober head. Der was tunders out of dat, an' der was lightnin's.
Den I looked down on de water, an' I see, 'peared to me a big house in
de water, an' out of de big house came great big eggs, and de good eggs
went on trou' de air, an' fell into de fort; an' de bad eggs burst
before dey got dar. Den de Sesh Buckra begin to run, an de neber stop
running till de git to de swamp, an' de stick dar an' de die dar. Den I
heard 'twas the Yankee ship[1] firin' out de big eggs, an dey had come
to set us free. Den I praise de Lord. He come an' put he little finger
in de work, an' dey Sesh Buckra all go; and de birds stop flyin', and de
rabens stop cryin', an' when I go to catch a fish to eat wid my rice,
de's no fish dar. De Lord A'mighty'd come and frightened 'em all out of
de waters. Oh! Praise de Lord! I'd prayed seventy-three years, an' now
he's come an' we's all free."
The last time Harriet was returning from the war, with her pass as
hospital nurse, she bought a half-fare ticket, as she was told she must
do; and missing the other train, she got into an emigrant train on the
Amboy Railroad. When the conductor looked at her ticket, he said, "Come,
hustle out of here! We don't carry niggers for half-fare." Harriet
explained to him that she was in the employ of Government, and was
entitled to transportation as the soldiers were. But the conductor took
her forcibly by the arm, and said, "I'll make you tired of trying to
stay here." She resisted, and being very strong, she could probably have
got the better of the conductor, had he not called three men to his
assistance. The car was filled with emigrants, and no one seemed to take
her part. The only words she heard, accompanied with fearful oaths,
were, "Pitch the nagur out!" They nearly wrenched her arm off, and at
length threw her, with all their strength, into a baggage-car. She
supposed her arm was broken, and in intense suffering she came on to New
York. As she left the car, a delicate-looking young man came up to her,
and, handing her a card, said, "You ought to sue that conductor, and if
you want a witness, call on me." Harriet remained all winter under the
care of a physician in New York; he advised her to sue the Railroad
company, and said that he would willingly testify as to her injuries.
But the card the young man had given her was only a visiting card, and
she did not know where to find him, and so she let the matter go.
The writer here finds it necessary to apologize for the very desultory
and hasty manner in which this little book is written. Being herself
pressed for time, in the expectation of soon leaving the country, she is
obliged to pen down the material to be used in the short and interrupted
interviews she can obtain with Harriet, and also to use such letters and
accounts as may be sent her, as they come, without being able to work
them in, in the order of time. A very material assistance is to be
rendered her by the kind offer of an account of Harriet's services
during the war, written by Mr. Charles P. Wood, of Auburn, and kindly
copied by one of Harriet's most faithful and most efficient friends,
Mrs. S. M. Hopkins, of that place.
It was a wise plan of our sagacious heroine to leave her old parents
till the last to be brought away. They were pensioned off as too old to
work, had a cabin, and a horse and cow, and were quite comfortable. If
Harriet had taken them away before the young people, these last would
have been sold into Southern slavery, to keep them out of her way. But
at length Harriet heard that the old man had been betrayed by a slave
whom he had assisted, but who had turned back, and when questioned by
his wife, told her the story of his intended escape, and of the aid he
had received from "Old Ben." This woman, hoping to curry favor with her
master, revealed the whole to him, and "Old Ben" was arrested. He was to
be tried the next week, when Harriet appeared upon the scene, and, as
she says, "saved dem de expense ob de trial," and removed her father to
a higher court, by taking him off to Canada. The manner of their escape
is detailed in the following letter from Thomas Garrett, the Wilmington
Quaker:
WILMINGTON, 6th Mo., 1868.
MY FRIEND: Thy favor of the 12th reached me yesterday, requesting
such reminiscences as I could give respecting the remarkable labors
of Harriet Tubman, in aiding her colored friends from bondage. I
may begin by saying, living as I have in a slave State, and the
laws being very severe where any proof could be made of any one
aiding slaves on their way to freedom, I have not felt at liberty
to keep any written word of Harriet's or my own labors, except in
numbering those whom I have aided. For that reason I cannot furnish
so interesting an account of Harriet's labors as I otherwise could,
and now would be glad to do; for in truth I never met with any
person, of any color, who had more confidence in the voice of God,
as spoken direct to her soul. She has frequently told me that she
talked with God, and he talked with her every day of her life, and
she has declared to me that she felt no more fear of being arrested
by her former master, or any other person, when in his immediate
neighborhood, than she did in the State of New York, or Canada, for
she said she never ventured only where God sent her, and her faith
in a Supreme Power truly was great.
I have now been confined to my room with indisposition more than
four weeks, and cannot sit to write much; but I feel so much
interested in Harriet that I will try to give some of the most
remarkable incidents that now present themselves to my mind. The
date of the commencement of her labors, I cannot certainly give;
but I think it must have been about 1845; from that time till 1860,
I think she must have brought from the neighborhood where she had
been held as a slave, from 60 to 80 persons, from Maryland, some 80
miles from here. No slave who placed himself under her care, was
ever arrested that I have heard of; she mostly had her regular
stopping places on her route; but in one instance, when she had two
stout men with her, some 30 miles below here, she said that God
told her to stop, which she did; and then asked him what she must
do. He told her to leave the road, and turn to the left; she
obeyed, and soon came to a small stream of tide water; there was no
boat, no bridge; she again inquired of her Guide what she was to
do. She was told to go through. It was cold, in the month of March;
but having confidence in her Guide, she went in; the water came up
to her arm-pits; the men refused to follow till they saw her safe
on the opposite shore. They then followed, and if I mistake not,
she had soon to wade a second stream; soon after which she came to
a cabin of colored people, who took them all in, put them to bed,
and dried their clothes, ready to proceed next night on their
journey. Harriet had run out of money, and gave them some of her
under-clothing to pay for their kindness. When she called on me two
days after, she was so hoarse she could hardly speak, and was also
suffering with violent toothache. The strange part of the story we
found to be, that the master of these two men had put up the
previous day, at the railroad station near where she left, an
advertisement for them, offering a large reward for their
apprehension; but they made a safe exit. She at one time brought as
many as seven or eight, several of whom were women and children.
She was well known here in Chester County and Philadelphia, and
respected by all true abolitionists. I had been in the habit of
furnishing her and those that accompanied her, as she returned from
her acts of mercy, with new shoes; and on one occasion when I had
not seen her for three months, she came into my store. I said,
"Harriet, I am glad to see thee! I suppose thee wants a pair of new
shoes." Her reply was "I want more than that." I, in jest, said, "I
have always been liberal with thee, and wish to be; but I am not
rich, and cannot afford to give much." Her reply was: "God tells me
you have money for me." I asked her "if God never deceived her?"
She said, "No!" "Well! how much does thee want?" After studying a
moment, she said: "About twenty-three dollars." I then gave her
twenty-four dollars and some odd cents, the net proceeds of five
pounds sterling, received through Eliza Wigham, of Scotland, for
her. I had given some accounts of Harriet's labor to the
Anti-Slavery Society of Edinburgh, of which Eliza Wigham was
Secretary. On the reading of my letter, a gentleman present said he
would send Harriet four pounds if he knew of any way to get it to
her. Eliza Wigham offered to forward it to me for her, and that was
the first money ever received by me for her. Some twelve months
after, she called on me again, and said that God told her I had
some money for her, but not so much as before. I had, a few days
previous, received the net proceeds of one pound ten shillings from
Europe for her. To say the least, there was something remarkable in
these facts, whether clairvoyance, or the divine impression on her
mind from the source of all power, I cannot tell; but certain it
was she had a guide within herself other than the written word, for
she never had any education. She brought away her aged parents in a
singular manner. They started with an old horse, fitted out in
primitive style with a _straw collar_, a pair of old chaise wheels,
with a board on the axle to sit on, another board swung with ropes,
fastened to the axle, to rest their feet on. She got her parents,
who were both slaves belonging to different masters, on this rude
vehicle to the railroad, put them in the cars, turned Jehu herself,
and drove to town in a style that no human being ever did before or
since; but she was happy at having arrived safe. Next day, I
furnished her with money to take them all to Canada. I afterwards
sold their horse, and sent them the balance of the proceeds. I
believe that Harriet succeeded in freeing all her relatives but one
sister and her three children. Etc., etc.
Thy friend,
THOS. GARRETT.
Friend Garrett probably refers here to those who passed through his
hands. Harriet was obliged to come by many different routes on her
different journeys, and though she never counted those whom she brought
away with her, it would seem, by the computation of others, that there
must have been somewhere near three hundred brought by her to the
Northern States and Canada.
Extracts from a letter written by Mr. Sanborn, Secretary of the
Massachusetts Board of State Charities.
MY DEAR MADAME: Mr. Phillips has sent me your note, asking for
reminiscences of Harriet Tubman, and testimonials to her
extraordinary story, which all her New England friends will, I am
sure, be glad to furnish.
I never had reason to doubt the truth of what Harriet said in
regard to her own career, for I found her singularly truthful. Her
imagination is warm and rich, and there is a whole region of the
marvelous in her nature, which has manifested itself at times
remarkably. Her dreams and visions, misgivings and forewarnings,
ought not to be omitted in any life of her, particularly those
relating to John Brown.
She was in his confidence in 1858-9, and he had a great regard for
her, which he often expressed to me. She aided him in his plans,
and expected to do so still further, when his career was closed by
that wonderful campaign in Virginia. The first time she came to my
house, in Concord, after that tragedy, she was shown into a room in
the evening, where Brackett's bust of John Brown was standing. The
sight of it, which was new to her, threw her into a sort of ecstacy
of sorrow and admiration, and she went on in her rhapsodical way to
pronounce his apotheosis.
She has often been in Concord, where she resided at the houses of
Emerson, Alcott, the Whitneys, the Brooks family, Mrs. Horace
Mann, and other well known persons. They all admired and respected
her, and nobody doubted the reality of her adventures. She was too
_real_ a person to be suspected. In 1862, I think it was, she went
from Boston to Port Royal, under the advice and encouragement of
Mr. Garrison, Governor Andrew, Dr. Howe, and other leading people.
Her career in South Carolina is well known to some of our officers,
and I think to Colonel Higginson, now of Newport, R. I., and
Colonel James Montgomery, of Kansas, to both of whom she was useful
as a spy and guide, if I mistake not. I regard her as, on the
whole, the most extraordinary person of her race I have ever met.
She is a negro of pure or almost pure blood, can neither read nor
write, and has the characteristics of her race and condition. But
she has done what can scarcely be credited on the best authority,
and she has accomplished her purposes with a coolness, foresight,
patience, and wisdom, which in a _white man_ would have raised him
to the highest pitch of reputation.
I am, dear Madame, very truly your servant,
F. B. SANBORN.
Of the "dreams and visions" mentioned in this letter, the writer might
have given many wonderful instances; but it was thought best not to
insert anything which, with any, might bring discredit upon the story.
When these turns of somnolency come upon Harriet, she imagines that her
"spirit" leaves her body, and visits other scenes and places, not only
in this world, but in the world of spirits. And her ideas of these
scenes show, to say the least of it, a vividness of imagination seldom
equaled in the soarings of the most cultivated minds.
Not long since, the writer, on going into Harriet's room in the morning,
sat down by her and began to read that wonderful and glorious
description of the heavenly Jerusalem in the two last chapters of
Revelations. When the reading was finished, Harriet burst into a
rhapsody which perfectly amazed her hearer--telling of what she had seen
in one of these visions, sights which no one could doubt had been real
to her, and which no human imagination could have conceived, it would
seem, unless in dream or vision. There was a wild poetry in these
descriptions which seemed to border almost on inspiration, but by many
they might be characterized as the ravings of insanity. All that can be
said is, however, if this woman is insane, there has been a wonderful
"method in her madness."
At one time, Harriet was much troubled in spirit about her three
brothers, feeling sure that some great evil was impending over their
heads. She wrote a letter, by the hand of a friend, to a man named Jacob
Jackson, who lived near there. Jacob was a free negro, who could both
read and write, and who was under suspicion at that time, as it was
thought he had something to do with the disappearance of so many slaves.
It was necessary, therefore, to be very cautious in writing to him.
Jacob had an adopted son, William Henry Jackson, also free, who had come
South; and so Harriet determined to sign her letter with his name,
knowing that Jacob would be clever enough to understand, by her peculiar
phraseology, what meaning she intended to convey to him. She, therefore,
after speaking of indifferent matters, said, "Read my letter to the old
folks, and give my love to them, and tell my brothers to be always
_watching unto prayer_, and when the _good old ship of Zion comes along,
to be ready to step aboard_."
The letter was signed "William Henry Jackson." Jacob was not allowed to
have his letters till the self-elected inspectors had had the reading of
them, and studied into their secret meaning. They, therefore, got
together, wiped their glasses, and got them on, and proceeded to a
careful perusal of this mysterious document. What it meant, they could
not imagine; William Henry Jackson had no parents or brothers, and the
letter was incomprehensible. White genius having exhausted itself, black
genius was called in, and Jacob's letter was at last handed to him.
Jacob saw at once what it meant, but tossed it down, saying, "Dat letter
can't be meant for me, no how. I can't make head nor tail of it," and
walked off and took immediate measures to let Harriet's brothers know
secretly that she was coming, and they must be ready to start at a
moment's notice for the North. When Harriet arrived there, it was the
day before Christmas, and she found her three brothers, who had
attempted to escape, were advertised to be sold on Christmas day to the
highest bidder, to go down to the cotton and rice fields with the
chain-gang. Christmas came on Sunday, and therefore they were not to be
sold till Monday. Harriet arrived on Saturday, and gave them secret
notice to be ready to start Saturday night, immediately after dark, the
first stopping-place to be their father's cabin, forty miles away. When
they assembled, their brother John was missing; but when Harriet was
ready, the word was "Forward!" and she "nebber waited for no one." Poor
John was almost ready to start, when his wife was taken ill, and in an
hour or two, another little inheritor of the blessings of slavery had
come into the world. John must go off for a "Granny," and then he would
not leave his wife in her present circumstances. But after the birth of
the child, he began to think he must start; the North and Liberty, or
the South and life-long Slavery--these were the alternatives, and this
was his last chance. He tried again and again to steal out of the door,
but a watchful eye was on him, and he was always arrested by the
question, "Where you gwine, John?" At length he told her he was going to
try to see if he couldn't get hired out on Christmas to another man. His
wife did not think that he was to be sold. He went out of the door, and
stood by the corner of the house, near her bed, listening. At length, he
heard her sobbing and crying, and not being able to endure it, he went
back. "Oh! John," said his wife, "you's gwine to lebe me; but, wherebber
you go, remember me an' de chillen." John went out and started at full
speed for his father's cabin, forty miles away. At daybreak, he overtook
the others in the "fodder house," near the cabin of their parents.
Harriet had not seen her mother there for six years, but they did not
dare to let the old woman know of their being in her neighborhood, or of
their intentions, for she would have raised such an uproar in her
efforts to detain them with her, that the whole plantation would have
been alarmed. The poor old woman had been expecting the boys all day, to
spend Christmas with her as usual. She had been hard at work, had killed
a pig, and put it to all the various uses to which sinner's flesh is
doomed, and had made all the preparations her circumstances admitted of,
to give them a sumptuous entertainment, and there she sat watching. In
the night, when Harriet and two of her brothers and two other men, who
had escaped with them, arrived at the "fodder house," they were
exhausted and famished. They sent the two strange men up to the house to
try and speak to "Old Ben," their father, but not to let their mother
know of their being in the neighborhood. The men succeeded in rousing
old Ben, who came out, and as soon as he heard their story, he gathered
together a quantity of provisions, and came down to the fodder house,
and slipped them inside the door, taking care not to _see_ his
children. Up among the ears of corn they lay, and one of them he had
not seen for six years. It rained very hard all that Sunday, and there
they lay all day, for they could not start till night. At about
daybreak, John joined them. There were wide chinks in the boards of the
fodder house, and through them they could see their father's cabin; and
all day long, every few minutes, they would see the old woman come out,
and, shading her eyes with her hand, take a long look down the road to
see if her children were coming, and then they could almost hear her
sigh as she turned into the house, disappointed.
Two or three times the old man came down, and pushed food inside the
door, and after nightfall he came to accompany them part of the way upon
their journey. When he reached the fodder house, he tied his
handkerchief tight over his eyes, and two of his sons taking him by each
arm, he accompanied them some miles upon their journey. They then bade
him farewell, and left him standing blind-fold in the middle of the
road. When he could no longer hear their footsteps, he took off the
handkerchief, and turned back.
But before leaving, they had gone up to the cabin to take a silent
farewell of the poor old mother. Through the little window of the cabin,
they saw the old woman sitting by her fire with a pipe in her mouth, her
head on her hand, rocking back and forth as she did when she was in
trouble, and wondering what new evil had come to her children. With
streaming eyes, they watched her for ten or fifteen minutes; but time
was precious, and they must reach their next station before daybreak,
and so they turned sadly away.
When the holidays were over, and the men came for the three brothers to
sell them, they could not be found. The first place to search was of
course the plantation where all their relatives and friends lived. They
went to the "big house," and asked the "Doctor" if he had seen anything
of them. The Doctor said, "No, they mostly came up there to see the
other niggers when they came for Christmas," but they hadn't been round
at all. "Have you been down to Old Ben's?" the Doctor asked. "Yes."
"What does Old Rit say?" "Old Rit says not one of 'em came this
Christmas. She was looking for 'em most all day, and most broke her
heart about it." "What does Old Ben say?" "Old Ben says that he hasn't
seen one of his children this Christmas." "Well, if Old Ben says that,
they haven't been round." And so the man-hunters went off disappointed.
One of the other brothers, William Henry, had long been attached to a
girl named Catherine, who lived with another master; but her master
would not let her marry him. When William Henry made up his mind to
start with Harriet, he determined to bring Catherine with him. And so he
went to a tailor's, and bought a new suit of men's clothes, and threw
them over the garden fence of Catherine's master. The garden ran down to
a run, and Catherine had been notified where to find the clothes. When
the time had come to get ready, Catherine went to the foot of the garden
and dressed herself in the suit of men's clothes. She was soon missed,
and all the girls in the house were set to looking for Catherine.
Presently they saw coming up through the garden, as if from the river, a
well-dressed little darkey, and they all stopped looking for Catherine
to stare at him. He walked directly by them round the house, and went
out of the gate, without the slightest suspicion being excited as to who
he was. In a fortnight from that time, the whole party were safe in
Canada.
William Henry died in Canada, but Catherine has been seen and talked
with by the writer, at the house of the old people.
Of the many letters, testimonials, and passes, placed in the hands of
the writer by Harriet, the following are selected for insertion in this
book, and are quite sufficient to verify her statements.
_A Letter from Gen. Saxton to a Lady of Auburn._
ATLANTA, GA., March 21, 1868.
MY DEAR MADAME: I have just received your letter informing me that
Hon. Wm. H. Seward, Secretary of State, would present a petition to
Congress for a pension to Harriet Tubman, for services rendered in
the Union Army during the late war. I can bear witness to the value
of her services in South Carolina and Florida. She was employed in
the hospitals and as a spy. She made many a raid inside the enemy's
lines, displaying remarkable courage, zeal, and fidelity. She was
employed by General Hunter, and I think by Generals Stevens and
Sherman, and is as deserving of a pension from the Government for
her services as any other of its faithful servants.
I am very truly yours,
RUFUS SAXTON, Bvt. Brig.-Gen. U. S. A.
_Letter from Hon. Wm. H. Seward._
WASHINGTON, July 25, 1868.
MAJ.-GEN. HUNTER--
MY DEAR SIR: Harriet Tubman, a colored woman, has been nursing our
soldiers during nearly all the war. She believes she has a claim
for faithful services to the command in South Carolina with which
you are connected, and she thinks that you would be disposed to see
her claim justly settled.
I have known her long, and a nobler, higher spirit, or a truer,
seldom dwells in the human form. I commend her, therefore, to your
kind and best attentions.
Faithfully your friend,
WILLIAM H. SEWARD.
_Letter from Col. James Montgomery._
ST. HELENA ISLAND, S. C., July 6, 1863.
HEADQUARTERS COLORED BRIGADE.
BRIG.-GEN. GILMAN, Commanding Department of the South--
GENERAL: I wish to commend to your attention, Mrs. Harriet Tubman,
a most remarkable woman, and invaluable as a scout. I have been
acquainted with her character and actions for several years.
Walter D. Plowden is a man of tried courage, and can be made
highly useful.
I am, General, your most ob't servant,
JAMES MONTGOMERY, Col. Com. Brigade.
_Letter from Mrs. Gen. A. Baird._
PETERBORO, Nov. 24, 1864.
The bearer of this, Harriet Tubman, a most excellent woman, who has
rendered faithful and good services to our Union army, not only in
the hospital, but in various capacities, having been employed under
Government at Hilton Head, and in Florida; and I commend her to the
protection of all officers in whose department she may happen to
be.
She has been known and esteemed for years by the family of my
uncle, Hon. Gerrit Smith, as a person of great rectitude and
capabilities.
MRS. GEN. A. BAIRD.
_Letter from Hon. Gerrit Smith._
PETERBORO, N. Y., Nov. 4, 1867.
I have known Mrs. Harriet Tubman for many years. Seldom, if ever,
have I met with a person more philanthropic, more self-denying,
and of more bravery. Nor must I omit to say that she combines with
her sublime spirit, remarkable discernment and judgment.
During the late war, Mrs. Tubman was eminently faithful and useful
to the cause of our country. She is poor and has poor parents. Such
a servant of the country should be well paid by the country. I hope
that the Government will look into her case.
GERRIT SMITH.
_Testimonial from Gerrit Smith._
PETERBORO, Nov. 22, 1864.
The bearer, Harriet Tubman, needs not any recommendation. Nearly
all the nation over, she has been heard of for her wisdom,
integrity, patriotism, and bravery. The cause of freedom owes her
much. The country owes her much.
I have known Harriet for many years, and I hold her in my high
esteem.
GERRIT SMITH.
_Certificate from Henry K. Durrant, Acting Asst. Surgeon, U. S. A._
I certify that I have been acquainted with Harriet Tubman for
nearly two years; and my position as Medical Officer in charge of
"contrabands" in this town and in hospital, has given me frequent
and ample opportunities to observe her general deportment;
particularly her kindness and attention to the sick and suffering
of her own race. I take much pleasure in testifying to the esteem
in which she is generally held.
HENRY K. DURRANT,
Acting Assistant Surgeon, U. S. A.
In charge "Contraband" Hospital.
Dated at Beaufort, S. C., the 3d day of May, 1864.
I concur fully in the above.
R. SAXTON, Brig.-Gen. Vol.
The following are a few of the passes used by Harriet throughout the
war. Many others are so defaced that it is impossible to decipher them.
HEADQUARTERS DEPARTMENT OF THE SOUTH, HILTON HEAD, PORT ROYAL,
S. C., Feb. 19, 1863.
Pass the bearer, Harriet Tubman, to Beaufort and back to this
place, and wherever she wishes to go; and give her free passage at
all times, on all Government transports. Harriet was sent to me
from Boston by Gov. Andrew of Mass., and is a valuable woman. She
has permission, as a servant of the Government, to purchase such
provisions from the Commissary as she may need.
D. HUNTER, Maj.-Gen. Com.
General Gillman, who succeeded General Hunter in command of the
Department of the South, appends his signature to the same pass.
HEADQUARTERS OF THE DEPARTMENT OF THE SOUTH, July 1, 1863.
Continued in force.
I. A. GILLMAN, Brig.-Gen. Com.
BEAUFORT, Aug. 28, 1862.
Will Capt. Warfield please let "Moses" have a little Bourbon
whiskey for medicinal purposes.
HENRY K. DURRANT, Act. Ass. Surgeon.
WAR DEPARTMENT, WASHINGTON, D. C.,
March 20, 1865.
Pass Mrs. Harriet Tubman (colored) to Hilton Head and Charleston,
S. C., with free transportation on a Government transport.
By order of the Sec. of War.
LOUIS H., Asst. Adj.-Gen., U. S. A.
To Bvt. Brig.-Gen. Van Vliet, U. S. Q. M., N. Y.
Not transferable.
WAR DEPARTMENT, WASHINGTON, D. C.,
July 22, 1865.
Permit Harriet Tubman to proceed to Fortress Monroe, Va., on a
Government transport. Transportation will be furnished free of
cost.
By order of the Secretary of War.
L. H., Asst. Adj.-Gen.
Not transferable.
_Appointment as Nurse._
SIR:--I have the honor to inform you that the Medical Director
Department of Virginia has been instructed to appoint Harriet
Tubman nurse or matron at the Colored Hospital, Fort Monroe, Va.
Very respectfully, your obdt. servant,
V. K. BARNES, Surgeon-General.
HON. WM. H. SEWARD,
Secretary of State, Washington, D. C.
_Names of Harriet's Assistants, Scouts, or Pilots._
Scouts who are residents of Beaufort, and well acquainted with the
main land: Peter Barns, Mott Blake, Sandy Selters, Solomon Gregory,
Isaac Hayward, Gabriel Cohen, George Chrisholm.
Pilots who know the channels of the rivers in this vicinity, and
who acted as such for Col. Montgomery up the Combahee River:
Charles Simmons, Samuel Hayward.
App'd, R. SAXTON, Brig.-Gen.
At this point the following good and kind letter from Rev. Henry Fowler
is received:
AUBURN, June 23, 1868.
MY DEAR FRIEND:--I wish to say to you how gratified I am that you
are writing the biography of Harriet Tubman. I feel that her life
forms part of the history of the country, and that it ought not to
depend upon tradition to keep it in remembrance. Had not the
pressure of professional claims prevented, I should have aspired to
be her historian myself; but my disappointment in this regard is
more than met by the satisfaction experienced in hearing that you
are the chosen Miriam of this African "Moses;" the name by which
she was known among her emancipated followers from the land of
bondage. Blessed be God! a "Greater than Moses" has at last broken
every bond.
As ever, with warm regard, your friend,
HENRY FOWLER.
The following account of the subject of this memoir is cut from the
_Boston Commonwealth_ of 1863, kindly sent the writer by Mr. Sanborn:
"It was said long ago that the true romance of America was not in the
fortunes of the Indian, where Cooper sought it, nor in the New England
character, where Judd found it, nor in the social contrasts of Virginia
planters, as Thackeray imagined, but in the story of the fugitive
slaves. The observation is as true now as it was before war, with swift,
gigantic hand, sketched the vast shadows, and dashed in the high lights
in which romance loves to lurk and flash forth. But the stage is
enlarged on which these dramas are played, the whole world now sit as
spectators, and the desperation or the magnanimity of a poor black woman
has power to shake the nation that so long was deaf to her cries. We
write of one of these heroines, of whom our slave annals are full,--a
woman whose career is as extraordinary as the most famous of her sex can
show.
"Araminta Ross, now known by her married name of Tubman, with her
sounding Christian name changed to Harriet, is the grand-daughter of a
slave imported from Africa, and has not a drop of white blood in her
veins. Her parents were Benjamin Ross and Harriet Greene, both slaves,
but married and faithful to each other. They still live in old age and
poverty, but free, on a little property at Auburn, N. Y., which their
daughter purchased for them from Mr. Seward, the Secretary of State. She
was born, as near as she can remember, in 1820 or in 1821, in Dorchester
County, on the Eastern shore of Maryland, and not far from the town of
Cambridge. She had ten brothers and sisters, of whom three are now
living, all at the North, and all rescued from slavery by Harriet,
before the War. She went back just as the South was preparing to secede,
to bring away a fourth, but before she could reach her, she was dead.
Three years before, she had brought away her old father and mother, at
great risk to herself.
"When Harriet was six years old, she was taken from her mother and
carried ten miles to live with James Cook, whose wife was a weaver, to
learn the trade of weaving. While still a mere child, Cook set her to
watching his musk-rat traps, which compelled her to wade through the
water. It happened that she was once sent when she was ill with the
measles, and, taking cold from wading in the water in this condition,
she grew very sick, and her mother persuaded her master to take her
away from Cook's until she could get well.
"Another attempt was made to teach her weaving, but she would not learn,
for she hated her mistress, and did not want to live at home, as she
would have done as a weaver, for it was the custom then to weave the
cloth for the family, or a part of it, in the house.
"Soon after she entered her teens she was hired out as a field hand, and
it was while thus employed that she received a wound which nearly proved
fatal, from the effects of which she still suffers. In the fall of the
year, the slaves there work in the evening, cleaning up wheat, husking
corn, etc. On this occasion, one of the slaves of a farmer named
Barrett, left his work, and went to the village store in the evening.
The overseer followed him, and so did Harriet. When the slave was found,
the overseer swore he should be whipped, and called on Harriet, among
others, to help tie him. She refused, and as the man ran away, she
placed herself in the door to stop pursuit. The overseer caught up a
two-pound weight from the counter and threw it at the fugitive, but it
fell short and struck Harriet a stunning blow on the head. It was long
before she recovered from this, and it has left her subject to a sort
of stupor or lethargy at times; coming upon her in the midst of
conversation, or whatever she may be doing, and throwing her into a deep
slumber, from which she will presently rouse herself, and go on with her
conversation or work.
"After this she lived for five or six years with John Stewart, where at
first she worked in the house, but afterwards 'hired her time,' and Dr.
Thompson, son of her master's guardian, 'stood for her,' that is, was
her surety for the payment of what she owed. She employed the time thus
hired in the rudest labors,--drove oxen, carted, plowed, and did all the
work of a man,--sometimes earning money enough in a year, beyond what
she paid her master, 'to buy a pair of steers,' worth forty dollars. The
amount exacted of a woman for her time was fifty or sixty dollars--of a
man, one hundred to one hundred and fifty dollars. Frequently Harriet
worked for her father, who was a timber inspector, and superintended the
cutting and hauling of great quantities of timber for the Baltimore
ship-yards. Stewart, his temporary master, was a builder, and for the
work of Ross used to receive as much as five dollars a day sometimes, he
being a superior workman. While engaged with her father, she would cut
wood, haul logs, etc. Her usual 'stint' was half a cord of wood in a
day.
"Harriet was married somewhere about 1844, to a free colored man named
John Tubman, but she had no children. For the last two years of slavery
she lived with Dr. Thompson, before mentioned, her own master not being
yet of age, and Dr. T.'s father being his guardian, as well as the owner
of her own father. In 1849 the young man died, and the slaves were to be
sold, though previously set free by an old will. Harriet resolved not to
be sold, and so, with no knowledge of the North--having only heard of
Pennsylvania and New Jersey--she walked away one night alone. She found
a friend in a white lady, who knew her story and helped her on her way.
After many adventures, she reached Philadelphia, where she found work
and earned a small stock of money. With this money in her purse, she
traveled back to Maryland for her husband, but she found him married to
another woman, and no longer caring to live with her. This, however, was
not until two years after her escape, for she does not seem to have
reached her old home in her first two expeditions. In December, 1850,
she had visited Baltimore and brought away her sister and two children,
who had come up from Cambridge in a boat, under charge of her sister's
husband, a free black. A few months after she had brought away her
brother and two other men, but it was not till the fall of 1851 that she
found her husband and learned of his infidelity. She did not give way to
rage or grief, but collected a party of fugitives and brought them
safely to Philadelphia. In December of the same year, she returned, and
led out a party of eleven, among them her brother and his wife. With
these she journeyed to Canada, and there spent the winter, for this was
after the enforcement of Mason's Fugitive Slave Bill in Philadelphia and
Boston, and there was no safety except 'under the paw of the British
Lion,' as she quaintly said. But the first winter was terribly severe
for these poor runaways. They earned their bread by chopping wood in the
snows of a Canadian forest; they were frost-bitten, hungry, and naked.
Harriet was their good angel. She kept house for her brother, and the
poor creatures boarded with her. She worked for them, begged for them,
prayed for them, with the strange familiarity of communion with God
which seems natural to these people, and carried them by the help of God
through the hard winter.
"In the Spring she returned to the States, and as usual earned money by
working in hotels and families as a cook. From Cape May, in the fall of
1852, she went back once more to Maryland, and brought away nine more
fugitives.
"Up to this time she had expended chiefly her own money in these
expeditions--money which she had earned by hard work in the drudgery of
the kitchen. Never did any one more exactly fulfill the sense of George
Herbert--
"A servant with this clause
Makes drudgery divine."
"But it was not possible for such virtues long to remain hidden from the
keen eyes of the Abolitionists. She became known to Thomas Garrett, the
large-hearted Quaker of Wilmington, who has aided the escape of three
thousand fugitives; she found warm friends in Philadelphia and New York,
and wherever she went. These gave her money, which she never spent for
her own use, but laid up for the help of her people, and especially for
her journeys back to the 'land of Egypt,' as she called her old home. By
reason of her frequent visits there, always carrying away some of the
oppressed, she got among her people the name of 'Moses,' which it seems
she still retains.
"Between 1852 and 1857, she made but two of these journeys, in
consequence partly of the increased vigilance of the slaveholders, who
had suffered so much by the loss of their property. A great reward was
offered for her capture, and she several times was on the point of being
taken, but always escaped by her quick wit, or by 'warnings' from
Heaven--for it is time to notice one singular trait in her character.
She is the most shrewd and practical person in the world, yet she is a
firm believer in omens, dreams, and warnings. She declares that before
her escape from slavery, she used to dream of flying over fields and
towns, and rivers and mountains, looking down upon them 'like a bird,'
and reaching at last a great fence, or sometimes a river, over which she
would try to fly, 'but it 'peared like I wouldn't hab de strength, and
jes as I was sinkin' down, dare would be ladies all drest in white ober
dere, and dey would put out dere arms and pull me 'cross.' There is
nothing strange in this, perhaps, but she declares that when she came
North she remembered these very places as those she had seen in her
dreams, and many of the ladies who befriended her were those she had
been helped by in her visions.
"Then she says she always knows when there is danger near her,--she
does not know how, exactly, but ''pears like my heart go flutter,
flutter, and den dey may say "Peace, Peace," as much as dey likes, _I
know its gwine to be war!_' She is very firm on this point, and ascribes
to this her great impunity, in spite of the lethargy before mentioned,
which would seem likely to throw her into the hands of her enemies. She
says she inherited this power, that her father could always predict the
weather, and that he foretold the Mexican war.
"In 1867 she made her most venturesome journey, for she brought with her
to the North her old parents, who were no longer able to walk such
distances as she must go by night. Consequently she must hire a wagon
for them, and it required all her ingenuity to get them through Maryland
and Delaware safe. She accomplished it, however, and by the aid of her
friends she brought them safe to Canada, where they spent the winter.
Her account of their sufferings there--of her mother's complaining and
her own philosophy about it--is a lesson of trust in Providence better
than many sermons. But she decided to bring them to a more comfortable
place, and so she negotiated with Mr. Seward--then in the Senate--for a
little patch of ground with a house on it, at Auburn, near his own
home. To the credit of the Secretary of State it should be said, that
he sold her the property on very favorable terms, and gave her some time
for payment. To this house she removed her parents, and set herself to
work to pay for her purchase. It was on this errand that she first
visited Boston--we believe in the winter of 1858-9. She brought a few
letters from her friends in New York, but she could herself neither read
nor write, and she was obliged to trust to her wits that they were
delivered to the right persons. One of them, as it happened, was to the
present writer, who received it by another hand, and called to see her
at her boarding-house. It was curious to see the caution with which she
received her visitor until she felt assured that there was no mistake.
One of her means of security was to carry with her the daguerreotypes of
her friends, and show them to each new person. If they recognized the
likeness, then it was all right.
"Pains were taken to secure her the attention to which her great
services to humanity entitled her, and she left New England with a
handsome sum of money towards the payment of her debt to Mr. Seward.
Before she left, however, she had several interviews with Captain Brown,
then in Boston. He is supposed to have communicated his plans to her,
and to have been aided by her in obtaining recruits and money among her
people. At any rate, he always spoke of her with the greatest respect,
and declared that 'General Tubman,' as he styled her, was a better
officer than most whom he had seen, and could command an army as
successfully as she had led her small parties of fugitives.
"Her own veneration for Captain Brown has always been profound, and
since his murder, has taken the form of a religion. She had often risked
her own life for her people, and she thought nothing of that; but that a
white man, and a man so noble and strong, should so take upon himself
the burden of a despised race, she could not understand, and she took
refuge from her perplexity in the mysteries of her fervid religion.
"Again, she laid great stress on a dream which she had just before she
met Captain Brown in Canada. She thought she was in 'a wilderness sort
of place, all full of rocks and bushes,' when she saw a serpent raise
its head among the rocks, and as it did so, it became the head of an old
man with a long white beard, gazing at her 'wishful like, jes as ef he
war gwine to speak to me,' and then two other heads rose up beside him,
younger than he,--and as she stood looking at them, and wondering what
they could want with her, a great crowd of men rushed in and struck down
the younger heads, and then the head of the old man, still looking at
her so 'wishful.' This dream she had again and again, and could not
interpret it; but when she met Captain Brown, shortly after, behold, he
was the very image of the head she had seen. But still she could not
make out what her dream signified, till the news came to her of the
tragedy of Harper's Ferry, and then she knew the two other heads were
his two sons. She was in New York at that time, and on the day of the
affair at Harper's Ferry, she felt her usual warning that something was
wrong--she could not tell what. Finally she told her hostess that it
must be Captain Brown who was in trouble, and that they should soon hear
bad news from him. The next day's newspaper brought tidings of what had
happened.
"Her last visit to Maryland was made after this, in December, 1860; and
in spite of the agitated condition of the country, and the greater
watchfulness of the slaveholders, she brought away seven fugitives, one
of them an infant, which must be drugged with opium to keep it from
crying on the way, and so revealing the hiding place of the party. She
brought these safely to New York, but there a new difficulty met her. It
was the mad winter of compromises, when State after State, and
politician after politician, went down on their knees to beg the South
not to secede. The hunting of fugitive slaves began again. Mr. Seward
went over to the side of compromise. He knew the history of this poor
woman; he had given his enemies a hold on him, by dealing with her; it
was thought he would not scruple to betray her. The suspicion was an
unworthy one, for though the Secretary could betray a cause, he could
not surely have put her enemies on the track of a woman who was thus in
his power, after such a career as hers had been. But so little
confidence was then felt in Mr. Seward, by men who had voted for him and
with him, that they hurried Harriet off to Canada, sorely against her
will.
"She did not long remain there. The war broke out, for which she had
been long looking, and she hastened to her New England friends to
prepare for another expedition to Maryland, to bring away the last of
her family.
"Before she could start, however, the news came of the capture of Port
Royal. Instantly she conceived the idea of going there and working
among her people on the islands and the mainland. Money was given her,
a pass was secured through the agency of Governor Andrew, and she went
to Beaufort. There she has made herself useful in many ways--has been
employed as a spy by General Hunter, and finally has piloted Col.
Montgomery on his most successful expedition. We gave some notice of
this fact last week. Since then we have received the following letter,
dictated by her, from which it appears that she needs some contributions
for her work. We trust she will receive them, for none has better
deserved it. She asks nothing for herself, except that her wardrobe may
be replenished, and even this she will probably share with the first
needy person she meets.
"'BEAUFORT, S. C., June 30, 1863.
* * * "'Last fall, when the people here became very much alarmed for
fear of an invasion from the rebels, all my clothes were packed and sent
with others to Hilton Head, and lost; and I have never been able to get
any trace of them since. I was sick at the time, and unable to look
after them myself. I want, among the rest, a _bloomer_ dress, made of
some coarse, strong material, to wear on _expeditions_. In our late
expedition up the Combahee River, in coming on board the boat, I was
carrying _two pigs_ for a poor sick woman, who had a child to carry, and
the order "double quick" was given, and I started to run, stepped on my
dress, it being rather long, and fell and tore it almost off, so that
when I got on board the boat, there was hardly anything left of it but
shreds. I made up my mind then I would never wear a long dress on
another expedition of the kind, but would have a _bloomer_ as soon as I
could get it. So please make this known to the ladies, if you will, for
I expect to have use for it very soon, probably before they can get it
to me.
"'You have, without doubt, seen a full account of the expedition I refer
to. Don't you think we colored people are entitled to some credit for
that exploit, under the lead of the brave Colonel Montgomery? We
weakened the rebels somewhat on the Combahee River, by taking and
bringing away _seven hundred and fifty-six_ head of their most valuable
live stock, known up in your region as "contrabands," and this, too,
without the loss of a single life on our part, though we had good reason
to believe that a number of rebels bit the dust. Of these seven hundred
and fifty-six contrabands, nearly or quite all the able-bodied men have
joined the colored regiments here.
"'I have now been absent two years almost, and have just got letters
from my friends in Auburn, urging me to come home. My father and mother
are old and in feeble health, and need my care and attention. I hope the
good people there will not allow them to suffer, and I do not believe
they will. But I do not see how I am to leave at present the very
important work to be done here. Among other duties which I have, is that
of looking after the hospital here for contrabands. Most of those coming
from the mainland are very destitute, almost naked. I am trying to find
places for those able to work, and provide for them as best I can, so as
to lighten the burden on the Government as much as possible, while at
the same time they learn to respect themselves by earning their own
living.
"'Remember me very kindly to Mrs. ---- and her daughters; also, if you
will, to my Boston friends, Mrs. C., Miss H., and especially to Mr. and
Mrs. George L. Stearns, to whom I am under great obligations for their
many kindnesses. I shall be sure to come and see you all if I live to go
North. If you write, direct your letter to the care of C.'"
In the Spring of 1860, Harriet Tubman was requested by Mr. Gerrit Smith
to go to Boston to attend a large Anti-Slavery meeting. On her way, she
stopped at Troy to visit a cousin, and while there, the colored people
were one day startled with the intelligence that a fugitive slave, by
the name of Charles Nalle, had been followed by his master (who was his
younger brother, and not one grain whiter than he), and that he was
already in the hands of the officers, and was to be taken back to the
South. The instant Harriet heard the news, she started for the office of
the U. S. Commissioner, scattering the tidings as she went. An excited
crowd were gathered about the office, through which Harriet forced her
way, and rushed up stairs to the door of the room where the fugitive was
detained. A wagon was already waiting before the door to carry off the
man, but the crowd was even then so great, and in such a state of
excitement, that the officers did not dare to bring the man down. On the
opposite side of the street stood the colored people, watching the
window where they could see Harriet's sun-bonnet, and feeling assured
that so long as she stood there, the fugitive was still in the office.
Time passed on, and he did not appear. "They've taken him out another
way, depend upon that," said some of the colored people. "No," replied
others, "there stands 'Moses' yet, and as long as she is there, he is
safe." Harriet, now seeing the necessity for a tremendous effort for his
rescue, sent out some little boys to cry _fire_. The bells rang, the
crowd increased, till the whole street was a dense mass of people. Again
and again the officers came out to try and clear the stairs, and make a
way to take their captive down; others were driven down, but Harriet
stood her ground, her head bent down, and her arms folded. "Come, old
woman, you must get out of this," said one of the officers; "I must have
the way cleared; if you can't get down alone, some one will help you."
Harriet, still putting on a greater appearance of decrepitude, twitched
away from him, and kept her place. Offers were made to buy Charles from
his master, who at first agreed to take twelve hundred dollars for him;
but when that was subscribed, he immediately raised the price to fifteen
hundred. The crowd grew more excited. A gentleman raised a window and
called out, "Two hundred dollars for his rescue, but not one cent to his
master!" This was responded to by a roar of satisfaction from the crowd
below. At length the officers appeared, and announced to the crowd that
if they would open a lane to the wagon, they would promise to bring the
man down the front way.
The lane was opened, and the man was brought out--a tall, handsome,
intelligent _white_ man, with his wrists manacled together, walking
between the U. S. Marshal and another officer, and behind him his
brother and his master, so like him that one could hardly be told from
the other. The moment they appeared, Harriet roused from her stooping
posture, threw up a window, and cried to her friends: "Here he
comes--take him!" and then darted down the stairs like a wild-cat. She
seized one officer and pulled him down, then another, and tore him away
from the man; and keeping her arms about the slave, she cried to her
friends: "Drag us out! Drag him to the river! Drown him! but don't let
them have him!" They were knocked down together, and while down she tore
off her sun-bonnet and tied it on the head of the fugitive. When he
rose, only his head could be seen, and amid the surging mass of people
the slave was no longer recognized, while the master appeared like the
slave. Again and again they were knocked down, the poor slave utterly
helpless, with his manacled wrists streaming with blood. Harriet's
outer clothes were torn from her, and even her stout shoes were all
pulled from her feet, yet she never relinquished her hold of the man,
till she had dragged him to the river, where he was tumbled into a boat,
Harriet following in a ferry-boat to the other side. But the telegraph
was ahead of them, and as soon as they landed he was seized and hurried
from her sight. After a time, some school children came hurrying along,
and to her anxious inquiries they answered, "He is up in that house, in
the third story." Harriet rushed up to the place. Some men were
attempting to make their way up the stairs. The officers were firing
down, and two men were lying on the stairs, who had been shot. Over
their bodies our heroine rushed, and with the help of others burst open
the door of the room, dragged out the fugitive, whom Harriet carried
down stairs in her arms. A gentleman who was riding by with a fine
horse, stopped to ask what the disturbance meant; and on hearing the
story, his sympathies seemed to be thoroughly aroused; he sprang from
his wagon, calling out, "That is a blood-horse, drive him till he
drops." The poor man was hurried in; some of his friends jumped in after
him, and drove at the most rapid rate to Schenectady.
This is the story Harriet told to the writer. By some persons it seemed
too wonderful for belief, and an attempt was made to corroborate it.
Rev. Henry Fowler, who was at the time at Saratoga, kindly volunteered
to go to Troy and ascertain the facts. His report was, that he had had a
long interview with Mr. Townsend, who acted during the trial as counsel
for the slave, that he had given him a "rich narration," which he would
write out the next week for this little book. But before he was to begin
his generous labor, and while engaged in some kind efforts for the
prisoners at Auburn, he was stricken down by the heat of the sun, and is
for a long time debarred from labor.
FUGITIVE SLAVE RESCUE IN TROY.
From the Troy Whig, April 28, 1859.
Yesterday afternoon, the streets of this city and West Troy were made
the scenes of unexampled excitement. For the first time since the
passage of the Fugitive Slave Law, an attempt was made here to carry its
provisions into execution, and the result was a terrific encounter
between the officers and the prisoner's friends, the triumph of mob
law, and the final rescue of the fugitive. Our city was thrown into a
grand state of turmoil, and for a time every other topic was forgotten,
to give place to this new excitement. People did not think last evening
to ask who was nominated at Charleston, or whether the news of the
Heenan and Sayers battle had arrived--everything was merged into the
fugitive slave case, of which it seems the end is not yet.
Charles Nalle, the fugitive, who was the cause of all this excitement,
was a slave on the plantation of B. W. Hansborough, in Culpepper County,
Virginia, till the 19th of October, 1858, when he made his escape, and
went to live in Columbia, Pennsylvania. A wife and five children are
residing there now. Not long since he came to Sandlake, in this county,
and resided in the family of Mr. Crosby until about three weeks ago.
Since that time, he has been employed as coachman by Uri Gilbert, Esq.,
of this city. He is about thirty years of age, tall, quite
light-complexioned, and good-looking. He is said to have been an
excellent and faithful servant.
At Sandlake, we understand that Nalle was often seen by one H. F.
Averill, formerly connected with one of the papers of this city, who
communicated with his reputed owner in Virginia, and gave the
information that led to a knowledge of the whereabouts of the fugitive.
Averill wrote letters for him, and thus obtained an acquaintance with
his history. Mr. Hansborough sent on an agent, Henry J. Wall, by whom
the necessary papers were got out to arrest the fugitive.
Yesterday morning about 11 o'clock, Charles Nalle was sent to procure
some bread for the family by whom he was employed. He failed to return.
At the baker's, he was arrested by Deputy United States Marshal J. W.
Holmes, and immediately taken before United States Commissioner Miles
Beach. The son of Mr. Gilbert, thinking it strange that he did not come
back, sent to the house of William Henry, on Division Street, where he
boarded, and his whereabouts was discovered.
The examination before Commissioner Beach was quite brief. The evidence
of Averill and the agent was taken, and the Commissioner decided to
remand Nalle to Virginia. The necessary papers were made out and given
to the Marshal.
By this time it was two o'clock, and the fact began to be noised abroad
that there was a fugitive slave in Mr. Beach's office, corner of State
and first Streets. People in knots of ten or twelve collected near the
entrance, looking at Nalle, who could be seen at an upper window.
William Henry, a colored man, with whom Nalle boarded, commenced talking
from the curb-stone in a loud voice to the crowd. He uttered such
sentences as, "There is a fugitive slave in that office--pretty soon you
will see him come forth. He is going to be taken down South, and you
will have a chance to see him. He is to be taken to the depot, to go to
Virginia in the first train. Keep watch of those stairs, and you will
have a sight." A number of women kept shouting, crying, and by loud
appeals excited the colored persons assembled.
Still the crowd grew in numbers. Wagons halted in front of the locality,
and were soon piled with spectators. An alarm of fire was sounded, and
hose carriages dashed through the ranks of men, women, and boys; but
they closed again, and kept looking with expectant eyes at the window
where the negro was visible. Meanwhile, angry discussions commenced.
Some persons agitated a rescue, and others favored law and order. Mr.
Brockway, a lawyer, had his coat torn for expressing his sentiments, and
other melees kept the interest alive.
All at once there was a wild hulloa, and every eye was turned up to see
the legs and part of the body of the prisoner protruding from the
second-story window, at which he was endeavoring to escape. Then arose a
shout! "Drop him!" "Catch him!" "Hurrah!" But the attempt was a
fruitless one, for somebody in the office pulled Nalle back again, amid
the shouts of a hundred pair of lungs. The crowd at this time numbered
nearly a thousand persons. Many of them were black, and a good share
were of the female sex. They blocked up State Street from First Street
to the alley, and kept surging to and fro.
Martin I. Townsend, Esq., who acted as counsel for the fugitive, did not
arrive in the Commissioner's office until a decision had been rendered.
He immediately went before Judge Gould, of the Supreme Court, and
procured a writ of habeas corpus in the usual form, _returnable_
immediately. This was given Deputy Sheriff Nathaniel Upham, who at once
proceeded to Commissioner Beach's office, and served it on Holmes. Very
injudiciously, the officers proceeded at once to Judge Gould's office,
although it was evident they would have to pass through an excited,
unreasonable crowd. As soon as the officers and their prisoner emerged
from the door, an old negro, who had been standing at the bottom of the
stairs, shouted, "Here they come," and the crowd made a terrific rush at
the party.
From the office of Commissioner Beach, in the Mutual Building, to that
of Judge Gould, in Congress Street, is less than two blocks, but it was
made a regular battle-field. The moment the prisoner emerged from the
doorway, in custody of Deputy-Sheriff Upham, Chief of Police Quin,
Officers Cleveland and Holmes, the crowd made one grand charge, and
those nearest the prisoner seized him violently, with the intention of
pulling him away from the officers, but they were foiled; and down First
to Congress Street, and up the latter in front of Judge Gould's
chambers, went the surging mass. Exactly what did go on in the crowd, it
is impossible to say, but the pulling, hauling, mauling, and shouting,
gave evidences of frantic efforts on the part of the rescuers, and a
stern resistance from the conservators of the law. In front of Judge
Gould's office the combat was at its height. No stones or other missiles
were used; the battle was fist to fist. We believe an order was given to
take the prisoner the other way, and there was a grand rush towards the
West, past First and River Streets, as far as Dock Street. All this time
there was a continual melee. Many of the officers were hurt--among them
Mr. Upham, whose object was solely to do his duty by taking Nalle before
Judge Gould in accordance with the writ of habeas corpus. A number in
the crowd were more or less hurt, and it is a wonder that these were not
badly injured, as pistols were drawn and chisels used.
The battle had raged as far as the corner of Dock and Congress Streets,
and the victory remained with the rescuers at last. The officers were
completely worn out with their exertions, and it was impossible to
continue their hold upon him any longer. Nalle was at liberty. His
friends rushed him down Dock Street to the lower ferry, where there was
a skiff lying ready to start. The fugitive was put in, the ferryman
rowed off, and amid the shouts of hundreds who lined the banks of the
river, Nalle was carried into Albany County.
As the skiff landed in West Troy, a negro sympathizer waded up to the
waist, and pulled Nalle out of the boat. He went up the hill alone,
however, and there who should he meet but Constable Becker? The latter
official seeing a man with manacles on, considered it his duty to arrest
him. He did so, and took him in a wagon to the office of Justice
Stewart, on the second floor of the corner building near the ferry. The
Justice was absent.
When the crowd on the Troy bank had seen Nalle safely landed, it was
suggested that he might be recaptured. Then there was another rush made
for the steam ferry-boat, which carried over about 400 persons, and left
as many more--a few of the latter being soused in their efforts to get
on the boat. On landing in West Troy, there, sure enough, was the
prisoner, locked up in a strong office, protected by Officers Becker,
Brown and Morrison, and the door barricaded.
Not a moment was lost. Up stairs went a score or more of resolute
men--the rest "piling in" promiscuously, shouting and execrating the
officers. Soon a stone flew against the door--then another--and bang,
bang! went off a couple of pistols, but the officers who fired them took
good care to aim pretty high. The assailants were forced to retreat for
a moment. "They've got pistols," said one. "Who cares?" was the reply;
"they can only kill a dozen of us--come on." More stones and more
pistol-shots ensued. At last the door was pulled open by an immense
negro, and in a moment he was felled by a hatchet in the hands of
Deputy-Sheriff Morrison; but the body of the fallen man blocked up the
door so that it could not be shut, and a friend of the prisoner pulled
him out. Poor fellow! he might well say, "Save me from my friends."
Amid the pulling and hauling, the iron had cut his arms, which were
bleeding profusely, and he could hardly walk, owing to fatigue.
He has since arrived safely in Canada.
Statements made by Martin I. Townsend, Esq., of Troy, who was
counsel for the fugitive, Charles Nalle.
Nalle is an octoroon; his wife has the same infusion of Caucasian blood.
She was the daughter of her master, and had, with her sister, been bred
by him in his family, as his own child. When the father died, both of
these daughters were married and had large families of children. Under
the highly Christian national laws "Old Virginny," these children were
the slaves of their grandfather. The old man died, leaving a will,
whereby he manumitted his daughters and their children, and provided for
the purchase of the freedom of their husbands. The manumission of the
children and grandchildren took effect; but the estate was insufficient
to purchase the husbands of his daughters, and the father of his
grandchildren. The manumitted, by another Christian, "conservative,"
and "national" provision of law, were forced to leave the State, while
the slave husbands remained in slavery. Nalle and his brother-in-law
were allowed for a while to visit their families outside Virginia about
once a year, but were at length ordered to provide themselves with new
wives, as they would be allowed to visit their former ones no more. It
was after this that Nalle and his brother-in-law started for the land of
freedom, guided by the steady light of the north star. Thank God,
neither family now need fear any earthly master or the bay of the
blood-hound dogging their fugitive steps.
Nalle returned to Troy with his family about July, 1860, and resided
with them there for more than seven years. They are all now residents of
the city of Washington, D. C. Nalle and his family are persons of
refined manners, and of the highest respectability. Several of his
children are red-haired, and a stranger would discover no trace of
African blood in their complexions or features. It was the head of this
family whom H. F. Averill proposed to doom to returnless exile and
life-long slavery.
When Nalle was brought from Commissioner Beach's office into the street,
Harriet Tubman, who had been standing with the excited crowd, rushed
amongst the foremost to Nalle, and running one of her arms around his
manacled arm, held on to him without ever loosening her hold through the
more than half-hour's struggle to Judge Gould's office, and from Judge
Gould's office to the dock, where Nalle's liberation was accomplished.
In the melee, she was repeatedly beaten over the head with policemen's
clubs, but she never for a moment released her hold, but cheered Nalle
and his friends with her voice, and struggled with the officers until
they were literally worn out with their exertions, and Nalle was
separated from them.
True, she had strong and earnest helpers in her struggle, some of whom
had white faces as well as human hearts, and are now in Heaven. But she
exposed herself to the fury of the sympathizers with slavery, without
fear, and suffered their blows without flinching. Harriet crossed the
river with the crowd, in the ferry-boat, and when the men who led the
assault upon the door of Judge Stewart's office, were stricken down,
Harriet and a number of other colored women rushed over their bodies,
brought Nalle out, and putting him in the first wagon passing, started
him for the West.
A livery team, driven by a colored man, was immediately sent on to
relieve the other, and Nalle was seen about Troy no more until he
returned a free man by purchase from his master. Harriet also
disappeared, and the crowd dispersed. How she came to be in Troy that
day, is entirely unknown to our citizens; and where she hid herself
after the rescue, is equally a mystery. But her struggle was in the
sight of a thousand, perhaps of five thousand spectators.
This woman of whom you have been reading is poor, and partially disabled
from her injuries; yet she supports cheerfully and uncomplainingly
herself and her old parents, and always has several poor children in her
house, who are dependent entirely upon her exertions. At present she has
three of these children for whom she is providing, while their parents
are working to pay back money borrowed to bring them on. She also
maintains by her exertions among the good people of Auburn, two schools
of freedmen at the South, providing them teachers and sending them
clothes and books. She never asks for anything for herself, but she does
ask the charity of the public for "her people."
For them her tears will fall,
For them her prayers ascend;
To them her toils and cares be given,
Till toils and cares will end.
If any persons are disposed to aid her in her benevolent efforts, they
may send donations to Rev. S. M. Hopkins, Professor in the Auburn
Theological Seminary, who will make such disposition of the funds sent
as may be designated by the donors.
[Illustration: Decoration]
FOOTNOTE:
[1] The Wabash
APPENDIX.
A few circumstances having come out in conversation with Harriet, they
are added here, as they may be of interest to the reader.
On asking Harriet particularly as to the age of her mother, she
answered, "Well, I'll tell you, Missis. Twenty-three years ago, in
Maryland, I paid a lawyer $5 to look up the will of my mother's first
master. He looked back sixty years, and said it was time to give up. I
told him to go back furder. He went back sixty-five years, and there he
found the will--giving the girl Ritty to his grand-daughter (Mary
Patterson), to serve her and her offspring till she was forty-five years
of age. This grand-daughter died soon after, unmarried; and as there was
no provision for Ritty, in case of her death, she was actually
emancipated at that time. But no one informed her of the fact, and she
and her dear children remained in bondage till emancipated by the
courage and determination of this heroic daughter and sister. The old
woman must then, it seems, be ninety-eight years of age, and the old man
has probably numbered as many years. And yet these old people, living
out beyond the toll-gate, on the South Street road, Auburn, come in
every Sunday--more than a mile--to the Central Church. To be sure, deep
slumbers settle down upon them as soon as they are seated, which
continue undisturbed till the congregation is dismissed; but they have
done their best, and who can doubt that they receive a blessing.
Immediately after this they go to class-meeting at the Methodist Church.
Then they wait for a third service, and after that start out home
again."
On asking Harriet where they got anything to eat on Sunday, she said, in
her quiet way, "Oh! de ole folks nebber eats anyting on _Sunday_,
Missis! We nebber has no food to get for dem on Sunday. Dey always
fasts; and dey nebber eats anyting on Fridays. Good Friday, an' five
Fridays hand gwine from Good Friday, my fader nebber eats or drinks, all
day--fasting for de five bleeding wounds ob Jesus. All the oder Fridays
ob de year he nebber eats till de sun goes down; den he takes a little
tea an' a piece ob bread." "But is he a Roman Catholic, Harriet?" "Oh
no, Misses; he does it for _conscience;_ we was taught to do so down
South. He says if he denies himself for the sufferings of his Lord an'
Master, Jesus will sustain him."
It has been mentioned that Harriet never asks anything for herself, but
whenever her people were in trouble, or she felt impelled to go South to
guide to freedom friend or brother, or father and mother, if she had not
time to work for the money, she was persistent till she got it from
somebody. When she received one of her _intimations_ that the old people
were in trouble, and it was time for her to go to them, she asked the
Lord where she should go for the money. She was in some way, as she
supposed, directed to the office of a certain gentleman in New York.
When she left the house of her friends to go there, she said, "I'm gwine
to Mr. ----'s office, an' I ain't gwine to lebe there, an' I ain't gwine
to eat or drink till I git enough money to take me down after the ole
people."
She went into this gentleman's office.
"What do you want, Harriet?" was the first greeting.
"I want some money, sir."
"You do? How much do you want?"
"I want twenty dollars, sir."
"_Twenty dollars?_ Who told you to come here for twenty dollars?"
"De Lord tole me, sir."
"Well, I guess the Lord's mistaken this time."
"I guess he isn't, sir. Anyhow I'm gwine to sit here till I git it."
So she sat down and went to sleep. All the morning and all the afternoon
she sat there still, sleeping and rousing up--sometimes finding the
office full of gentlemen--sometimes finding herself alone. Many
fugitives were passing through New York at that time, and those who came
in supposed that she was one of them, tired out and resting. Sometimes
she would be roused up with the words, "Come, Harriet, you had better
go. There's no money for you here." "No, sir. I'm not gwine till I git
my twenty dollars."
She does not know all that happened, for deep sleep fell upon her; but
probably her story was whispered about, and she roused at last to find
herself the happy possessor of _sixty dollars_, which had been raised
among those who came into the office. She went on her way rejoicing, to
bring her old parents from the land of bondage. She found that her
father was to be tried the next Monday, for helping off slaves; so, as
she says, she "removed his trial to a higher court," and hurried him off
to Canada. One more little incident, which, it is hoped, may not be
offensive to the young lady to whom it alludes, may be mentioned here,
showing Harriet's extreme delicacy in asking anything for herself. Last
winter ('67 and '68), as we all know, the snow was very deep for months,
and Harriet and the old people were completely snowed-in in their little
home. The old man was laid up with rheumatism, and Harriet could not
leave home for a long time to procure supplies of corn, if she could
have made her way into the city. At length, stern necessity compelled
her to plunge through the drifts to the city, and she appeared at the
house of one of her firm and fast friends, and was directed to the room
of one of the young ladies. She began to walk up and down, as she always
does when in trouble. At length she said, "Miss Annie?" "What, Harriet?"
A long pause; then again, "Miss Annie?" "Well, what _is_ it, Harriet?"
This was repeated four times, when the young lady, looking up, saw her
eyes filled with tears. She then insisted on knowing what she wanted.
And with a great effort, she said, "Miss Annie, could you lend me a
quarter till Monday? I never asked it before." Kind friends immediately
supplied all the wants of the family, but on Monday Harriet appeared
with the quarter she had borrowed.
But though so timid for herself, she is bold enough when the wants of
her race are concerned. Even now, while friends are trying to raise the
means to publish this little book for her, _she_ is going around with
the greatest zeal and interest to raise a subscription for her
Freedmen's Fair. She called on Hon. Wm. H. Seward, the other day, for a
subscription to this object. He said, "Harriet, you have worked for
others long enough. It is time you should think of yourself. If you ask
for a donation for _yourself_, I will give it to you; but I will not
help you to rob yourself for others."
Harriet's charity for all the human race is unbounded. It embraces even
the slaveholder--it sympathizes even with Jeff. Davis, and rejoices at
his departure to other lands, with some prospect of peace for the
future. She says, "I tink dar's many a slaveholder'll git to Heaven. Dey
don't know no better. Dey acts up to de light dey hab. You take dat
sweet little child (pointing to a lonely baby)--'pears more like an
angel dan anyting else--take her down dere, let her nebber know nothing
'bout niggers but they was made to be whipped, an' she'll grow up to use
the whip on 'em jus' like de rest. No, Missus, its because dey don't
know no better." May God give the people to whom the story of this woman
shall come, a like charity, so that through their kindness the last days
of her stormy and troubled life may be calm and peaceful.
[Illustration: Decoration]
WOMAN-WHIPPING,
ETHICALLY AND ESTHETICALLY CONSIDERED.
BY S. M. HOPKINS,
PROFESSOR IN THE AUBURN THEOLOGICAL SEMINARY.
ESSAY ON WOMAN-WHIPPING.
The subject of the preceding memoir appears to have retained all her
life a feeling recollection of the effects of the whip in the hands of
her youthful mistress. Considering the vigor and frequency of the
application, this is not strange. Infinite cuffs and thwacks, more or
less, pass into oblivion; but a flogging with a raw-hide is not easily
forgotten. A slave's experience of the whip, however, was not confined
to his or to _her_ early days. A slave race must be controlled by fear
and pain: and the discipline, it was naturally thought, could not begin
too early. From childhood to old age they were liable to stripes, for
any reason or for no reason. If the slave was guilty of no fault, he
might be whipped, as appears from the preceding narrative, merely to
impress him with a salutary sense of the master's right and disposition
to whip.
A Northern man, born and bred under the influences of freedom and the
protection of law, and made acquainted with slavery in its old palmy
days, can never forget his sensations at his first sight of a
slave-whipping. The utmost he has ever seen in the way of corporal
punishment has been the switching of some obstreperous child by
competent authority; a discipline administered with prudence and
moderation; drawing no blood and leaving no scar. He now sees an adult
person stripped to the skin, his arms tied at their utmost stretch above
his head, or across some object which binds him into a posture the best
adapted to feel the full force of each blow. The instrument of suffering
is not a birch twig or a ferule, but a twisted raw-hide, or heavy "black
snake;" either of them highly effective weapons in the hands of a stout
executioner. Our Northern novice stands horror-stricken and paralyzed
for a moment; but at the second or third blow, and the piteous scream of
_Oh Lord! Massa!_ which follows, he digs his fingers into his ears, and
rushes to the furthest corner of his tent or dwelling, to escape the
scene. Even if he _could_ have endured the sight and sound a while
longer, he dared not. The horror in his face, and perhaps the
irrepressible word or act of interference was too sure to bring upon
himself the vengeance due to a "d--d Abolitionist." The little knot of
Southern _habitués_ look on with critical inspection, squirting
tobacco-juice, with their hands in their pockets.
If the subject is a woman, the interest rises higher, and the crowd
would be greater. There is a refinement of cruelty in the whipping of a
woman which used to stimulate agreeably the dull sensibilities of a
Southern mob. A dish of torture had to be peppered very high to please
the palates of those epicures in brutality. The helplessness and terror
of the victim, the exposure of her person, the opportunity for coarse
jests at her expense, all combined to make it a scene of rare enjoyment.
How the "chivalric" mind can endure the loss of such gratifications it
is difficult to conceive. The Romans were weaned from crucifixions and
gladiatorial combats very gradually. The process of ameliorating
criminal law and humanizing public sentiment went on for more than two
centuries. It was full four hundred years after the epoch of our
redemption when the monk Telemachus threw himself between the hired
swordsmen, whom a Christian audience was applauding, and laid down his
own life to wind up the spectacle. But the bloody morsel has been
snatched from the mouths of the "chivalry" at one clutch. No wonder
their mortification vents itself in weeping and wailing, and knashing
of teeth, and in such miscellaneous atrocities as their "Ku-Klux-Klans"
can venture to inflict on helpless freedmen and radicals.[2]
A recent Southern paper (the _Virginia Advertiser_) finds a providential
provision for the enslavement of the negro race in the thickness of
their skulls, enabling them to bear without injury the blows inflicted
in sudden rage by their masters; a suggestive confession, by the way, of
the influence of slavery on the tempers of the slaveholders. The whole
race must be prepared, it seems, for blows on the head with whatever
weapon came to hand! But admitting the thickness of the skulls, it
appears from an incident in the preceding pages, as well as from other
known instances, that the inventive genius of the slave-whipping
chivalry contrived to baffle the humane designs of Providence--a negro
skull well padded with wool might bear without injury the blow of a
boot-jack or a hammer, and yet prove insufficient to resist the impact
of a musket-ball or a ten-pound weight. It is of no avail to plate a
vessel with six inches of iron, if she is to be pounded with bolts that
can mash an eight-inch armor. Apparently, Divine Providence stopped
short of the necessary security for the predestined slave race. It
should have arranged for a progressive thickening of the negro cranium
to meet the increase of violence on the part of the master; until at
length slavery might be encountered with a difficulty like that which
besets naval gunnery, viz., what would be the result if an infrangible
African skull should be beaten by an irresistable Caucasian club?
But even this Virginia _laudator temporis acti_, this melancholy mourner
at the tomb of defunct slavery, does not allege any such Providential
thickening of the negro cuticle as to amount to a satisfactory anæthesis
against whipping. It has never been proven that a Virginia paddle or a
Georgia raw-hide well applied did not make the blood spirt as freely
through a black skin as through a white one; nor has any Southern savant
of the Nott and Gliddon school shown that there was not the same
_relative_ delicacy of organization in the slave woman as in the free. A
black woman was, relatively to the black man, the more delicate subject
for the whip; something more sensitive to the shame of stripping, more
liable to terror, and of rather softer fiber; so that the lash went
deeper both into soul and sense than in the case of her sable brother.
And this fact made the black woman a very suitable subject for the whip
in the hands of the Southern lady. To succeed in slave-whipping as in
any other fine art, the Horatian canon must be regarded, which requires
us to take a subject suited to our strength. It would have been
unreasonable, in ordinary cases, to expect a "dark-eyed daughter of the
South" to flog handsomely a stalwart negro man; she sometimes did it,
after he had been well tied up. But the slave girl was exactly suited to
her flagellating capacities. A good many women, North as well as South,
manifest a tendency to become tyrants in their own households, and love
to bully their servants. But this is an evil of a mitigated nature in
Northern society. The stupidest "help" in the kitchen knows she is safe
from any other lash than her mistress' tongue, and is commonly an adept
at the business of answering back again.
But the Southern mistress was a domestic devil with horns and claws;
selfish, insolent, accustomed to be waited on for everything. She grew
up with the instinct of tyranny--to punish violently the least neglect
or disobedience in her servants. The variable temper of girlhood, not
ugly unless thwarted, became in the "Southern matron" a chronic fury.
She was her own "overseer," and, like that out-door functionary, had her
own scepter, which she did not bear in vain. The raw-hide lay upon the
shelf within easy reach, and her arm was vigorous with exercise. The
breaking of a plate, the spilling of a cup, the misplacing of a pin in
her dress, or any other misadventure in the chapter of accidents, was
promptly illustrated with numerous cuts. The lash well laid on the
shoulders of a black _femme-de-chambre_, or screaming child, was an
agreeable titillation of the nervous sensibilities of the languid
creole; a headache, or a heartache, transferred itself through the
medium of the raw-hide to the back of Phillis or Araminta. They no doubt
whipped sometimes, like Mr. Squeers, for the mere fun of the thing. It
is an exquisite pleasure to a cowardly nature to have some creature to
torment; and there is this nemesis about cruelty that it engenders an
appetite which, like that for alcoholic stimulents, for ever demands
increased indulgence. It was the vindictive woman's nature in the South
that protracted and gave added ferocity to the rebellion. These
woman-whipping wives and mothers it was who hounded on the masculine
chivalry to the work of exterminating the "accursed Yankees," and thus
made their own punishment so much sorer than it need have been.
The mention of these amiable Southern characteristics cannot fail to
recall that highly suggestive scene of the Malebolge, with the
illustration of Gustave Doré, in which the tempters and destroyers of
women are seen scourged with Whips, in the hands of demons; especially
when we remember that the whipping of slave women to make them consent
to their own dishonor, was one of the usages of the patriarchal
chivalry. There is not a scene in which the imaginings of Dante have
been better seconded by the pencil of the great French artist: the
flying wretches hurrying in opposite directions, as the crowds in the
Jubilee year trampled each other, going and returning across the St.
Angelo Bridge; among them the bat-winged fiends with whips, lashing
right and left! In the throng are female figures: women who in life
tortured and corrupted other women. What terror in face and attitude!
How desperately they grapple with the rocks to lift themselves out of
reach of the scourge! And these two demons in the foreground! What an
absolute idealization of muscular ferocity! Every sinewy line in their
cantour displays the force of a fallen demi-god; their very tails curl
with delight in their ministry of vengeance.
Ahi; come facen levar le berze,
Alle prime percosse, e gia nessuno,
Le second aspettava ne le terze!
Ah! how they make them skip! There is Legree and Tom Gordon, and Madame
de Schlangenbad, from Louisiana, and Mrs. Crawley (_née_ Sharp) from
South Carolina, squirming under the torture! A very instructive, if not
agreeable exhibition!
But this fury in celestial Southern bosoms was merely institutional. Dip
the gentlest nature into the element of irresponsible power, and it
becomes in time covered over with a foul incrustation of cruelty. Those
beastly Roman ladies of Juvenal's time, who could order a slave woman to
be whipped to death without condescending to give any other reason than
their _sic volo, sic jubeo_, were not naturally worse than others. Take
any Roman or Southern girl of ten years of age, put a whip in her hands,
and a helpless slave child at her mercy; let her see nothing but
brutality to inferiors all around her, and by the time she is ready to
be married, she can hold up her thumb to the standing gladiator in the
arena, or beg her lover to bring her back from Bull Run a ring from the
bones of some Yankee soldier. It is a publicly known private fact,
illustrative of the influence of slavery on the female character, that
when a certain Northern clergyman applied to her father for the hand of
a celebrated Maryland heiress, the reply was, "You are quite welcome to
her! but I think it only fair to tell you that if I were going to storm
hell, I should put her in the advance."
There is every reason to hope, therefore, that the Southern character,
both male and female, will become gradually ameliorated by the changed
condition under which it will hereafter be formed. It is a common error,
one in which the Southern people themselves share, that there is
something in their climate to nurse and to justify their "high spirit,"
_anglicé_ their quarrelsomeness and brutality of temper. It is very
pleasant to lay off upon Nature or Providence what belongs only to will
or institutions. A man indulges in violent passions with little
restraint or remorse, so long as he can persuade himself he is merely
what certain positive natural laws make him. What an opiate for a
conscience defiled with lust and blood, to think that this is only
natural to the "sunny South." But in fact, the people of warm,
temperate, and tropical regions are most commonly gentle of mood; the
climate acts as an anodyne, and soothes them into a peaceful equilibrium
of the passions. The negroes of the Southern States are not passionate
or vindictive--well for their late masters and present persecutors that
they are not! What they may become from the treatment they are
experiencing from those preternatural and predestinated fools, is
another question.
The only reason the "chivalry" are bad-tempered and quarrelsome, is
found in that despotism in which they have been nursed, and which
associates the idea of personal dignity with an instant resort to
violence at any contradiction. But for slavery, the people of
Mississippi would have been no more addicted to street fights, dueling,
midnight assassinations, etc., than the people of Massachusetts. That
the former have any advantage in respect to courage, has been
sufficiently disproved by the rebellion. Whether the ex-Confederate
ladies may or may not be able to "fire the Southern heart" for another
attempt to overthrow the Government, it will at least never be done
under the persuasion that one Southerner is equal to five or any other
number above unity, of Yankees.
The traditions of slavery, indeed, will remain to keep alive among the
late slaveholding caste, the insolent and unchristian temper on which
they have prided themselves. But having no more helpless dependants to
storm at and abuse, their valor will needs submit to gradual
modifications. Some degree of self-government will become a necessity.
It may require several generations; but _institutions_ ceasing to
corrupt them, the loss of wealth, the necessity of work and a new Gospel
of peace, better than their old slaveholding Christianity, will
gradually educate them into a law-abiding, orderly, and virtuous people.
The Southern woman will of course share early in this beneficent
change--no longer perverted into a she-devil by the possession of
unrestrained power, and paying just wages to servants, who, if not
suited with their work, can leave without having to run off; her gentler
virtues will have a chance to assert themselves. Her striking qualities
will subside into a charming vivacity of temper. She will become a
gracious and pious mater-familias; she will perhaps in time learn to
apply to her own children a portion of that discipline of which her
slaves enjoyed a monopoly. In short, there neither is nor ever was any
reason, slavery excepted, why the Southern whites should not possess a
character for industry, peacefulness, and religion, equal to that of
the rural districts of New York and New England.
Thank God that we have lived to see such awful barbarisms extinct! In
fifty years the last woman-whipper at the South will be as dead as
Cleopatra; as dead as the pre-Adamite brute organizations. History will
be ashamed to record their doings. The fictions in which they are
enbalmed will be lost in the better coming era of morals and letters. By
the time the South has been overflowed and regenerated by a beneficent
inundation of Northern "carpet-baggers," with Yankee capital and
enterprise, it will be forgotten that a race capable of the crimes
referred to in the preceding story, ever existed.
[Illustration: Decoration]
FOOTNOTE:
[2] It is curiously illustrative of the mixed childishness and ferocity
which characterizes the Southern civilization, that this secret
association of ruffians, organized to terrorize the loyal South, styles
itself by an absurd, mis-spelled name, and goes about on its nightly
work of murder in harlequin costume, with one of its leaders acting the
part of ghost, to frighten the superstitious blacks. Some more
courageous freedman occasionally makes a _bona fide_ ghost of this
masquerade.
LIST OF SUBSCRIBERS
TO THE
PUBLISHING FUND.
GERRIT SMITH, Peterboro, N. Y., $25 00
WENDELL PHILLIPS, Boston, Mass., 25 00
J. S. SEYMOUR, Auburn, N. Y., 25 00
D. M. OSBORNE, " " 25 00
CHAS. P. WOOD, " " 25 00
WM. H. SEWARD, JR., " " 25 00
J. N. KNAPP, " " 25 00
RUFUS SARGENT, " " 25 00
H. IVISON, New York 25 00
TIMOTHY L. BARKER, San Francisco, Cal., 20 00
WM. G. WISE, Auburn, N. Y., 10 00
G. I. LETCHWORTH, " " 10 00
S. L. BRADLEY " " 10 00
I. F. TERRILL " " 10 00
ABIJAH FITCH, " " 10 00
T. M. POMEROY, M. C., " " 10 00
F. L. GRISWOLD, " " 10 00
CYRENUS WHEELER, " " 10 00
JOHN CHEDELL, " " 10 00
DAVID WRIGHT, " " 10 00
JOSIAH BARBER, " " 10 00
GEO. E. BARBER, " " 10 00
S. WILLARD, M. D., " " 10 00
RICHARD STEEL, " " 5 00
C. H. MERRIMAN, " " 5 00
J. LEWIS GRANT, " " 5 00
A. H. GOSS, " " 5 00
CHRISTOPHER MORGAN, " " 5 00
J. M. HURD, " " 5 00
W. J. SUTTON, " " 5 00
WM. A. KIRBY, " " 5 00
THOS. MCCREA, " " 5 00
J. N. STARIN, " " 5 00
C. P. FORD, " " 5 00
[Illustration: Decoration]
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