A Woman's Life-Work-Labors and Experiences of Laura S. Haviland Part 18

Pursuit was still continued for William Anderson. Three years after I fell in company with D. L. Ward, attorney of New Orleans, in a stage between Ypsilanti and Clinton, Michigan. He was making some complaints about the North, which drew forth a few remarks from me. "Oh, I am glad I've got hold of an abolitionist. It is just what I have wished for ever since I left my home in New Orleans. Now I want to give you a little advice, and, as it will cost you nothing, you may accept it freely, and I hope you will profit by it; and that is, when you abolitionists have another Sims case, call on Southern legal gentlemen, and we will help you through. We would have cleared Sims, for that Fugitive slave Law is defective, and we know it, and we know just how to handle it."

"Why did you introduce a defective bill?"

"Because we made up our minds to bring you Northerners to our terms, whether it was const.i.tutional or not, and we have done it, because we knew we could do it; not because we cared for a few n.i.g.g.e.rs; for I say, if a n.i.g.g.e.r cares enough for freedom to run for it, he ought to have it. Now we knew that was an unconst.i.tutional thing before we put it before Congress; but we put it there to let you know we could drive it down Northern throats, and we did it, too."

"I acknowledge," I replied, "that there is too much servility in our North; there is too much crouching and cringing, but I am prepared to say there are more than seven thousand that have never bowed the knee to your Baal of slavery, and never will. We never shall do homage to your Southern G.o.ddess, though you may cry loud and long in demanding its wors.h.i.+p. You say if we have another slave case, if we come to you to help us through, you will do it, and that if a slave wants his freedom bad enough to run for it, you think he ought to have it?"

"Yes, madam, we will aid you, for we know just how to handle that thing."

"Supposing a man is about to be sold from his family, and he falls at his master's feet, and pleads in tears to remain with his family, and promises to serve him faithfully all the days of his life, if he will only permit them to remain together; but the master persists in the sale; the slave makes his escape; is overtaken by his master, yet, severely wounding him, he succeeds in gaining his liberty. Now what do you say in regard to this supposed case?"

Looking me full in the face, he asked my name, which was given. Said he, "I think I am acquainted with that case. Is it not William Anderson, a runaway from Missouri?"

"William Anderson's case is very similar to the one I have described."

"Oh yes, madam, and you are implicated in that affair, but as you are a lady I will not disturb you; but you are liable to great difficulty in that case, and I will tell you we are going to have Anderson by hook or by crook; we will have him by fair means or foul; the South is determined to have that man, and you'll find your House of Refuge will not protect him either."

"This is the way I perceive you Southern legal gentlemen will help us.

But you will never get Anderson from Canada. Your determination will fail."

"We shall not fail, but I will tell you after I return from our filibustering tour, as we am going out next month. We are confident of success in that, too, for our fleet is in good condition. We shall then take Anderson, if not before, and let you see how much your House of Refuge will do to hold that man from the South."

I never heard from D. L. Ward from that day. I had written previous to this interview to the governor-general, Lord Elgin, of the first effort to retake him as a murderer. He replied that, "in case of a demand for William Anderson, he should require the case to be tried in their British court; and if twelve freeholders should testify that he had been a man of integrity since his arrival in their dominion, it should clear him." This information, however, I did not reveal to our Southern lawyer.

Three years later, in which time I had succeeded in finis.h.i.+ng my Raisin Inst.i.tute building, and reopened the inst.i.tution in charge of a princ.i.p.al from Oberlin College, the sad tidings reached me that William Anderson was lodged in jail in the city of Toronto, under charge of murder committed in the State of Missouri. He was awaiting his trial, and Gerrit Smith was one of his legal advisers. I wrote immediately informing him of the previous efforts to search out his whereabouts, and that his pursuers at that date (1853) alleged that he was a free man, and had never been a slave. In reply, Gerrit Smith wrote:

"I am glad you have given me so much of his history. Poor Anderson! I visited him in jail. I will send you my speech in his behalf. I hope the friends will purchase his family. I have volunteered to do all I can for the poor man. Lord Elgin is removed; the present governor-general is a stranger to this case. G.o.d bless you.

"I am truly your friend, GERRIT SMITH."

A few days later, I received the thrilling speech of Gerrit Smith, like the man, full of pure and soul-inspiring thought; but I trembled with fear when two of the three judges were in favor of returning William Anderson to the State of Missouri, and that Riggs the claimant was liable to succeed; but through the efforts of his friends, and the opposing judge, the case was appealed to a higher court, and William Anderson was sent to England, where he remained in safety until the war opened, in which time the case was adjusted in his favor. The Missouri agent, Riggs, failed, and the friends of liberty rejoiced.

Three young men fled from Daniel Payne, Kentucky, and succeeded in reaching Canada, where they had proven themselves worthy of their hard-earned freedom. A few months elapsed, and their master came for them, and tried to hire them to go back with him, promising to make over to them manumission papers as soon as they returned. But he failed to inspire Alfred and his two brothers with confidence in his promise of freedom and fair wages for their work. He then secured the aid of a colored man to invite them to a dancing party in Detroit a few days after, but the boys mistrusted that their old master had the handling of this invitation, and did not accept it.

As they had been annoyed two weeks by the various plans of "Master Dan Payne," they concluded the next time he gave them a call to appear more social, and gave their plan to forty or fifty of their friends, who were to lie in ambush near the old barracks, where one of the brothers was to have a chill, and appear too sick to go over the river. But two days pa.s.sed before the opportunity arrived that enabled them to carry out their plan. When Alfred informed the ex-master of the illness of his brother, of course he must hasten to the sick boy with a nice brandy-sling for the chills, and he purchased a good quant.i.ty for them all. While he was handing a gla.s.s of sweetened brandy to the sick man, a company of men rushed in and held him, while Alfred and two brothers stripped him of his coat, vest, boots, socks, and pants, and tied him with a rope in the same way the master had tied their mother, when he compelled her to be stripped, and tied her with his own hands, and whipped her until the blood ran to the ground. Alfred and his brothers applied dexterously the slave-whip, which they had provided for the occasion by borrowing a plantation slave-whip kept by Henry Bibb as a reminder of his slave life. Daniel Payne begged heartily for mercy.

Alfred replied: "Yes, this is just the way my mother begged for mercy; but you had no mercy for her, and this is to show what she received at your cruel hands." They applied the lash until the forty stripes their mother had received at his hands had been given. Then they unbound him and gave him fifteen minutes to dress and leave Canada, and gave him a quarter to go with, keeping his watch and purse, which contained about forty dollars. He crossed the river within the given time, and sent an agent to call on the authorities, to whom he entered a complaint of being robbed of a gold watch and one hundred dollars, but made no complaint of the whipping. He affected to be too lame "with rheumatism"

to return to his Kentucky home for a number of days, in which time the boys returned his watch, but kept the money. Alfred and his brothers said Mr. Payne was as untruthful about the amount of money as he was in calling his old silver watch gold. Suffice it to say, the young men were never after troubled or annoyed by Daniel Payne, of Kentucky.

Although it was a course I would never have inaugurated, yet it was largely in human nature to requite the cruelties heaped upon their mother when it was beyond their power to protect her.

With very many pleasant remembrances, I left this laborious field of labor for home work, where I spent nearly three years looking after the best interests of my children, and making preparations to reopen Raisin Inst.i.tute, for the moral, intellectual, and spiritual improvement of our youth.

CHAPTER IX.

RESCUE OF SLAVES.

A family of six left their old Kentucky home in search of freedom. A young wife who was sold had made her escape three years previously. I noticed a stranger pa.s.sing through my gate, and as he was a mulatto, I went out to see where he had gone. I found him sitting in the porch, waiting to see some one of whom to inquire whether he was at the right place. He handed a paper directed to me by an under-ground railroad ticket agent, who informed me there were six fugitives in his company.

"Then there are six of you?" I asked; "and where are the balance?" "My two brothers are back a-ways," he replied, "'cause we's feared it wasn't the right place."

Being a.s.sured all was right, he went back for them. They had left their mother, with her two little grandchildren, in Carthaginia, until the boys could find a safe home for them, but they knew not whether they should go on to Canada or find the object of their search short of that place. They heard in Carthaginia that Michigan was the last place she had been heard from, and that was a short time after pa.s.sing through that town. They were directed to me as being most likely to know the whereabouts of the young wife. They had been in my home a number of hours before the elder brother dared make the inquiry. I noticed the frequent heavy sigh and sad countenance, and I thought he was probably very anxious over the safety of his mother, and I a.s.sured him that she was in good hands, for I knew them to be true friends. While he a.s.sented, yet all my words of encouragement did not seem to cheer him, while the two younger brothers were happy. I went through my usual course of giving them new names. As they left that entirely with me, I gave as the family name Koss, and their given names Benjamin, Richard, and Daniel. But I came to the conclusion that the older brother was troubled over some friends he had left behind. At length, in a half hesitating and trembling manner, he ventured to ask if I knew any thing of a colored girl by the name of Mary Todd.

"Certainly I do," said I; "and did you know her?"

"Yes, ma'am," was his reply.

"Do you know whether her husband was sold? She worried a great deal about him."

"No, they talked of selling him lately." Then, after a pause, "She isn't married again, is she?"

"Why, no, she is a very steady, nice young woman. Every one in the neighborhood where she lives takes a great interest in her. Perhaps you are acquainted with her husband; why don't he come? He promised to follow her as soon as he could."

While his countenance lit up with joy, I had no suspicion of who he was until he said, "I am the man. I am her husband."

"Why didn't you tell me that before?"

"I was 'fraid of bad news if I got any."

"Afraid she was married?"

"Well, it's been mighty nigh three years, an' I couldn't go for a long time off the plantation, after she left."

As she was twelve miles from our school, and by this time it was nearly night, I hastened to inform brother Canfield, a Wesleyan minister, that the older brother of these fugitives was Mary Todd's husband. "Is it possible," he asked, "that Mary's husband has come at last?"

Soon, quite an excitement was produced in our neighborhood over the arrival of Mary Todd's husband. The next morning brother Canfield took him in his buggy to meet his wife and little son he had never seen; and a time of great rejoicing was in the whole neighborhood. As they were married after slave style, brother Canfield solemnized the marriage legally. The minister said we all forgot the black skin, when we saw that couple fly to each other's arms. Surely,

"Skins may differ, but affection Dwells in black and white the same."

Mary had lived most of the time in the family of Fitch Reed, of Cambridge. They soon had a home for their mother, with her two little granddaughters, and were all happy, industrious, and highly respected.

One of the common trials of life, to mar our happiness in our family-like inst.i.tution (February 23d) was the listless waywardness of some of our dear students, in a determined purpose to attend a dancing party under the guise of an oyster supper. How many delusive snares are laid to entrap and turn aside the youth into divergent paths. We found it necessary to suspend eight of our students for the remainder of the term. It is a painful duty of the surgeon to amputate a limb, yet it may be an imperative duty, in order to save the life of the patient, and restore the body to health.

This evening a very remarkable fugitive slave came from Tennessee. He had been five weeks on the way, in which time he had slept but one night, having traveled at night and buried himself in hay and straw in barns in the day-time to keep from peris.h.i.+ng with cold, and to avoid detection. He says six years ago his wife and child were sold from him, which caused him days and nights of bitter tears. He then firmly resolved to make an attempt to gain his freedom by flight. He was captured in Illinois after a severe struggle. He showed us four pistol-ball holes in the arm he was most dexterously using in his own defense, and two large scars which he said were gashes made at the same time with a Bowie-knife, which enabled his enemies to capture him.

After they secured him in jail he was advertised in papers, which his master saw, and came and took him back, and caused him to be whipped on the bare back until the flesh was so badly torn that he was compelled to lie on his stomach four weeks. During this time he was not able to turn himself. After recovering his master put him in the iron works, of which he was proprietor. "If I hadn't been one of his engineers he would have sold me instead of giving me that awful whipping that he thought conquered me; but he was mightily mistaken; for it only imbedded in my heart a more bitter hate than ever. I appeared contented and performed my work well. After a few months, he said one day, 'I've made you a good boy, Jim, and now I'll let you go to the big city with me.' I was very obedient, but he little knew of my determination to leave him as soon as I could make sure work of it. That is the reason I would not make friends with white people till I found Michigan, for we have heard that people in this State are friendly to us, and that it is next to Canada."

As this man was above mediocrity as to intelligence, his two days stay with us had a salutary influence over our school. He could not be prevailed upon to rest longer, as he could not be easy until he reached Victoria's dominions. His clothes were made comfortable, and I called on a few friends for a little pocket change, and sent by him a little note to the next station, where he was aided on to Canada.

Our Spring term opened with fair prospects. A number of our students who were suspended last term returned to us, they said, to redeem themselves, and they were as good as their word.

During our long vacation I attended an anti-slavery convention in Cincinnati, where I met a white slave man from Little Rock, Arkansas, who left his home in the night and by morning took public conveyance as any other white man would. On reaching Cincinnati he found friends of the slave to whom he revealed his condition. Levi Coffin advised him to go with me to Michigan. As he was in greater haste than I was, he proposed to go on at once. Consequently I wrote a letter of introduction to my friends, requesting them to furnish him with work.

In two weeks I returned and found my young friend, Charles McClain, (for that was the name I gave him in Cincinnati) at work with a friend, who said it was a pity that I had introduced him as a fugitive slave, for they would not have believed it if the statement had not come from me.

He came to our school and improved very much upon what he had picked up from the white children who were going to school, and by the aid of a colored minister who could read and write, and by that means could read in the second reader and write a little. He was often seen in tears, and was very anxious to have his sister with him, who was as white as himself and, like him, had straight auburn hair, blue eyes, and perfect Caucasian features, without a vestige of African descent that could be detected. A deep sympathy was enlisted in his behalf. He was very anxious to convey intelligence to that sister of the ease with which he effected his escape, and that she too could free herself as easily. A number of the friends offered to aid, and one friend placed thirty dollars in my hands to bring about this result. I wrote to a colored minister in Little Rock, who replied, with a graphic account of their rejoicing at his success, and of his sister Ann's anxiety to come to him, but that she had no means. Charles wrote to her that he would send means with instructions. As I had for many years had a great desire to see more of the system of slavery in its own territory, as so many people of the North were insisting upon our exaggerations, and that we were judging the majority of slave-holders by the few unprincipled men we had seen, I concluded to become the bearer of this message.

With a well-defined plan of the streets and houses I left my home, in confidence that the G.o.d of Daniel would return me unharmed. After a little visit with my dear friends, Levi and Catharine Coffin, in Cincinnati, I resumed my journey. I felt a little disappointed at the leaving of a through boat an hour earlier than reported. Levi said, "Perhaps thou'lt find it's all for the best," and so it was. For the second day after leaving Cincinnati the vessel was burned and sunk, with great loss of property, and many of the pa.s.sengers were seriously injured, and some fatally. As I soon after pa.s.sed the wreck of partially burned furniture floating near the sh.o.r.e, and some hauled out lying on the bank, I was thankful for the disappointment.