for the perpetrators of this outrage upon humanity, and a general
sympathy for the innocent captive?

But it was decreed that those feelings of honest indignation should be
speedily supplanted by the warm outpouring of public gratitude and joy.
While the feeling of the spectators was in this state of intense
interest and excitement, the judge, stern and inflexible in his
purposes, and the clan of greedy claimants ready to seize upon their
prey, the sheriff produced his writ of certiorari and handed it to the
court. It was instantly returned, and the judge who sat unmoved, by a
scene to which he was not unaccustomed, and conceiving, perhaps, that
his official dignity was impugned, persisted in his determination that
the prisoner should be handed over to the claimant. The prudence and
foresight of Thomas Shipley and his friends had provided, however, for
this anticipated difficulty. Happily for the prisoner, he was yet
embraced under the provision of that constitution, which secured to him
the protection of a habeas corpus, and this threw around him a shield
which his enemies could not penetrate. A writ of habeas corpus, signed
by the chief justice of the State and demanding the body of the
prisoner, before the Supreme Court at its next term, was now produced!

The astonished judge found himself completely foiled. He had exercised
his authority to its utmost limit, in support of the claims of his
slave-holding friends, and had given the influence of his station and
character, to bolster up the "patriarchal institution;" but it was all
in vain. Just as they supposed they had achieved a victory, they were
obliged with fallen crests, to succumb to the dictates of a higher
tribunal, and to see their victim conveyed beyond their reach in the
safe keeping of the sheriff.

In the Third month, (March,) the case was brought up before the Supreme
Court for final adjudication. In the meantime, Thomas Shipley adopted
vigorous measures to have the facts collected and arranged. He procured
the aid of an intelligent and humane friend of the cause, who resided
near Trenton, to attend, personally to the case, and secured the legal
services of Theodore Frelinghuysen, well known as one of the most gifted
and virtuous statesmen of the age, and as a warm and zealous friend of
the oppressed. Under these happy auspices, the case came before the
Supreme Court, and gave rise to a highly interesting and important
argument; in which the distinguished Frelinghuysen appeared as the
disinterested advocate of the prisoner, and urged upon the court his
claim to liberty, under the laws of New Jersey, in a speech which was
one of his most brilliant and eloquent efforts, and added another to the
many laurels which his genius and philanthropy have achieved.

The opinion of Chief Justice Hornblower was given at length, and is said
to have displayed a soundness and extent of legal knowledge, with a
spirit of mildness and humanity, well worthy of the highest judicial
tribunal of New Jersey.

By this decision, Alexander Helmsley was declared to be a freeman, and
returned with rejoicing into the bosom of his family, and to the
enjoyment of the rights and privileges of a free citizen.

Thus terminated this interesting case, which for several months agitated
the public mind of Burlington county, to an extent almost unequalled.

Such disinterested devotion to the defence of the rights of the
oppressed, had it been displayed only in the instance recited, would be
sufficient to enroll the name of Thomas Shipley on the list of the
benefactors of his race; but when we consider that, for a period of
twenty years, his history abounds in similar incidents, and that he
uniformly stood forth as the unflinching advocate of the oppressed,
regardless of the sacrifices which he was obliged to make on their
behalf, we are disposed to view him as one of that noble band whose
lives have been consecrated to deeds of charity and benevolence, and
whose names will illumine the moral firmament, so long as virtue and
truth shall command the homage of mankind.

Thomas Shipley was one of the founders of the American Anti-Slavery
Society, and was an active agent in those stirring movements which soon
aroused the nation to a full consideration of the enormities of Slavery.
He was a prominent member of the Anti-slavery Convention, which
assembled in this city in 1833, and a signer of their declaration of
sentiments.

During the last few years of his life, he was more devotedly engaged in
his abolition labors than at any previous period. It was his constant
desire to diffuse the principles which had been so fearlessly proclaimed
by the Convention, and to encourage the formation of Anti-slavery
societies throughout the sphere of his influence. He was one of the most
prominent members of the Philadelphia Anti-slavery Society, which was
formed through much opposition, in 1835, and he steadily adhered to its
meetings, notwithstanding the threats which were so loudly made by the
enemies of public order.

In the midst of the popular commotions and tumults, which marked the
progress of Anti-slavery principles, he stood calm and unmoved. Having
been long known as a firm friend of the rights of the colored man, and
being amongst the most efficient public advocates of his cause, he was
of course subjected to the revilings which were so liberally heaped upon
the Abolitionists at that time. His name was associated with that of
Tappan, Birney, Green, Jay, Garrison, and other leading Abolitionists,
who were singled out by slave-holders and their abettors as fit subjects
for the merciless attacks of excited mobs.

In several attempts which were made in this city to stir up the passions
of the ignorant against the advocates of human rights, his person and
property were openly threatened with assault. Such menaces failed,
however, to deter him from the steady performance of what he believed to
be a solemn duty. Being fully satisfied of the truth of the principles
which he had espoused, he relied with unwavering confidence upon Divine
power for their ultimate triumph, and for the protection of those who
advocated them. When his friends expressed their anxiety for his safety,
he always allayed their apprehensions, and evinced by the firmness and
benignity of his manner that he was divested of the fear of man, and
acted under the influence of that spirit which is from above.

The active part which Thomas Shipley took in Anti-slavery movements, did
not diminish his interest in the prosperity and usefulness of the old
Pennsylvania Society. He was a steady attendant on its meetings, and
exercised his wonted care on all subjects connected with its interests.

A short time previous to his death, his services were acknowledged by
his fellow-members, by his election to the office of president.

The incessant and fatiguing labors in which he was engaged, had sensibly
affected the vigor of a constitution naturally delicate, and rendered
him peculiarly liable to the inroads of disease. He was seized in the
autumn of 1836, with an attack of intermittent fever, which confined him
to the house for ten or twelve days, and very much reduced his strength;
while recovering from this attack, he experienced an accession of
disease which terminated his life in less than twenty-four hours. But a
few hours before his death, he inquired of his physicians as to the
probable issue of his case; when informed of his critical condition, he
received the intelligence with composure, and immediately requested Dr.
Atlee, who was by his side, to take down some directions in regard to
his affairs, on paper. In a few minutes after this, he quietly lapsed
into the sleep of death, in the morning, on the 17th of Ninth month,
1836.

His last words were, "I die at peace with all mankind, and hope that my
trespasses may be as freely forgiven, as I forgive those who have
trespassed against me."

To all who knew him well, of whatever class in the community, the
tidings of this unexpected event brought a personal sorrow. It was felt
that a man of rare probity and virtue had gone to his reward. But to the
colored people the intelligence of his death was at once startling and
confounding. Their whole community was bowed down in public lamentation,
for their warmest and most steadfast friend was gone.

They repaired in large numbers to the house of their benefactor to
obtain a last glance at his lifeless body. Parents brought their little
ones to the house of mourning, and as they gazed upon the features of
the departed, now inanimate in death, they taught their infant minds the
impressive lesson, that before them were the mortal remains of one who
had devoted his energies to the disenthralment of their race, and whose
memory they should ever cherish with gratitude and reverence. When the
day arrived for committing his remains to the grave the evidence of deep
and pervading sorrow among these wronged and outraged people was
strikingly apparent.

Thousands, whose serious deportment and dejected countenances evinced
that they were fully sensible of their loss, collected in the vicinity
of his dwelling, anxious to testify their respect for his memory. Theirs
was not the gaze of the indifferent crowd, which clusters around the
abodes of fashion and splendor, to witness the pomp and circumstance
attendant on the interment of the haughty or the rich. It was a solemn
gathering, brought together by the impulse of feeling, to mingle their
tears and lamentations at the grave of one whom they had loved and
revered as a protector and a friend.

When the hearse arrived at the quiet burial place in Arch street, where
the Friends for many generations have buried their dead, six colored men
carried the body to its last resting-place, and the silent tear of the
son of Africa over the grave of his zealous friend, was more expressive
of real affection than all the parade which is sometimes brought so
ostentatiously before the public eye. In the expressive words of the
leading newspaper of the day, "Aaron Burr was lately buried with the
honors of war. Thomas Shipley was buried with the honors of peace. Let
the reflecting mind pause in the honorable contrast."

As a public speaker Thomas Shipley was clear, cogent, sometimes
eloquent, and always impressive. He never attempted oratorical effect,
or studied harangues. He generally spoke extemporaneously, on the spur
of the occasion, and what he said came warm from the heart. It was the
simple and unadorned expression of his sentiments and feelings. He was,
however, argumentative and even logical, when the occasion required it.
When intensely interested, his eye was full of deep and piercing
expression.

Although his education had been limited, and his pursuits afforded him
but little leisure time, yet he indulged his fondness for reading, and
exhibited a refined literary taste in his selections. He has left
amongst his books and papers eight manuscript volumes of about one
hundred and fifty pages each, filled with selections, copied in his own
handwriting, and culled from the writings of many of the most gifted
authors, both in poetry and prose.

These extracts are generally of a moral and religious caste, and include
scraps from Young, Milton, Addison, Burns, Cowper, Watts, Akenside,
Pope, Byron, Hemans, and many others.

In the domestic and social circle, his conversation was animated and
instructive, and always tempered by that kindness and amenity of manners
which endeared him to his family and friends.

He was no bigot in religion. While a firm believer in the doctrines of
the Gospel as maintained by the orthodox Society of Friends, he yet held
that religion was an operative principle producing the fruits of
righteousness and peace, in all of whatever name, who are sincere
followers of our Lord Jesus Christ. In conclusion we may add, that more
than most men he bore about with him the sentiment of that old Roman,
"Nihil humanum alienum a me puto," while he added to it the higher
thought of the Christian, that he who loveth God loveth his brother
also. We need not dwell upon the life of such a man. To-day, after the
lapse of more than a generation, his memory is fresh and green in the
hearts of those who knew him, and who still survive to hand down to
their children the story of the trials of that eventful period in our
history.

_To the Memory of_

THOMAS SHIPLEY,

President of the Pennsylvania Abolition Society,

Who died on the 17th of Ninth mo., 1836, a devoted Christian and
Philanthropist.

BY JOHN G. WHITTIER.

  Gone to thy Heavenly Father's rest--
    The flowers of Eden round thee blowing!
  And, on thine ear, the murmurs blest
    Of Shiloah's waters softly flowing!
  Beneath that tree of life which gives
  To all the earth its healing leaves--
  In the white robe of angels clad,
    And wandering by that sacred river,
  Whose streams of holiness make glad
    The city of our God forever!

  Gentlest of spirits!--not for thee
    Our tears are shed, our sighs are given:
  Why mourn to know thou art a free
    Partaker of the joys of Heaven?
  Finished thy work, and kept thy faith
  In Christian firmness unto death--
  And beautiful as sky and earth,
    When Autumn's sun is downward going,
  The blessed memory of thy worth
    Around thy place of slumber glowing!

  But, wo for us I--who linger still
    With feebler strength and hearts less lowly,
  And minds less steadfast to the will
    Of Him, whose every work is holy!
  For not like thine, is crucified
  The spirit of our human pride:
  And at the bondman's tale of woe,
    And for the outcast and forsaken,
  Not warm like thine, but cold and slow,
    Our weaker sympathies awaken!

  Darkly upon our struggling way
    The storm of human hate is sweeping;
  Hunted and branded, and a prey,
    Our watch amidst the darkness keeping!
  Oh! for that hidden strength which can
  Nerve unto death the inner man!
  Oh--for thy spirit tried and true
    And constant in the hour of trial--
  Prepared to suffer or to do
    In meekness and in self-denial.

  Oh, for that spirit meek and mild,
    Derided, spurned, yet uncomplaining--
  By man deserted and reviled,
    Yet faithful to its trust remaining.
  Still prompt and resolute to save
  From scourge and chain the hunted slave!
  Unwavering in the truth's defence
    E'en where the fires of hate are burning,
  The unquailing eye of innocence
    Alone upon the oppressor turning!

  Oh, loved of thousands! to thy grave,
    Sorrowing of heart, thy brethren bore thee!
  The poor man and the rescued slave
    Wept as the broken earth closed o'er thee--
  And grateful tears, like summer rain,
  Quickened its dying grass again!--
  And there, as to some pilgrim shrine,
    Shall come the outcast and the lowly,
  Of gentle deeds and words of thine
    Recalling memories sweet and holy!

  Oh, for the death the righteous die!
    An end, like Autumn's day declining,
  On human hearts, as on the sky,
    With holier, tenderer beauty shining!
  As to the parting soul were given
    The radiance of an opening heaven!
  As if that pure and blessed light
    From off the eternal altar flowing,
  Were bathing in its upward flight
    The spirit to its worship going!

ROBERT PURVIS

Was born in Charleston, S.C. on the 4th day of August, 1810. His father,
William Purvis, was a native of Ross county, in Northumberland, England.
His mother was a free-born woman, of Charleston. His maternal
grandmother was a Moor; and her father was an Israelite, named Baron
Judah. Robert Purvis and his two brothers were brought to the North by
their parents in 1819. In Pennsylvania and New England he received his
scholastic education, finishing it at Amherst College. Since that time
his home has been in Philadelphia, or in the vicinity of that city.

His interest in the Anti-slavery cause began in his childhood, inspired
by such books as "Sandford and Merton," and Dr. Toney's "Portraiture of
Slavery," which his father put into his hands. His father, though
resident in a slave state, was never a slaveholder; but was heartily an
Abolitionist in principle. It was Robert Purvis' good fortune, before he
attained his majority, to make the acquaintance of that earnest and
self-sacrificing pioneer of freedom, Benjamin Lundy; and in conjunction
with him, was an early laborer in the anti-slavery field. He was a
member of the Convention held in Philadelphia in 1833, which formed the
American Anti-slavery Society; and among the signatures to its
Declaration of Sentiments, the name of Robert Purvis is to be seen; a
record of which his posterity to the latest generation may be justly
proud. During the whole period of that Society's existence he was a
member of it; and was also an active member and officer of The
Pennsylvania Anti-slavery Society. To the cause of the slave's freedom
he gave with all his heart his money, his time, his talents. Fervent in
soul, eloquent in speech, most gracious in manner, he was a favorite on
the platform of Anti-slavery meetings. High-toned in moral nature,
keenly sensitive in all matters pertaining to justice and integrity, he
was a most valuable coadjutor with the leaders of an unpopular reform;
and throughout the Anti-slavery conflict, he always received, as he
always deserved, the highest confidence and warm personal regard of his
fellow-laborers.

His faithful labors in aiding fugitive slaves cannot be recorded within
the limits of this sketch. Throughout that long period of peril to all
who dared to "remember those in bonds as bound with them," his house was
a well-known station on the Underground Rail Road; his horses and
carriages, and his personal attendance, were ever at the service of the
travelers upon that road. In those perilous duties his family heartily
sympathized with him, and cheerfully performed their share.

He has lived to witness the triumph of the great cause to which he
devoted his youth and his manhood; to join in the jubilee song of the
American slave; and the thanksgiving of the Abolitionists; and to
testify that the work of his life has been one "whose reward is in
itself."

JOHN HUNN.

Almost within the lions' den, in daily sight of the enemy, in the little
slave-holding State of Delaware, lived and labored the freedom-loving,
earnest and whole-souled Quaker abolitionist, John Hunn. His
headquarters were at Cantwell's Bridge, but, as an engineer of the
Underground Rail Road, his duties, like those of his fellow-laborer
Thomas Garrett, were not confined to that section, but embraced other
places, and were attended with great peril, constant care and expense.
He was well-known to the colored people far and near, and was especially
sought with regard to business pertaining to the Underground Rail Road,
as a friend who would never fail to assist as far as possible in every
time of need. Through his agency many found their way to freedom, both
by land and water.

The slave-holders regarding him with much suspicion, watched him
closely, and were in the habit of "breathing out threatenings and
slaughter" very fiercely at times. But Hunn was too plucky to be
frightened by their threats and menaces, and as one, commissioned by a
higher power to remember those in bonds as bound with them he remained
faithful to the slave. Men, women or children seeking to be unloosed
from the fetters of Slavery, could not make their grievances known to
John Hunn without calling forth his warmest sympathies. His house and
heart were always open to all such. The slave-holders evidently
concluded that Hunn could not longer be tolerated, consequently devised
a plan to capture him, on the charge of aiding off a woman with her
children.

[John Hunn and Thomas Garrett were conjointly prosecuted in this case,
and in the sketch of the latter, the trial, conviction, etc., are so
fully referred to, that it is unnecessary to do more than allude to it
here].

These noted Underground Rail Road offenders being duly brought before
the United States District Court, in May, 1848, Judge Taney, presiding,
backed by a thoroughly pro-slavery sentiment, obviously found it a very
easy matter to convict them, and a still easier matter to fine them to
the extent of every dollar they possessed in the world. Thousands of
dollars were swept from Hunn in an instant, and his family left utterly
destitute; but he was by no means conquered, as he deliberately gave the
court to understand in a manly speech, delivered while standing to
receive his sentence. There and then he avowed his entire sympathy with
the slave, and declared that in the future, as in the past, by the help
of God, he would never withhold a helping hand from the down-trodden in
the hour of distress. That this pledge was faithfully kept by Hunn,
there can be no question, as he continued steadfast at his post until
the last fetter was broken by the great proclamation of Abraham Lincoln.

He was not without friends, however, for even near by, dwelt a few
well-tried Abolitionists. Ezekiel Jenkins, Mifflin Warner, and one or
two others, whole-souled workers in the same cause with Hunn; he was
therefore not forgotten in the hour of his extremity.

Wishing to produce a sketch worthy of this veteran, we addressed him on
the subject, but failed to obtain all the desired material. His reasons,
however, for withholding the information which we desired were
furnished, and, in connection therewith, a few anecdotes touching
Underground Rail Road matters coming under his immediate notice, which
we here take great pleasure in transcribing.

    BEAUFORT, S.C. 11th mo. 7th, 1871.

    WM. STILL, DEAR FRIEND:--In thy first letter thee asked for my
    photograph as well as for an opinion of the book about to be
    edited by thyself. I returned a favorable answer and sent
    likeness, as requested. I incidentally mentioned that, probably
    some of my papers might be of service to thee. The papers
    alluded to had no reference to myself; but consisted of
    anecdotes and short histories of some of the fugitives from the
    hell of American Slavery, who gave me a call, as engineer of the
    Underground Rail Road in the State of Delaware, and received the
    benefit of my advice and assistance.

    I was twenty-seven years-old when I engaged in the Underground
    Rail Road business, and I continued therein diligently until the
    breaking up of that business by the Great Rebellion. I then came
    to South Carolina to witness the uprising of a nation of slaves
    into the dignity and privileges of mankind.

    Nothing can possibly have the same interest to me. Therefore, I
    propose to remain where this great problem is in the process of
    solution; and to give my best efforts to its successful
    accomplishment. In this matter the course that I have pursued
    thus far through life has given me solid satisfaction. I ask no
    other reward for any efforts made by me in the cause, than to
    feel that I have been of use to my fellow-men.

    No other course would have brought peace to my mind; then why
    should any credit be awarded to me; or how can I count any
    circumstance that may have occurred to me, in the light of a
    sacrifice? If a man pursues the only course that will bring
    peace to his own mind, is he deserving of any credit therefor?
    Is not the reward worth striving for at any cost? Indeed it is,
    as I well know.

    Would it be well for me, entertaining such sentiments, to sit
    down and write an account of my sacrifices? I think not.
    Therefore please hold me excused. I am anxious to see thy book,
    and will forward the price of one as soon as I can ascertain
    what it is.

    Please accept my thanks for thy kind remembrance of me. I am now
    fifty-three years old, but I well remember thy face in the
    Anti-slavery Office in Fifth street, when I called on business
    of the Underground Rail Road. Our mutual friend, S.D. Burris,
    was the cause of much uneasiness to us in those times. It
    required much trouble, as well as expense to save him from the
    slave-traders. I stood by him on the auction-block; and when I
    stepped down, they thought they had him sure. Indeed he thought
    so himself for a little while. But we outwitted them at last, to
    their great chagrin. Those were stirring times, and the people
    of Dover, Delaware, will long remember the time when S.D. Burris
    was sold at public sale for aiding slaves to escape from their
    masters, and was bought by the Pennsylvania Anti-slavery
    Society. I remain very truly thy friend,

    JOHN HUNN.

THE CASE OF MOLLY, A SLAVE, BELONGING TO R---- B----, OF SMYRNA,
DELAWARE.

BY JOHN HUNN, ENGINEER OF THE UNDERGROUND RAIL ROAD.

Molly escaped from her master's farm, in Cecil county, Maryland, and
found a place of refuge in the house of my cousin, John Alston, near
Middletown, Delaware. The man-hunters, headed by a constable with a
search warrant, took her thence and lodged her in New Castle Jail. This
fact was duly published in the county papers, and her master went after
his chattel, and having paid the expenses of her capture took immediate
possession thereof.

She was hand-cuffed, and, her feet being tied together, she was placed
in the wagon. Before she left the jail, the wife of the sheriff gave her
a piece of bread and butter, which her master kicked out of her hand,
and swore that bread and butter was too good for her. After this act her
master took a drink of brandy and drove off.

He stopped at a tavern about four miles from New Castle and took another
drink of brandy. He then proceeded to Odessa, then called Cantwell's
Bridge, and got his dinner and more brandy, for the day was a cold one.
He had his horse fed, but gave no food to his human chattel, who
remained in the wagon cold and hungry. After sufficient rest for himself
and horse he started again. He was now twelve miles from home, on a good
road, his horse was gentle, and he himself in a genial mood at the
recovery of his bond-woman. He yielded to the influence of the liquor he
had imbibed and fell into a sound sleep. Molly now determined to make
another effort for her freedom. She accordingly worked herself gradually
over the tail board of the wagon, and fell heavily upon the frozen
ground. The horse and wagon passed on, and she rolled into the bushes,
and waited for deliverance from her bonds. This came from a colored man
who was passing that way. As he was neither a priest nor a Levite, he
took the rope from her feet and guided her to a cabin near at hand,
where she was kindly received. Her deliverer could not take the
hand-cuffs off, but promised to bring a person, during the evening, who
could perform that operation. He fulfilled his promise, and brought her
that night to my house, which was in sight of the one whence she had
been taken to New Castle Jail.

I had no fear for her safety, as I believed that her master would not
think of looking for her so near to the place where she had been
arrested. Molly remained with us nearly a month; but, seeing fugitives
coming and going continually, she finally concluded to go further North.
I wrote to my friend, Thomas Garrett, desiring him to get a good home
for Molly. This he succeeded in doing, and a friend from Chester county,
Pennsylvania, came to my house and took Molly with him. She remained in
his family more than six months.

In the mean time the Fugitive Slave Law was passed by Congress, and
several fugitives were arrested in Philadelphia and sent back to their
masters. Molly, hearing of these doings, became uneasy, and finally
determined to go to Canada. She arrived safely in the Queen's Dominions,
and felt at last that she had escaped from the hell of American Slavery.

Molly described her master as an indulgent one when sober, but when he
was on a "spree" he seemed to take great delight in tormenting her. He
would have her beaten unmercifully without cause, and then have her
stripes washed in salt water, then he would have her dragged through the
horse pond until she was nearly dead. This last operation seemed to
afford him much pleasure. When he became sober he would express regret
at having treated her so cruelly. I frequently saw this master of
Molly's, and was always treated respectfully by him. He would have his
"sprees" after Molly left him.

AN ACCOUNT OF THE ESCAPE FROM SLAVERY OF SAMUEL HAWKINS AND FAMILY, OF
QUEEN ANNE'S COUNTY, MARYLAND, ON THE UNDERGROUND RAIL ROAD, IN THE
STATE OF DELAWARE.

BY JOHN HUNN.

On the morning of the 27th of 12th month (December), 1845, as I was
washing my hands at the yard pump of my residence, near Middletown, New
Castle county, Delaware, I looked down the lane, and saw a covered wagon
slowly approaching my house. The sun had just risen, and was shining
brightly (after a stormy night) on the snow which covered the ground to
the depth of six inches. My house was situated three quarters of a mile
from the road leading from Middletown to Odessa, (then called Cantwell's
Bridge.) On a closer inspection I noticed several men walking beside the
wagon. This seemed rather an early hour for visitors, and I could not
account for the circumstance. When they reached the yard fence I met
them, and a colored man handed me a letter addressed to Daniel Corbit,
John Alston or John Hunn; I asked the man if he had presented the letter
to either of the others to whom it was addressed; he said, no, that he
had not been able to see either of them. The letter was from my cousin,
Ezekiel Jenkins, of Camden, Delaware, and stated that the travelers were
fugitive slaves, under the direction of Samuel D. Burris (who handed me
the note). The party consisted of a man and his wife, with their six
children, and four fine-looking colored men, without counting the pilot,
S.D. Burris, who was a free man, from Kent county, Delaware.

This was the first time that I ever saw Burris, and also the first time
that I had ever been called upon to assist fugitives from the hell of
American Slavery. The wanderers were gladly welcomed, and made as
comfortable as possible until breakfast was ready for them. One man, in
trying to pull his boots off, found they were frozen to his feet; he
went to the pump and filled them with water, thus he was able to get
them off in a few minutes.

This increase of thirteen in the family was a little embarrassing, but
after breakfast they all retired to the barn to sleep on the hay, except
the woman and four children, who remained in the house. They were all
very weary, as they had traveled from Camden (twenty-seven miles),
through a snowstorm; the woman and four children in the wagon with the
driver, the others walking all the way. Most of them were badly
frost-bitten, before they arrived at my house. In Camden, they were
sheltered in the houses of their colored friends. Although this was my
first acquaintance with S.D. Burris, it was not my last, as he
afterwards piloted them himself, or was instrumental in directing
hundreds of fugitives to me for shelter.

About two o'clock of the day on which these fugitives arrived at my
house, a neighbor drove up with his daughter in a sleigh, apparently on
a friendly visit. I noticed his restlessness and frequent looking out of
the window fronting the road; but did not suppose, that he had come "to
spy out the land."

The wagon and the persons walking with it, had been observed from his
house, and he had reported the fact in Middletown. Accordingly, in half
an hour, another sleigh came up, containing a constable of Middletown,
William Hardcastle, of Queen Ann's county, Maryland, and William
Chesnut, of the same neighborhood. I met them at the gate, and the
constable handed me an advertisement, wherein one thousand dollars
reward was offered for the recovery of three runaway slaves, therein
described.

The constable asked me if they were in my house? I said they were not!
He then asked me if he might search the house? I declined to allow him
this privilege, unless he had a warrant for that purpose. While we stood
thus conversing, the husband of the woman with the six children, came
out of a house near the barn, and ran into the woods. The constable and
his two companions immediately gave chase, with many halloos! After
running more than a mile through the snow, the fugitive came toward the
house; I went to meet him, and found him with his back against the
barn-yard fence, with a butcher's knife in his hand. The man hunters
soon came up, and the constable asked me to get the knife from the
fugitive. This I declined, unless the constable should first give me his
pistol, with which he was threatening to shoot the man. He complied with
my request, and the fugitive handed me the knife. Then he produced a
pass, properly authenticated, and signed by a magistrate of Queen Ann's
county, Maryland, certifying that this man was free! and that his name
was Samuel Hawkins.

William Hardcastle now advanced, and said that he knew the man to be
free; but that he was accused of running away with his wife and children
who were slaves. He also said, that this man had two boys with him, who
belonged to a neighbor of his, named Charles Wesley Glanding, and that
the four other children and mother belonged to Catharine Turner, of
Queen Ann's county, Maryland. Hardcastle further expressed his belief,
that this man knew where his wife and children were at that time, and
insisted that he should go before a magistrate in Middletown, and be
examined in regard thereto. He also expressed doubts as to the
genuineness of this pass, and wished the man to go to Middletown on that
account also. As there was no other course to pursue under the
circumstances, I had my sleigh brought out, and we all went to
Middletown, before my friend, William Streets, who was then in
commission as a magistrate. It was now after dark of this short winter's
day. Soon after our arrival at the office of William Streets, Hardcastle
put his arm very lovingly around the neck of the colored man, Samuel
Hawkins, and drew him into another room. In a short time, Samuel came
out, and told me that Hardcastle had agreed, that if he, Hawkins, would
give up his two older boys, who belonged to Charles Wesley Glanding;
then he might pursue his journey with his wife and four children. I
asked him if he believed Hardcastle would keep his promise? He replied:
"Yes! I do not think master William would cheat me." I assured him that
he would cheat him, and that the offer was made for the purpose of not
only getting the two older boys (fourteen and sixteen years of age), but
his wife and other children to the office, when all of them would be
taken together to the jail, in New Castle. Samuel thought differently,
and at his request, I wrote to my wife for the delivery of the family of
Samuel Hawkins to the constable. They were soon forthcoming, and on
their arrival at the office, a commitment was made out for the whole
party. Samuel and his two older sons were hand-cuffed, amidst many tears
and lamentations, and they all went off under charge of the man-hunters,
to New Castle jail, a distance of eighteen miles.

William Streets committed the whole party as fugitives from Slavery,
while the husband (Samuel), was a free man. This was done on account of
the detestation of the wicked business, as much as on account of his
friendship for me.

On their arrival at the jail, about midnight, the sheriff was aroused,
and the commitment shown to him; after reading it, he asked Samuel if he
was a slave? He said no, and showed his pass (which had been pronounced
genuine by the magistrate). The sheriff hereupon told them, that the
commitment was not legal, and would not hold them lawfully. It was now
first day (Sunday), and the man-hunters were in a quandary.

The constable finally agreed to go back and get another commitment, if
the sheriff would take the party into the jail until his return;
Hardcastle also urged the sheriff to adopt this plan. Accordingly they
were taken into the jail.

The sheriff's daughter had heard her father's conversation with the
constable, accordingly she sent word on First-day morning, to my revered
friend, Thomas Garrett, of Wilmington, five miles distant, in regard to
the matter, inviting him to see the fugitives. Early on Second day
morning (Monday), Thomas went over with John Wales, attorney at law. The
latter soon obtained a writ of habeas corpus from Judge Booth of New
Castle, which was served upon the sheriff; who, therefore, brought the
whole party before Judge Booth, who discharged them at once, as being
illegally detained by the sheriff. Thomas Garrett, with the consent of
the judge, then hired a carriage to take the woman and four children
over to Wilmington, Samuel and the two older boys walked, so they all
escaped from the man-hunters. They went from Wilmington to Byberry, and
settled near the farm of Robert Purvis. Samuel Hawkins and wife have
since died, but their descendants still live in that neighborhood, under
the name of Hackett.

Soon after the departure of the fugitives from New Castle jail, the
constable arrived with new commitments from William Streets, and
presented them in due form to the sheriff; who informed him that they
had been liberated by order of Judge Booth! A few hours after, William
Hardcastle arrived from Philadelphia, expecting to take Samuel Hawkins
and his family to Queen Ann's county, Maryland. Judge of his
disappointment at finding they were beyond his control--absolutely gone!
They returned to Middletown in great anger, and threatened to prosecute
William Streets for his participation in the affair.

After the departure of the Hawkins family from Middletown, I returned
home to see what had become of S.D. Burris and his four men. I found
them taking some solid refreshment, preparatory to taking a long walk in
the snow. They left about nine P.M., for Wilmington. I sent by S.D.
Burris a letter to Thomas Garrett, detailing the arrest and commitment
of S. Hawkins and family to New Castle jail. They all arrived safely in
Wilmington before daylight next morning. Burris waited to hear the
result of the expedition to New Castle; and actually had the pleasure of
seeing S. Hawkins and family arrive in Wilmington.

Samuel Burris returned to my house early on Third day morning, with a
letter from Thomas Garrett, giving me a description of the whole
transaction. My joy on this occasion was great! and I returned thanks to
God for this wonderful escape of so many human beings from the
charnel-house of Slavery.

OFFICERS OF THE ROAD.

[Illustration: JOHN HUNN]

[Illustration: SAMUEL RHOADS]

[Illustration: WILLIAM WHIPPER]

[Illustration: SAMUEL D. BURRIS]

Of course this circumstance excited the ire of many pro-slavery editors
in Maryland. I had copies of several papers sent me, wherein I was
described as a man unfit to live in a civilized community, and calling
upon the inhabitants of Middletown to expel such a dangerous person from
that neighborhood! They also told exactly where I lived, which enabled
many a poor fugitive escaping from the house of bondage, to find a
hearty welcome and a resting-place on the road to liberty. Thanks be to
God! for His goodness to me in this respect.

The trial which ensued from the above, came off before Chief Justice
Taney, at New Castle. My revered friend, Thomas Garrett, and myself,
were there convicted of harboring fugitive slaves, and were fined
accordingly, to the extent of the law; Judge Taney delivering the
sentence. A detailed account of said trial, will fully appear in the
memoirs of our deceased friend, Thomas Garrett.

SAMUEL RHOADS

Was born in Philadelphia, in 1806, and was through life a consistent
member of the Society of Friends. His parents were persons of great
respectability and integrity. The son early showed an ardent desire for
improvement, and was distinguished among his young companions for warm
affections, amiable disposition, and genial manners, rare purity and
refinement of feeling, and a taste for literary pursuits. Preferring as
his associates those to whom he looked for instruction and example, and
aiming at a high standard, he won a position, both mentally and
socially, superior to his early surroundings. With a keen sense of
justice and humanity, he could not fail to share in the traditional
opposition of his religious society to slavery, and to be quickened to
more intense feeling as the evils of the system were more fully revealed
in the Anti-slavery agitation which in his early manhood began to stir
the nation.

A visit to England, in 1834, brought him into connection and friendship
with many leading Friends in that country, who were actively engaged in
the Anti-slavery movement, and probably had much to do with directing
his attention specially to the subject. Once enlisted, he never wavered,
but as long as slavery existed by law in our country his influence, both
publicly and privately, was exerted against it. He was strengthened in
his course by a warm friendship and frequent intercourse with the late
Abraham L. Pennock, a man whose unbending integrity and firm allegiance
to duty were equalled only by his active benevolence, broad charity, and
rare clearness of judgment. Samuel Rhoads, like him, while sympathizing
with other phases of the Anti-slavery movement, took especial interest
in the subject of abstaining from the use of articles produced by slave
labor. Believing that the purchase of such articles, by furnishing to
the master the only possibility of pecuniary profit from the labor of
his slaves, supplied one motive for holding them in bondage, and that
the purchaser thus became, however unwittingly, a partaker in the guilt,
he felt conscientiously bound to withhold his individual support as far
as practicable, and to recommend the same course to others.

His practical action upon these views began about the year 1841, and was
persevered in, at no small expense and inconvenience, till slavery
ceased in this country to have a legal existence. About this time he
united with the American Free Produce Association, which had been formed
in 1838, and in 1845 took an active part in the formation of the Free
Produce Association of Friends of Philadelphia, Y.M.; both associations
having the object of promoting the production by free labor of articles
usually grown by slaves, particularly of cotton. Agents were sent into
the cotton States, to make arrangements with small planters, who were
growing cotton by the labor of themselves and their families without the
help of slaves, to obtain their crops, which otherwise went into the
general market, and could not be distinguished. A manufactory was
established for working this cotton, and a limited variety of goods were
thus furnished. In all these operations Samuel Rhoads aided efficiently
by counsel and money.

In 1846, "The Non-slave-holder," a monthly periodical, devoted mainly to
the advocacy of the Free Produce cause, was established in Philadelphia,
edited by A.L. Pennock, S. Rhoads, and George W. Taylor. It was
continued five years, for the last two of which Samuel Rhoads conducted
it alone. He wrote also a pamphlet on the free labor question. From
July, 1856 to January, 1867 he was Editor of the "Friends' Review," a
weekly paper, religious and literary, conducted in the interest of his
own religious society, and in this position he gave frequent proofs of
interest in the slave, keeping his readers well advised of events and
movements bearing upon the subject.

While thus awake to all forms of anti-slavery effort, his heart and hand
were ever open to the fugitive from bondage, who appealed to him, and
none such were ever sent away empty. Though not a member of the
Vigilance Committee, he rendered it frequent and most efficient aid,
especially during the dark ten years after the passage of the Fugitive
Slave Law.

A second visit to England, in 1847, had enlarged his connection and
correspondence with anti-slavery friends there, and in addition to his
own contributions, very considerable sums of money were transmitted to
him, especially through A.H. Richardson, for the benefit of the
fugitives. Often when the treasury of the Committee ran low, he came
opportunely to their relief with funds sent by his English friends,
while his sympathy and encouragement never failed. The extent of his
assistance in this direction was known to but few, but by them its value
was gratefully acknowledged. None rejoiced more than he in the overthrow
of American slavery, though its end came in convulsion and bloodshed, at
which his spirit revolted, not by the peaceful means through which he
with others had labored to bring it about. He had some years before been
active in preparing a memorial to Congress, asking that body to make an
effort to put an end to slavery in the States, by offering from the
national treasury, to any State or States which would emancipate the
slaves therein, and engage not to renew the system, compensation for
losses thus sustained. This proposition was made, not as admitting any
_right_ of the masters to compensation; but on the ground that the whole
nation, having shared in the guilt of maintaining slavery, might justly
share also in whatever pecuniary loss might follow its abandonment.

This memorial was sent to Congress, but elicited no response; and in the
fulness of time, the nation paid even in money many times any possible
price that could have been demanded under this plan. Samuel Rhoads died
in 1868.

GEORGE CORSON

Was born in Plymouth township, Montgomery county, Pennsylvania, January
24th, 1803. He was the son of Joseph and Hannah Corson. He was married
January 24th, 1832, to Martha, daughter of Samuel and Susanna Maulsby.

There were perhaps few more devoted men than George Corson to the
interests of the oppressed everywhere. The slave, fleeting from his
master, ever found a home with him, and felt while there that no
slave-hunter would get him away until every means of protection should
fail. He was ever ready to send his horse and carriage to convey them on
the road to Canada, or elsewhere towards freedom. His home was always
open to entertain the anti-slavery advocates, and being warmly supported
in the cause by his excellent wife, everything which they could do to
make their guests comfortable was done. The Burleighs, J. Miller McKim,
Miss Mary Grew, F. Douglass, and others will not soon forget that
hospitable home. It is to be regretted that he died before the
emancipation of the slaves, which he had so long labored for, arrived.
In this connection it may not be improper to state that simultaneously
with his labors in the Anti-slavery cause, he was also laboring with
zeal in the cause of Temperance. Of his efforts in that direction
through nearly thirty years, our space will not allow us to speak. His
life and labors were a daily protest against the traffic of rum. There
is also another phase of his character which should be mentioned.
Whenever he saw animals abused, horses beaten, he instantly interfered,
often at great risk of personal harm from the brutal drivers about the
lime quarries and iron ore diggings. So firm, so determined was he, that
the cruellest ruffian felt that he must yield or confront the law. Take
him all for all, there will rarely be found in one man more universal
benevolence and justice than was possessed by the subject of this
notice.

Hiram Corson, brother of the subject of this sketch, and a faithful
co-laborer in the cause, in response to a request that he would furnish
a reminiscence touching his brother's agency in assisting fugitives,
wrote as follows:

    _November 1st_, 1871.

    DEAR ROBERT:--Wm. Still wishes some account of the case of the
    negro slave taken from our neighborhood some years ago, after an
    attempt by my brother George to release him. (About thirty years
    ago.) George had been on a visit to our brother Charles, living
    at the fork of the Skippack and Perkiomen Creeks, in this
    county, and on his return, late in the afternoon, while coming
    along an obscure road, not the main direct road, he came up to a
    man on horseback, who was followed at a distance of a few feet
    by a colored man with a rope tied around his neck, and the other
    end held by the person on horseback.

    George had had experience with those slave-drivers before, as in
    the case of John and James Lewis, and withal had become deeply
    interested in the Anti-slavery cause. He, therefore, inquired of
    the mounted man, what the other had done that he was to be thus
    treated. He quietly remarked that he was his slave and had run
    away. He then asked by what authority he held him. He said by
    warrant from Esquire Vanderslice. Indignant at this great
    outrage, my brother hurried on to Norristown, and waited his
    arrival with a process to arrest him. The slave-master,
    confident in his rights, bold in the country of those pretended
    freemen, who were ever ready to kiss the rod of Slavery, came
    slowly riding into Norristown, just before sunset, with the rope
    still fast to the slave's neck. He was immediately taken before
    a Justice of the Peace, whose name I do not now remember. The
    people gathered around; anxious inquiries were made as to the
    person who had the audacity to question the right of this quiet,
    peaceable man to do with his slave as he pleased. Great scorn
    was expressed for the busy Abolitionists. Much sympathy given to
    the abused slave owner. It was soon decided, by the aid of a
    volunteer lawyer, whose sons have since fought the battle for
    freedom, that the slave-owner had a right to take his slave
    whereever, and in whatever way he pleased, through the country,
    and not only that, but at his call for help it was the bounden
    duty of every man, called upon, to aid him; and the person who
    had the audacity to stop him was threatened with punishment.

    But George's blood was up, so pained was he at the sight of a
    man, a poor man, a helpless man, being dragged through from
    Pennsylvania with a halter around his neck, that, amidst the
    jeers and insults of the debased crowd, he denounced Slavery,
    its aiders and abettors, in tones of scorn and loathing. But the
    man thief was left with his prey. Through the advice of those
    who stood by the slave laws and who knelt before the slave
    power, as personified by that hunter of slaves, the rope was
    taken from the neck, and the man guarded while the master
    regaled himself. That night he disappeared with his man.

    I can also give a few particulars of the escape of the Gorsuch
    murderers, from Norristown on their way to Canada. There should
    be a portrait of Daniel Ross, and a history of his labors during
    twenty or more years. Hundreds were entertained in his humble
    home, and it was in his home that the Gorsuch murderer was
    secreted. He must not be left out. I can also get the whole
    history, escape, capture, trial, conviction and redemption of
    James and John Lewis, and one other. They were captured here
    within sight of our house. George Corson, Esq., published it
    all, about ten years ago. Respectfully,

    ROBERT R. CORSON.

    HIRAM CORSON.

CHARLES D. CLEVELAND.

Mr. Still has asked me to record the part that my father bore in the
Anti-slavery enterprise, as it began and grew in this city. I comply,
because the history of that struggle would be very incomplete, if from
it were omitted the peculiar work which my father's position here shaped
for him. Yet I can only indicate his work, not portray it; tell some of
its elements, and then leave them to the moral sympathies of the reader
to upbuild. For, first, his labor for the love of man was evenly
distributed through the mould and movements of his entire life; and from
a perpetual current of nourishing blood, one cannot name those
particular atoms that are busiest or richest to sustain vitality. And,
further, if I could hear his voice, it would forbid any detailed account
of what he accomplished and endured. It was all done unobtrusively in
his life; bravely, defiantly, in regard of the evil to be met and
mastered, but as unconsciously in regard of himself as every conviction
works, when it is as broad as the entire spiritual life of a man and has
his entire spiritual force to give it expression. I know, therefore,
that while I should be permitted to mention so much of his service as
the history of the conflict might demand, I should be forbidden all tale
of sacrifice and labor that mere personal narrative would include; and I
ask now only this: What peculiar influence did he exert for the
furtherance of the cause which so largely absorbed his labor and life?
Did he contribute anything to it stamped with the signature of so clear
an individuality that no other man could have contributed quite the
same? To this I maintain an affirmative answer; and in witness of its
truth, I sketch the general course of his life, that through it we may
find those elements of his character which intuitively ranged him on the
side of the slave.

When my father came to Philadelphia in 1834, his sentiments in regard to
Slavery were those held generally in the North--an easy-going wish to
avoid direct issue with the South on a question supposed to be
peculiarly theirs. But the winds of Heaven owned to no decorous limit in
Mason and Dixon's line; and there were larger winds blowing than
these--winds rising in the vast laboratories of the general human heart,
and destined to sweep into all the vast spaces of human want and woe.
The South was finding, through her blacks' perpetual defiance of torture
and death for freedom, that there was perhaps something, even in a
negro, which most vexatiously refused to be counted in with the figures
of the auctioneer's bill of sale; and now the North's lesson was coming
to her--that the soul of a century's civilization was still less
purchasable than the soul of a slave. A growing feeling of humanity was
stirring through the northern States. It was not the work, I think, of
any man or body of men; it was rather itself a creative force, and made
men and bodies of men the results of its awakening influence. To such a
power, my father's nature was quickly responsive. Both his head and his
heart recognized the terrible wrongs of the enslaved, and the urgency
with which they pressed for remedy; but where was the means? From the
first, he felt that the movement which brought Freedom and Slavery
fairly into the field and squarely against each other, threw unnecessary
obstacles in its own way by the violence with which it was begun and
prosecuted. If he were to work at all in the cause, he determined to
work within the limits of recognized law. The Colonization Society held
out a good hope; at least, he could see no other as close to the true
but closer to the feasible; and, after connecting himself with it, he
seems to have been content for a while on the score of political
matters, and to have devoted himself to what he had adopted as his chief
purpose in life. This was, enlarging the sphere of female education, and
giving it a more vigorous tone. To this he tasked all his abilities. His
convictions on the subject were very earnest; his strength of character
sufficient to bear them out; so that, in a short time, he was able to
establish his school so firmly in the respect of this community, that,
for twenty-five years, all the odium that his activity in the
Anti-slavery cause drew upon him did not for a moment abate the public
confidence accorded to his professional power.

It was in 1836, in one of his vacations, that his mind was violently
turned inwards to re-examine his status upon the Anti-slavery question.
He happened to be visiting his old college-friend, Salmon P. Chase, at
Cincinnati, and, fortunately for the spiritual life of both men, it was
at the time of the terrible riots that broke up the press of John G.
Birney. Both being known as already favoring the cause of the slave,
they stood in much peril for several days; but when the dark time was
passed, the clearness that defined their sentiments was seen to be worth
all the personal danger that had bought it. Self-delusion on the subject
was no longer possible. The deductions from the facts were as plain as
the facts themselves. The two friends took counsel together, and adopted
the policy from which thenceforward neither ever swerved. A great cloud
was rolled from their eyes. In all this turmoil of riot, they saw on the
one side, indeed, a love of man great in its devotion; but on the other,
a moral deadness in the North so profound and determined that it
threatened thus brutally any voice that would disturb it. Their duty,
then, was evident: to fling all the forces of their lives, and by all
social and political means, right against this inertness, and shatter it
if they could. To Mr. Chase, the course of things gave the larger
political work; to my father, the larger social. His diary records how
amazed he was, when he returned to Philadelphia, at his former
blindness, and how thankful to the spirit of love that had touched and
cleansed his eyes that he might see God's image erect. He knew now that
his lot had been cast in the very stronghold of apathy, the home of a
lukewarm spirit, which, not containing anything positive to keep it
close to the right, let its sullen negativeness gravitate towards the
wrong. It will be difficult to make coming generations understand, not
the flaming antagonism to humanity, but the more brutal avoidance of it
that ruled the political tone in this latitude, from 1836 to 1861. I
have thought of the word _bitterness_, as expressing it; but though that
might convey somewhat of its recoil when disturbed, it pictures nothing
of its inhuman solicitude against all disturbance. Conservatism, it was
called; and certainly it did conserve the devil admirably. At the South,
one race of men were so basely wielding a greater physical power over
another race of men, as to crush from them the attributes of
self-responsible creatures; Philadelphia, the city of the North nearest
the wrong, made no plea for humanity's claims. It went on, this
monstrous abrogation of everything that lends sanctity to man's
relations on earth, till slaves were beasts, with instincts annihilated,
and masters demons, with instincts reversed; Philadelphia made no plea
for the violated rhythm of life on either side. Even the Church betrayed
its mission, and practically aided in stamping out from millions the
spirit that related them to the Divine; still Philadelphia made no plea
for God's love in his humanity. Utterly insensible to the most piercing
appeals that man can make to man, she loved her hardness, clung to it;
and if, now and then, a voice from the North blew down, warningly as a
trumpet, the great city turned sluggishly in her bed of spiritual and
political torpor, and cried: Let be, let be! a little more slumber! a
little more folding of the hands to my moral death-sleep!

This souring of faith, this half-paralysis of the heart's beating, this
blurring of the intuitions that make manhood possible, were what my
father found here in that year of our Lord's grace, 1836. It will be
worth while to watch him move into the fight and bear his part in its
thickest, just to learn how largely history lays her humanitarian
advances on a few willing souls.

The means which lay readiest to his use for rousing the dormant spirit
of the city was his social position. And yet how hard, one would think,
it must have been to make this sacrifice. He came accredited by all the
claims of finished culture, a man consecrated to the scholar's life.[A]
Then, with the sensitiveness that springs from intellectual breeding,
one will look to see him shrink from conflict with the callous condition
of feeling around him. The glamour of book-lore will spread over it, and
hide it from his sight. He has a noble enough mission, at all events: to
raise the standard of educational culture in a city that hardly knows
the meaning of the term; and if any glimpse should come to him of the
lethargic inhumanity around him, he can afford to let it pass as a
glimpse--his look being fixed on the sacred heights which the scholar's
feet must tread.

[Footnote A: All that I here write of my father, I write equally of his
co-laborer in the same sphere of work--Rev. W.H. Furness; and if it is
true of others whom I did not know, then to their memory also I bear
this record of the two whose labors and characters it has been the
deepest privilege of my life to know so well.]

Ah, how his course, so different, proves to us that the true scholar is
always a scholar of truth. No matter what element of the public
sentiment he met--the listlessness of pampered wealth; the brutal
prejudice of some voting savage; the refined sneer of lettered
dilettanteism; the purposed aversion of trade or pulpit fearing
disturbed markets or pews;--he beat lustily and incessantly at all the
parts of the iron image of wrong sitting stolidly here with close-shut
eyes. No matter when it was, on holiday or working-day or Sabbath; at
home and abroad; in the parlor, the street, the counting-room; in his
school and in the Church;--he bore down on this apathy and its brood of
scorns like a west wind that sweeps through a city dying under weight of
miasma. And the wind might as well cease blowing yet not cease to be
wind, as my father's influence stop and himself live. It scattered the
good seed everywhere. How often have I heard him say, "I know nothing of
what the harvest will be; I am responsible only for the sowing." And
bravely went the sowing on, with the broadcast largesse of love. There
was no breeze of talk that did not carry the seeds;--to the wayside, for
from those that even chance upon the truth the fowls of the air cannot
take it all; to thin soil and among thorns, for no heart so feeble or
choked that will not find in a single day's growth of truth germination
for eternity; to stony places, for no cranny in the rocks that can hold
a seed but can be a home for riving roots;--"And other fell on good
ground and did bring forth fruit."

Thus it was primarily to rouse those of his own class that he labored,
to gall them into seeing (though they should turn again and rend him)
that moral supineness is moral decay, that the soul shrivels into
nothingness when wrong is acquiesced in, as surely as it is torn and
scattered by the furies let loose within it, when wrong is done. But
just there lay the difficulty and pain of his mission: that, from his
acknowledged standing in the literary world, and as a leader in the
interests of higher education, his path brought him into contact mainly
with the cultured, and it was among these that the pro-slavery spirit
ruled with its bitterest stringency. Not cultured: let us unsay the
word; rather, with the gloss and hard polish which reading and wealth
and the finer appointments of living can throw over spiritual arrest or
decay. Culture is a holy word, and dare be used of intellectual advance
only when the moral sympathies have kept equal step. It includes
something beyond an amateur sentiment; in favor of what we favor. If it
does not open the ear to every cry of humanity, struggling up or
slipping back, it is no culture properly so called, but a sham, a mask
of wax, a varnish with cruel glitter; and what a double wrath will be
poured on him who cracks the wax and the varnish, not only because of
the rude awakening, but because the crack shows the sham.

It is impossible for us now to realize what revenge this class dealt to
my father for twenty-five years. Consider their power of revenge. They
could not force a loss of property or of life, it is true; they made no
open assault in the street; their 'delicacy' held itself above common
vituperation. But they wielded a greater power than all these over a man
whose every accomplishment made him their equal, and they used it
without stint. They doomed him to the slow martyrdom of social scorn.
They shut their doors against him. They elbowed him from every position
to which he had a wish or a right, except public respect, and they could
not elbow him from that unless they pushed his character from its poise.
They cut him off from every friendly regard which would else have been
devotedly his, on that level of educated life, and limited him to
'solitary confinement' within himself. They compelled him to walk as if
under a ban or an anathema. Had he been a leper in Syrian deserts, or a
disciple of Jesus among Pharisees, he could not have been more utterly
banished from the region of homes and self-constituted piety. They
showered ineffable contempt upon him in every way consistent with their
littleness and--refinement. Slight, sneer, insult, all the myriad
indignities that only 'good society' can devise, these were what my
father received in return for his love and his work in love.

How little personal relation all this obloquy bore to him, let this
stand as evidence: that he not only continued his work, but daily gave
it more caustic energy and wider scope. As I have hinted, he did not, in
political matters, give in his adherence to that class of abolitionists
who, as he thought, threw away their best chances of success in refusing
to work within constitutional provisions. He was prouder that this
single community should call him "abolitionist," though it spat the word
at him, than if the whole earth should hail him with the kingliest
title; but he loved the name too well not to make it stand for some
practical fact, some feasible and organized effort. He believed that our
National Constitution did, indeed, hold many compromises with Slavery,
but was framed, in the majority of its provisions and certainly in the
totality of its spirit, in the interests of freedom; and that it only
needed enforcement by the choice of the ballot-box to bring the South
either to an amicable or a hostile settlement of the question. Which, he
did not ask or care. The duty of the present could not be mis-read; it
was written in _the vote_.

With these views, he gave much time and work to organizing in this
State, "The National Liberty Party," in 1840, and to securing from
Pennsylvania some of the seven thousand votes that were cast for John G.
Birney in that year throughout the Union. By the time another election
came, the party had swelled its numbers to seventy thousand. To
contribute his share towards this success, tract after tract, address
after address, were written and sent broadcast; meetings were convened,
committees formed, resolutions framed, speeches made, petitions and
remonstrances sent, public action fearlessly sifted and criticised; in
short, because he held a steady faith in men's humane promptings when
ultimately reached, he 'cried aloud' to them by every access, and
'spared not' to call them from their timidity and time-serving to manly
utterance through the ballot-box.

Of such appeals, his address of the "Liberty Party of Pennsylvania, to
the people of the State," issued in 1844, may stand as a sample. It is a
vivid portrayal of the slave power's insidious encroachments, and of its
monopolized guidance of the Government. It gathers up the national
statistics into groups, shows how new meaning is reflected from them
thus related, that all unite to illustrate the single fact of the
South's steady increase of power, her tightening grasp about the throat
of government, and her buffets of threat to the North when a weedling
palm failed to palsy fast enough. It warns northern voters of the
undertow that is drawing them, and adjures them, by every consideration
of political common sense, not to cast their ballots for either of the
pro-slavery candidates presented. The conclusion of this address is as
follows:

OUR OBJECT.

    "And now, fellow-citizens, you may ask, what is our object in
    thus exhibiting to you the alarming influence of the slave
    power? Do we wish to excite in your bosoms feelings of hatred
    against citizens of a common country? Do we wish to array the
    Free states against the Slave states in hostile strife? No,
    fellow-citizens. But we wish to show you that, while the slave
    states are inferior to us in free population, having not even
    one half of ours; inferior in morals, being the region of bowie
    knives and duels, of assassinations and lynch law; inferior in
    mental attainments, having not one-fourth of the number that can
    read and write; inferior in intelligence, having not one-fifth
    of the number of literary and scientific periodicals; inferior
    in the products of agriculture and manufactures, of mines, of
    fisheries, and of the forest; inferior, in short, in everything
    that constitutes the wealth, the honor, the dignity, the
    stability, the happiness, the true greatness of a nation,--it is
    wrong, it is unjust, it is absurd, that they should have an
    influence in all the departments of government so entirely
    disproportionate to our own. We would arouse you to your own
    true interests. We would have you, like men, firmly resolved to
    maintain your own rights. We would have you say to the
    South,--if you choose to hug to your bosom that system which is
    continually injuring and impoverishing you; that system which
    reduces two millions and a half of native Americans in your
    midst to the most abject condition of ignorance and vice,
    withholding from them the very key of knowledge; that system
    which is at war with every principle of justice, every feeling
    of humanity; that system which makes man the property of man,
    and perpetuates that relation from one generation to another;
    that system which tramples, continually, upon a majority of the
    commandments of the Decalogue; that system which could not live
    a day if it did not give one party supreme control over the
    persons, the health, the liberty, the happiness, the marriage
    relations, the parental authority and filial obligations of the
    other;--if you choose to cling to such a system, cling to it;
    but you shall not cross our line; you shall not bring that foul
    thing here. We know, and we here repeat it for the thousandth
    time to meet, for the thousandth time, the calumnies of our
    enemies, that while we may present to you every consideration of
    duty, we have no right, as well as no power, to alter your State
    laws. But remember, that slavery is the mere creature of local
    or statute law, and cannot exist out of the region where such
    law has force. 'It is so odious,' says Lord Mansfield, 'that
    nothing can be suffered to support it but _positive_ law.'

    "We would, therefore, say to you again, in the strength of that
    Constitution under which we live, and which no where
    countenances slavery, you shall not bring that foul thing here.
    You shall not force the corrupted and corrupting blood of that
    system into every vein and artery of our body politic. You shall
    not have the controlling power in all the departments of our
    government at home and abroad. You shall not so negotiate with
    foreign powers, as to open markets for the products of slave
    labor alone. You shall not so manage things at home, as every
    few years to bring bankruptcy upon our country. You shall not,
    in the apportionment of public moneys, have what you call your
    'property' represented, and thus get that which, by no right,
    belongs to you. You shall not have the power to bring your
    slaves upon our free soil, and take them away at pleasure; nor
    to reclaim them, when they, panting for liberty, have been able
    to escape your grasp; for we would have it said of us, as the
    eloquent Curran said of Britain, the moment the slave touches
    our soil, 'The ground on which he stands is holy, and
    consecrated to the Genius of UNIVERSAL EMANCIPATION.'

    "Thus, fellow-citizens, we come to _the great object of the
    Liberty Party_: ABSOLUTE AND UNQUALIFIED DIVORCE OF THE GENERAL
    GOVERNMENT FROM ALL CONNECTION WITH SLAVERY. We would employ
    every _constitutional_ means to eradicate it from our entire
    country, because it would be for the highest welfare of our
    entire country. We would have liberty established in the
    District, and in all the Territories.  *  *  We would have
    liberty of speech and of the press, which the Constitution
    guarantees to us. We would have the right of petition most
    sacredly regarded. We would secure to every man what the
    Constitution secures, 'The right of trial by jury.' We would do
    what we can for the encouragement and improvement of the colored
    race, and restore to them that inestimable right of which they
    have been so meanly, as well as unjustly, deprived, the RIGHT OF
    SUFFRAGE. We would look to the best interests of the country,
    and the _whole_ country, and not legislate for the good of an
    Oligarchy, the most arrogant that ever lorded it over an
    insulted people. We would have our commercial treaties with
    foreign nations regard the interests of the Free states. We
    would provide safe, adequate, and permanent markets for the
    produce of free labor. And, when reproached with slavery, we
    would be able to say to the world, with an open front and a
    clear conscience, our General Government has nothing to do with
    it, either to promote, to sustain, to defend, to sanction, or to
    approve.

    "Thus, fellow-citizens, you see our objects. You may now ask, by
    what means we hope to attain them. We answer, by POLITICAL
    ACTION. What is political action? It is _acting in a manner
    appropriate to those objects which we wish to secure through the
    agency of the different departments of Government_.  *  *  The
    only way in which we can act _constitutionally_, is to go to the
    ballot-box, and there, silently and unostentatiously, deposit a
    vote for such men as will do what they can to carry out those
    principles which we have so much at heart.

    "Come, then, men of Pennsylvania, come and join us in this good
    work. Join us, to use such moral means as to correct public
    sentiment throughout the region where slavery exists, and to
    impress upon the people of the Free states a manly sense of
    their own rights. Join us, to place "just men" in all our public
    offices; men whose example a whole people may safely imitate.
    Join us to free our General Government from the ignominious
    reproach of slavery; to restore to our country those principles
    which our fathers so labored to establish; and to hand these
    principles down afresh to successive generations. It is the
    cause of truth, of humanity, and of God, to which we invite your
    aid. It is a cause of which you never need be ashamed. Living,
    you may be thankful, and dying, you may be thankful, for having
    labored in it. We have, as co-laborers with us, the noblest
    allies that man can wish. Within, we have the deepest
    convictions of conscience, the clearest deductions of reason;
    and, all over the world, wherever man is found, the first, the
    most ardent longings of the human soul. Without, we have the
    happiness of nearly three millions of the human race; the honor,
    as well as the best interests of our whole country; and the
    universal consent of all good men whose moral vision is not
    obscured by the mist of a low, misguided selfishness: while we
    seem to hear, as it were, the voices of the great and the good,
    the patriot and the philanthropist, of a past generation,
    calling to us and cheering us on. But, above all these, and
    beyond all these, we have with us the highest attributes of God,
    Justice and Mercy. With such allies, and in such a cause, who
    can doubt on which side the victory will ultimately rest.

    "May He who guides the destinies of nations, and without whose
    aid 'they labor in vain that build,' so incline your hearts to
    exert your whole influence to place in all our public offices
    just and good men, that our country may be preserved, her best
    interests advanced, and her institutions, free in reality as in
    name, handed down to the latest posterity."

Is not the love of God and man ingrained in every line of this writing?
Yet let us see how it was received by the most Christian (?) body in
this city.

I need hardly say that my father's mind had been largely impressed, from
earliest manhood, with the highest subject human thought can touch. His
library records his wide religious reading; but he could not see an
honest path towards the profession of any definite views till 1836. The
change wrought in him then, can best be gathered from his own simple
words (under date, 1842) written in a fly-leaf of "The Unitarian
Miscellany:" "Though I humbly trust that God made my trials in 1836 the
means of bringing me to true repentance, yet I have kept these books as
monuments of what I once was, and to remind me how grateful I should be
to Him for having snatched me as a 'brand from the burning,'" Such a
faith as this, born of the spiritual travail of years, what a life it
always has for the heart that forms it! It tells not of a persuasion,
but of a conviction; a disproof of skepticism through the gathered
forces of the soul; a struggle, through epochs of doubt and dismay, into
an attitude of positive vital faith. Its process is the only one that
gives real right to ultimate peace. In comparison with the method and
measure of such a conviction, what matters its specific form? Self-truth
is the point,--the fact for starting, the line for guiding; and as for
result, this lonely and solemn rally on the deepest within us, as it is
continuously unfolded, must lead to a glad and solemn union with the
Highest without us. Who can know unfailing inward energy except through
this new birth? It proved an ever-fresh spring of vigor to my father,
and because of it he was chosen, in 1839, president of "The Philadelphia
Bible Society." What changes were wrought in the policy of the Society,
what numerous plans were devised and executed for multiplying its
operations, how it was made a cordial alliance of all denominations,
will presently appear. This is now to be said: that, after filling his
office for five years, he found that his Anti-slavery testimony had
engendered in the managers a bitterness that would seize the address of
1844 for pretext, and make retaliation in his sacrifice. Thankful, for
the thousandth time, to be a sacrifice for the cause he loved, he sent
in his resignation in a letter full of Christian kindness and sorrow. A
short extract will show its tone:

    "One whose great heart wishes the best for humanity calls to us
    from the West: 'When your Society propose to put a Bible into
    every family, and yet omit all reference to the slaves; and
    when, giving an account of the destitution of the land, they
    make no mention of two and a half millions of people perishing
    in our midst without the Scriptures, can we help feeling that
    something is dreadfully wrong?' This, brethren, is a most solemn
    question. It is a question which I verily believe the American
    Bible Society, so far as they may have yielded, directly or
    indirectly, openly or silently, to a corrupt public sentiment on
    this subject, will have to answer at the bar of Him who has
    declared, that, 'If ye have respect to persons, ye commit sin,'
    and that 'Inasmuch as ye did it not to one of the least of
    these, ye did it not to me.' The spirit of Christianity is a
    spirit of universal love and philanthropy. She looks down with
    pity, and, if she could, she would look with scorn upon all the
    petty distinctions that exist among men. She casts her benignant
    eye abroad over the earth, and, wherever she sees man, she sees
    him _as man,_ as a being made in the image of God, whether an
    Indian, an African, or a Caucasian sun may shine upon him. She
    stoops from heaven to raise the fallen, to bind up the
    broken-hearted, to release the oppressed, to give liberty to the
    captive, and to break the fetters of those that are bound. She
    is marching onward with accelerated step, and, wherever she
    leaves the true impress of her heavenly influence, the moral
    wilderness is changed into the garden of the Lord. May it never
    be ours to do what may seem to be even the slightest obstacle to
    her universal sway.

    "But I have already written more than I intended. In bringing
    this communication to a close, allow me to express to you
    individually, and as a Board, my most sincere Christian
    attachment. Whatever course any members may have taken in
    relation to this matter, I must believe that they have acted
    from what has seemed to them a sense of duty. Far be it from me
    to impeach their motives. Time, the great test of truth, may
    show them their course in a very different light from that in
    which they now view it. I may, as a Christian, lament that their
    views of duty are not more in unison with my own. I may, as a
    man, feel heart-sickened at the diseased, the deplorably
    diseased state of the public mind, in relation to two and a half
    millions of my fellow-men in bondage. I may, as a citizen of a
    Free state, blush at the humiliating fact, that not only the
    tyranny, but the ubiquity of the slave power is everywhere so
    manifest; that it has insinuated itself into our free domain to
    such a degree that there seems to be as much mental Slavery in
    the Free states, as there is personal in the Slave states. I may
    feel all this, but I must not impeach the motives by which
    others have been governed."

There were twenty-one managers present at the reading of this letter,
and, at its conclusion, a noble friend of the slave moved that the
resignation be not accepted; the motion was lost by a vote of fourteen
against seven. It was then moved that it be accepted 'with regret:' this
was carried by the same vote! But 'with regret' was not an empty form
for easing this action to its recipient; how much it meant is seen in
the resolution that was added by unanimous acceptance:
"_Resolved_,--That this Board are mainly indebted to Professor C.D.
Cleveland for the prominent and influential position it has attained in
the regards of this Christian community, and that they bear an earnest
testimony to the sound judgment and unwearied zeal which have ever
characterized the discharge of his duties in his responsible office."
Let this tribute, coming from the bitterest personal opposition that
ever man encountered, measure the work that extorted it. Looking at it,
it will be difficult for the reader to believe that a sacrifice was made
of the man to whom it refers by a representative Christian body, and
merely to sate for a time the inhuman slave-greed; yet it is only one
fact out of many that might be adduced, and I have brought it forward
because it is, in my father's words, "a fair exponent of the position of
the Christian Church at that time upon the subject of Slavery."
Henceforward, he ceased not to rain blows, not only at his own (the
Presbyterian) denomination, but at all the organized expressions of
Christian purpose,--the Sunday-School Union, the Tract Society, etc.

While working thus by voice and pen, he was incessantly busy in personal
rescue of the slave. Especially was this the case when it became the
duty of every lover of his kind to defy the Fugitive Slave Law. How
eagerly he then sprang to aid the escape of those against whom a law of
the land impotently tried to bar the law of our common humanity! During
the years that followed the passage of this infamous bill, the position
he had attained here was of particular service. Recognized as one, who,
being a sort of standing sacrifice, might as well continue to battle in
the front; trusted implicitly even by his bitterest foes; with such a
broad philanthropy to back his appeals; pushing straight into every
breach where work was needed; blind to everything but his one light of
moral instinct;--he became an organ for the charities of those whose
softer natures longingly whispered the cry, but could not do the cut and
thrust work, of deliverance. Dr. Furness held the same position, and
others who, like him, refused to be enrolled in the 'Underground
Committee,' or in any definite Anti-Slavery organization. These men knew
that they were of greater service to the cause by being its body-guard,
by standing between it and the public, by making the appeals and taking
the blows, and by affording access, pecuniary and other, of each to
each.

Thus the times moved on--growing hotter, more difficult and dangerous,
but always working these two results: redoubling the labors of this
noble band, and shaking the city from lethargy into ferment. Men were
compelled to take sides, and but one result could follow, (the result
which always follows when human nature is stung and quickened to find
its highest instincts,) the Party of Right steadily moved to triumph.

For a lesson to us in courage, it is worth while to ask, how these
Apostles of Freedom stood the terrible strain put upon them for so many
years. I can answer for the two of whom I write, and do not doubt that
the answer is true of the rest: This self-forgetfulness was made easy by
a love that filled and overfilled all their moral energies--the simple
love of man, as God's highest creation, and of his natural rights, as
God's best gift. Their work was not a mere result of will, not an
outcome of faculty, not an unsupported impulse of heart. It was
character living itself out, an utterance of its entire unity, something
drawn from the solemn depths of those life-convictions which all the
personal and impersonal powers of a man, aglow and welded, unite in
producing. Hence, their work was not apart from them, even so far as to
be called ahead of them; nor parallel with them; it was _one_ with them
by a necessary spiritual inclusion. Will and Duty ceased to be separate
powers; they were transfused through the whole breadth of their human
sympathies, adding to their warmth a fixity of purpose that bore them
without a falter, through thirty years of such bitter obloquy, as, in
these latter days, only the early Anti-Slavery disciples have had to
endure. These men never said, in reference to the Anti-slavery cause, _I
ought_ or _I will_, because they never needed to say them. The sun
shines without them, and life expands without them; and here were souls
as unconsciously beneficent as the one, as spontaneous in growth and
shaping as the other. Theirs was not a force that moved mechanically in
right lines, with limited objects before it. It did, indeed, sweep with
arrowy swiftness of assail on every point that offered; but when I
remember that it more often pleaded than stormed, that it penetrated
into every secret recess that mercy casually opened, and gently stirred
into fuller life those roots of human feeling that can be numbed by
apathy but not killed even by hate, I know that it was persuasive,
diffusive, inbreathing force, an influence vital in others because an
effluence vitalized from themselves.

So they stood, self-consecrated, enveloped by the love of God, permeated
by the love of man,--twin Perfect Loves that cast out all dream of fear.
And so they walked, calm as if a thousand stabs of personal insult never
brought them one of personal pain, passing through all as if nothing but
the serenest skies were above them. And, as I have said, right there is
one explanation of the anomaly; there _were_ the serenest skies above
them--heaven's love perpetually shining. Why should it not shine? all
the powers of the men were dedicated to rescuing the image of God on
this earth,--not man as he suffered physically, but the moral instinct
threatened with annihilation. It was sacred to them, this soul so sacred
to redeeming love, but too brutalized to find its way to it. Nor merely
the slave. Their love embraced, with yet more pitying fervor, the master
compelling his spiritual nature into death, and the northern apologist
letting his die; and this overmastering love of saving spiritual
integrity, was one power that made them and heart-ease hold unfailing
friends through the obloquy of those days; the other must be found in
the fact mentioned,--that neither resolve nor impulse was their spur,
but personal character moving from its depths.

From such a motive-power as this can come no parade of results. The
nature that works, proceeds from the necessary laws and forces of its
being, and is as simple and unconscious as any other natural law or
force. Hence there are no startling epochs to record in my father's
history, no supreme efforts; in filling the measure of daily opportunity
lay his chief work. I cannot measure it by our ten fingers' counting. I
can only show a life unfolding, and, by the essential laws of its
growth, embracing the noblest cause of its time. But if action means
vivifying public sentiment decaying under insidious poison; if it
includes the doing of this amid a storm of odium that would quickly have
shattered any soul irresolute for an instant; if it means incessant toil
quietly performed, vast sums collected and disbursed, time sacrificed,
strength spent; if it means holding up a great iniquity to loathing by a
powerful pen, and nailing moral cowardice where-ever it showed; if it be
risking livelihood by introducing the cause of the slave into every
literary work, and by mingling the school-culture of fifty future
mothers, year by year, with hatred of the sin; if it means one's life in
one's hand, friendships yielded, society defied, and position in it
cheerfully renounced; above all, if action means a wealth of goodness
overliving all scorns, compelling respect from a community rebuked,
fellowship from a Church charged with ungodliness, and acknowledgment of
unstained repute from a public eager to blacken with scandal; if to do
thus, and bear thus, and live thus, is action, then my father did act to
the full purpose of life in the struggle that freed the slave.

S.M.C.

WILLIAM WHIPPER.

The locality of Columbia, where Mr. Whipper resided for many years, was,
as is well-known, a place of much note as a station on the Underground
Rail Road. The firm of Smith and Whipper (lumber merchants), was
likewise well-known throughout a wide range of country. Who, indeed,
amongst those familiar with the history of public matters connected with
the colored people of this country, has not heard of William Whipper?
For the last thirty years, as an able business man, it has been very
generally admitted, that he hardly had a superior.

Although an unassuming man, deeply engrossed with business--Anti-slavery
papers, conventions, and public movements having for their aim the
elevation of the colored man, have always commanded Mr. Whipper's
interest and patronage. In the more important conventions which have
been held amongst the colored people for the last thirty years, perhaps
no other colored man has been so often called on to draft resolutions
and prepare addresses, as the modest and earnest William Whipper. He has
worked effectively in a quiet way, although not as a public speaker. He
is self-made, and well read on the subject of the reforms of the day.
Having been highly successful in his business, he is now at the age of
seventy, in possession of a handsome fortune; the reward of long years
of assiduous labor. He is also cashier of the Freedman's Bank, in
Philadelphia. For the last few years he has resided at New Brunswick,
New Jersey, although his property and business confine him mainly to his
native State, Pennsylvania.

Owing to a late affliction in his family, compelling him to devote the
most of his time thereto, it has been impossible to obtain from him the
material for completing such a sketch as was desired. Prior to this
affliction, in answer to our request, he furnished some reminiscences of
his labors as conductor of the Underground Rail Road, and at the same
time, promised other facts relative to his life, but for the reason
assigned, they were not worked up, which is to be regretted.

    NEW BRUNSWICK, N.J., December 4, 1871.

    MR. WILLIAM STILL, DEAR SIR:--I sincerely regret the absence of
    statistics that would enable me to furnish you with many events,
    that would assist you in describing the operations of the
    Underground Rail Road. I never kept any record of those persons
    passing through my hands, nor did I ever anticipate that the
    history of that perilous period would ever be written. I can
    only refer to the part I took in it from memory, and if I could
    delineate the actual facts as they occurred they would savor so
    much of egotism that I should feel ashamed to make them public.
    I willingly refer to a few incidents which you may select and
    use as you may think proper.

    You are perfectly cognizant of the fact, that after the decision
    in York, Pa., of the celebrated Prigg case, Pennsylvania was
    regarded as free territory, which Canada afterwards proved to
    be, and that the Susquehanna river was the recognized northern
    boundary of the slave-holding empire. The borough of Columbia,
    situated on its eastern bank, in the county of Lancaster, was
    the great depot where the fugitives from Virginia and Maryland
    first landed. The long bridge connecting Wrightsville with
    Columbia, was the only safe outlet by which they could
    successfully escape their pursuers. When they had crossed this
    bridge they could look back over its broad silvery stream on its
    western shore, and say to the slave power: "Thus far shalt thou
    come, and no farther." Previous to that period, the line of
    fugitive travel was from Baltimore, by the way of Havre de Grace
    to Philadelphia; but the difficulty of a safe passage across the
    river, at that place caused the route to be changed to York,
    Pa., a distance of fifty-eight miles, the fare being forty
    dollars, and thence to Columbia, in the dead hour of the night.
    My house was at the end of the bridge, and as I kept the
    station, I was frequently called up in the night to take charge
    of the passengers.

    On their arrival they were generally hungry and penniless. I
    have received hundreds in this condition; fed and sheltered from
    one to seventeen at a time in a single night. At this point the
    road forked; some I sent west by boats, to Pittsburgh, and
    others to you in our cars to Philadelphia, and the incidents of
    their trials form a portion of the history you have compiled. In
    a period of three years from 1847 to 1850, I passed hundreds to
    the land of freedom, while others, induced by high wages, and
    the feeling that they were safe in Columbia, worked in the
    lumber and coal yards of that place. I always persuaded them to
    go to Canada, as I had no faith in their being able to elude the
    grasp of the slave-hunters. Indeed, the merchants had the
    confidence of their security and desired them to remain; several
    of my friends told me that I was injuring the trade of the place
    by persuading the laborers to leave. Indeed, many of the
    fugitives themselves looked upon me with jealousy, and expressed
    their indignation at my efforts to have them removed from peace
    and plenty to a land that was cold and barren, to starve to
    death.

    It was a period of great prosperity in our borough, and
    everything passed on favorably and successfully until the
    passage of the fugitive slave bill in 1850. At first the law was
    derided and condemned by our liberty-loving citizens, and the
    fugitives did not fear its operations because they asserted that
    they could protect themselves. This fatal dream was of short
    duration. A prominent man, by the name of Baker, was arrested
    and taken to Philadelphia, and given up by the commissioner, and
    afterwards purchased by our citizens; another, by the name of
    Smith, was shot dead in one of our lumber yards, because he
    refused to surrender, and his pursuer permitted to escape
    without arrest or trial. This produced not only a shock, but a
    crisis in the affairs of our little borough. It made the
    stoutest hearts quail before the unjust sovereignty of the law.
    The white citizens fearing the danger of a successful resistance
    to the majesty of the law, began to talk of the insecurity of
    these exiles. The fugitives themselves, whose faith and hope had
    been buoyed up by the promises held up to them of protection,
    began to be apprehensive of danger, and talked of leaving, while
    others, more bold, were ready to set the dangers that surrounded
    them at defiance, and if necessary, die in the defence of their
    freedom and the homes they had acquired.

    At this juncture private meetings were held by the colored
    people, and the discussions and resolves bore a peculiar
    resemblance in sentiment and expression to the patriotic
    outbursts of the American revolution.

    Some were in favor, if again attacked, of killing and slaying
    all within their reach; of setting their own houses on fire, and
    then going and burning the town. It was the old spirit which
    animated the Russians at Moscow, and the blacks of Hayti. At
    this point my self-interest mingled with my sense of humanity,
    and I felt that I occupied a more responsible position than I
    shall ever attain to again. I, therefore, determined to make the
    most of it. I exhorted them to peace and patience under their
    present difficulties, and for their own sakes as well as the
    innocent sufferers, besought them to leave as early as they
    could. If I had advocated a different course I could have caused
    the burning of the town. The result of our meeting produced a
    calm, that lasted only for a few days, when it was announced,
    one evening, that the claimants of a Methodist preacher, by the
    name of Dorsey, were in the borough, and that it was expected
    that they would attempt to take him that night.

    It was about nine o'clock in the evening when I went to his
    house, but was refused admittance, until those inside
    ascertained who I was. There were several men in the house all
    armed with deadly weapons, awaiting the approach of the
    intruders. Had they come the whole party would have been
    massacred. I advised Dorsey to leave, but he very pointedly
    refused, saying he had been taken up once before alive, but
    never would be again. The men told him to stand his ground, and
    they would stand by him and defend him, they had lived together,
    and would die together. I told them that they knew the strength
    of the pro-slavery feeling that surrounded them, and that they
    would be overpowered, and perhaps many lives lost, which might
    be saved by his changing his place of residence. He said, he had
    no money, and would rather die with his family, than be killed
    on the road. I said, how much money do you want to start with,
    and we will send you more if you need it. Here is one hundred
    dollars in gold. "That is not enough." "Will two hundred dollars
    do?" "Yes." I shall bring it to you to-morrow. I got the money
    the next morning, and when I came with it, he said, he could not
    leave unless his family was taken care of. I told him I would
    furnish his family with provisions for the next six months. Then
    he said he had two small houses, worth four hundred and
    seventy-five dollars. My reply was that I will sell them for
    you, and give the money to your family. He then gave me a power
    of attorney to do so, and attended to all his affairs. He left
    the next day, being the Sabbath, and has never returned since,
    although he has lived in the City of Boston ever since, except
    about six months in Canada.

    I wish to notice this case a little further, as the only one out
    of many to which I will refer. About the year 1831 or 1832, Mr.
    Joseph Purvis, a younger brother of Robert Purvis, about
    nineteen or twenty years of age, was visiting Mr. Stephen Smith,
    of Columbia, and while there the claimants of Dorsey came and
    secured him, and had proceeded about two miles with him on the
    way to Lancaster. Young Purvis heard of it, and his natural and
    instinctive love of freedom fired up his warm southern blood at
    the very recital. He was one of nature's noblemen. Fierce,
    fiery, and impulsive, he was as quick to decide as to perform.
    He demanded an immediate rescue. Though he was advised of the
    danger of such an attempt, his spirit and determination made him
    invincible. He proceeded to a place where some colored men were
    working. With a firm and determined look, and a herculean shout,
    he called out to them, "To arms, to arms! boys, we must rescue
    this man; I shall lead if you will follow." "We will," was the
    immediate response. And they went and overtook them, and
    dispersed his claimants. They brought Dorsey back in triumph to
    Columbia.

    He then gave Dorsey his pistol, with the injunction that he
    should use it and die in defence of his liberty rather than
    again be taken into bondage. He promised he would. I found him
    with this pistol on his table, the night I called on him, and I
    have every reason to believe that the promise gave to Mr. Purvis
    was one of the chief causes of his obstinacy. The lesson he had
    taught him had not only become incorporated in his nature, but
    had become a part of his religion.

    The history of this brave and noble effort of young Purvis, in
    rescuing a fellow-being from the jaws of Slavery has been handed
    down, in Columbia, to a generation that was born since that
    event has transpired. He always exhibited the same devotion and
    manly daring in the cause of the flying bondman that inspired
    his youthful ardor in behalf of freedom. The youngest of a
    family distinguished for their devotion to freedom, he was
    without superiors in the trying hour of battle. Like John Brown,
    he often discarded theories, but was eminently practical. He has
    passed to another sphere. Peace to his ashes! I honor his name
    as a hero, and friend of man. I loved him for the noble
    characteristics of his nature, and above all for his noble
    daring in defense of the right. As a friend I admired him, and
    owe his memory this tribute to departed worth.

    At this point a conscientious regard for truth dictates that I
    should state that my disposition to make a sacrifice for the
    removal of Dorsey and some other leading spirits was aided by my
    own desire for  _self-preservation._

    I knew that it had been asserted, far down in the slave region,
    that Smith & Whipper, the negro lumber merchants, were engaged
    in secreting fugitive slaves. And on two occasions attempts had
    been made to set fire to their yard for the purpose of punishing
    them for such illegal acts. And I felt that if a collision took
    place, we should not only be made to suffer the penalty, but the
    most valuable property in the village be destroyed, besides a
    prodigal waste of human life be the consequence. In such an
    event I felt that I should not only lose all I had ever earned,
    but peril the hopes and property of others, so that I would have
    freely given one thousand dollars to have been insured against
    the consequences of such a riot. I then borrowed fourteen
    hundred dollars on my own individual account, and assisted many
    others to go to a land where the virgin soil was not polluted by
    the foot-prints of a slave.

    The colored population of the Borough of Columbia, in 1850, was
    nine hundred and forty-three, about one-fifth the whole
    population, and in five years they were reduced to four hundred
    and eighty-seven by emigration to Canada.

    In the summer of 1853, I visited Canada for the purpose of
    ascertaining the actual condition of many of those I had
    assisted in reaching a land of freedom; and I was much gratified
    to find them contented, prosperous, and happy. I was induced by
    the prospects of the new emigrants to purchase lands on the
    Sydenham River, with the intention of making it my future home.

    In the spring of 1861, when I was preparing to leave, the war
    broke out, and with its progress I began to realize the prospect
    of a new civilization, and, therefore, concluded to remain and
    share the fortunes of my hitherto ill-fated country.

    I will say in conclusion that it would have been fortunate for
    us if Columbia, being a port of entry for flying fugitives, had
    been also the seat of great capitalists and freedom-loving
    inhabitants; but such was not the case. There was but little
    Anti-slavery sentiment among the whites, yet there were many
    strong and valiant friends among them who contributed freely;
    the colored population were too poor to render much aid, except
    in feeding and secreting strangers. I was doing a prosperous
    business at that time and felt it my duty to contribute
    liberally out of my earnings. Much as I loved Anti-slavery
    meetings I did not feel that I could afford to attend them, as
    my immediate duty was to the flying fugitive.

    Now, my friend, I have extended this letter far beyond the
    limits intended, not with the expectation that it will be
    published, but for your own private use to select any matter
    that you might desire to use in your history. I have to regret
    that I am compelled to refer so often to my own exertions.

    I know that I speak within bounds when I say that directly and
    indirectly from 1847 to 1860, I have contributed from my
    earnings one thousand dollars annually, and for the five years
    during the war a like amount to put down the rebellion.

    Now the slaves are emancipated, and we are all enfranchised,
    after struggling for existence, freedom and manhood--I feel
    thankful for having had the glorious privilege of laboring with
    others for the redemption of my race from oppression and
    thraldom; and I would prefer to-day to be penniless in the
    streets, rather than to have withheld a single hour's labor or a
    dollar from the sacred cause of liberty, justice, and humanity.

    I remain yours in the sacred cause of liberty and equality,

    WM. WHIPPER.

ISAAC T. HOPPER.

The distinctive characteristics of this individual were so admirably
portrayed in the newspapers and other periodicals published at the time
of his death, that we shall make free use of them without hesitation. He
was distinguished from his early life by his devotion to the relief of
the oppressed colored race. He was an active member of the old
Pennsylvania Abolition Society, and labored zealously with Dr. Benjamin
Rush, Dr. Rogers, Dr. Wistar, and other distinguished philanthropists of
the time. No man at that day, not even eminent judges and advocates, was
better acquainted with the intricacies of law questions connected with
slavery. His accurate legal knowledge, his natural acuteness, his ready
tact in avoiding dangerous corners and slipping through unseen
loop-holes, often gave him the victory in cases that seemed hopeless to
other minds. In many of these cases, physical courage was needed as much
as moral firmness; and he possessed these qualities in a very unusual
degree.

Being for many years an inspector of the public prisons, his practical
sagacity and benevolence were used with marked results. His enlarged
sympathies had always embraced the criminal and the imprisoned, as well
as the oppressed; and the last years of his life were especially devoted
to the improvement of prisons and prisoners. In this department of
benevolence he manifested the same zealous kindness and untiring
diligence that had so long been exerted for the colored people, for
whose welfare he labored to the end of his days.

He possessed a wonderful wisdom in furnishing relief to all who were in
difficulty and embarrassment. This caused a very extensive demand upon
his time and talents, which were rarely withheld when honestly sought,
and seldom applied in vain.

Mrs. Kirkland prepared, under the title of "The Helping Hand," a small
volume, for the benefit of "The Home" for discharged female convicts,
containing a brief description of the institution, and a detail of facts
illustrating the happy results of its operation. Its closing chapter is
appropriately devoted to the following well-deserved tribute to the
veteran philanthropist, to whose zeal and discretion that and so many
other similar institutions owe their existence, or to a large degree
their prosperity.

    "Not to inform the public what it knows very well already, nor
    to forestall the volume now preparing by Mrs. Child, a kindred
    spirit, but to gratify my own feelings, and to give grace and
    sanctity to this little book, I wish to say a few words of Mr.
    Hopper, the devoted friend of the prisoner as of the slave; one
    whose long life, and whose last thoughts, were given to the care
    and succor of human weakness, error, and suffering. To make even
    the most unpretending book for the benefit of 'The Home,'
    without bringing forward the name of Isaac T. Hopper, and
    recognizing the part he took in its affairs, from the earliest
    moment of its existence until the close of his life, would be an
    unpardonable omission. A few words must be said where a volume
    would scarcely suffice.

    "'The rich and the poor meet together, and the Lord is the
    Father of them all,' might stand for the motto of Mr. Hopper's
    life. That the most remote of these two classes stood on the
    same level of benevolent interest in his mind, his whole career
    made obvious; he was the last man to represent as naturally
    opposite those whom God has always, even to the end of the
    world, made mutually dependent. He told the simple truth to each
    with equal frankness; helped both with equal readiness. The
    palace owed him no more than the hovel suggested thoughts of
    superiority. Nothing human, however grand, or however degraded,
    was a stranger to him. In the light that came to him from
    heaven, all stood alike children of the Great Father; earthly
    distinction disappearing the moment the sinking soul or the
    suffering body was in question. No amount of depravity could
    extinguish his hope of reform; no recurrence of ingratitude
    could paralyze his efforts. Early and late, supported or
    unsupported, praised or ridiculed, he went forward in the great
    work of relief, looking neither to the right hand, nor to the
    left; and when the object was accomplished, he shrank back into
    modest obscurity, only to wait till a new necessity called for
    his reappearance. Who can number the poor, aching, conscious,
    despairing hearts that have felt new life come to them from his
    kind words, his benignant smile, his helping hand. If the record
    of his long life could be fully written, which it can never be,
    since every day and all day, in company, in the family circle,
    with children, with prisoners, with the insane, 'virtue went out
    of him' that no human observation could measure or describe,
    what touching interest would be added to the history of our poor
    and vicious population for more than half a century past; what
    new honor and blessing would surround the venerated name of our
    departed friend and leader!

    "But he desired nothing of this. Without claiming for him a
    position above humanity, which alone would account for a
    willingness to be wholly unrecognized as a friend of the
    afflicted, it is not too much to say that no man was ever less
    desirous of public praise or outward honor. He was even
    unwilling that any care should be taken to preserve the
    remembrance of his features, sweet and beautiful as they were,
    though he was brought reluctantly to yield to the anxious wish
    of his children and friends that the countenance on which every
    eye loved to dwell, should not be wholly lost when the grave
    should close above it. He loved to talk of interesting cases of
    reform and recovery, both because those things occupied his
    mind, and because every one loved to hear him; but the hearer
    who made these disclosures the occasion for unmeaning
    compliment, as if he fancied a craving vanity to have prompted
    them, soon found himself rebuked by the straightforward and
    plain-spoken patriarch. Precious indeed were those seasons of
    outpouring, when one interesting recital suggested another, till
    the listener seemed to see the whole mystery of prison-life and
    obscure wretchedness laid open before him with the distinctness
    of a picture. For, strange as it may seem, our friend had under
    his plain garb--unchanged in form since the days of Franklin, to
    go no further back--a fine dramatic talent, and could not relate
    the humblest incident without giving it a picturesque or
    dramatic turn, speaking now for one character, now for another,
    with a variety and discrimination very remarkable. This made his
    company greatly sought, and as his strongly social nature
    readily responded, his acquaintance was very large. To every one
    that knew him personally, I can appeal for the truth and
    moderation of these views of his character and manners.

    "A few biographical items will close what I venture to offer
    here.

    "Isaac T. Hopper was born December 3, 1771, in the township of
    Deptford, Gloucester county, New Jersey, but spent a large
    portion of his life in Philadelphia, where he served his
    apprenticeship to the humble calling of a tailor. But neither
    the necessity for constant occupation nor the temptations of
    youthful gaiety, prevented his commencing, even then, the
    devotion of a portion of his time, to the care of the poor and
    needy. He had scarcely reached man's estate when we find him an
    active member of a benevolent association, and his volume, of
    notes of cases, plans and efforts, date back to that early
    period. To that time also, we are to refer the beginning of his
    warm Anti-slavery sentiment, a feeling so prominent and
    effective throughout his life, and the source of some of his
    noblest efforts and sacrifices. For many years he served as
    inspector of prisons in Philadelphia, and thus, by long and
    constant practical observation, was accumulated that knowledge
    of the human heart in its darkest windings, that often
    astonished the objects of his care, when they thought they had
    been able cunningly to blind his eyes to their real character
    and intentions. After his removal to New York, and when the
    occasion for his personal labors in the cause of the slave had
    in some measure, ceased or slackened, he threw his whole heart
    into the Prison Association, whose aims and plans of action were
    entirely in accordance with his views, and indeed, in a great
    degree, based on his experience and advice. The intent of the
    Prison Association is threefold: first to protect and defend
    those who are arrested, and who, as is well known, often suffer
    greatly from want of honest and intelligent counsel; secondly,
    to attend to the treatment and instruction of convicts while in
    prison; and thirdly, on their discharge to render them such
    practical aid as shall enable the repentant to return to society
    by means of the pursuit of some honest calling. The latter
    branch occupied Mr. Hopper's time and attention, and he devoted
    himself to it with an affectionate and religious earnestness
    that ceased only with his life. No disposition was too perverse
    for his efforts at reform; no heart was so black that he did not
    at least try the balm of healing upon it; no relapses could tire
    out his patience, which, without weak waste of means still
    apostolically went on 'hoping all things,' while even a dying
    spark of good feeling remained.

    Up to February last did this venerable saint continue his
    abundant labors; when a severe cold, co-operating with the decay
    of nature, brought him his sentence of dismissal. He felt that
    it was on the way, and with the serious grace that marked
    everything he did, he began at once to gather his earthly robes
    about him and prepare for the great change which no one could
    dread less. It was hard for those who saw his ruddy cheek and
    sparkling eye, his soft brown hair, and sprightly movements to
    feel that the time of his departure was drawing nigh: but he
    knew and felt it, with more composure than his friends could
    summon. It might well be said of this our beloved patriarch,
    that his eye was not dim, nor his natural force abated. To the
    last of his daily journeyings through the city, for which he
    generally used the rail road, he would never allow the drivers
    to stop for him to get on or off the car, feeling, as he used
    smilingly to observe, 'very jealous on that point.' Few ever
    passed him in the street without asking who he was; for not only
    did his primitive dress, his broad-brimmed hat, and his antique
    shoe buckles attract attention, but the beauty and benevolence
    of his face was sure to fix the eye of ordinary discernment. He
    was a living temperance lecture, and those who desire to
    preserve good looks could not ask a more infallible receipt,
    than that sweet temper and out-flowing benevolence which made
    his countenance please every eye. Gay and cheerful as a boy, he
    had ever some pleasant anecdote or amusing turn to relate, and
    in all perhaps not one without a moral bearing, not thrust
    forward, but left to be picked out by the hearer at his leisure.
    He seemed born to show how great strictness in essentials could
    exist without the least asceticism in trifles. Anything but a
    Simeon Stylites in his sainthood, he could go among 'publicans
    and sinners' without the least fear of being mistaken by them
    for one of themselves. An influence radiated from him that made
    itself felt in every company, though he would very likely be the
    most modest man present. More gentlemanly manners and address no
    court in Christendom need require; his resolute simplicity and
    candor, always under the guidance of a delicate taste, never for
    a moment degenerated into coarseness or disregard even of the
    prejudices of others. His life, even in these minute
    particulars, showed how the whole man is harmonized by the sense
    of being

        'Ever in the Great Taskmaster's eye.'

    "He died on the 7th of May, 1852, in his eighty-first year, and
    a public funeral in the Tabernacle brought together thousands
    desirous of showing respect to his memory."

Mrs. Child has written a full, and in many respects, an exceedingly
interesting biography of the subject of this memoir, towards the close
of which she says:

    "From the numerous notices in papers of all parties and sects, I
    will merely quote the following. 'The New York Observer' thus
    announces his death:

        "'The venerable Isaac T. Hopper, whose placid,
        benevolent face has so long irradiated almost every
        public meeting for doing good, and whose name,
        influence, and labors, have been devoted with an
        apostolic simplicity and constancy to humanity, died on
        Friday last, at an advanced age. He was a Quaker of that
        early sort illustrated by such philanthropists as
        Anthony Benezet, Thomas Clarkson, Mrs. Fry, and the
        like.

        "'He was a most self-denying, patient, loving friend of
        the poor, and the suffering of every kind; and his life
        was an unbroken history of beneficence. Thousands of
        hearts will feel a touch of grief at the news of his
        death; for few men have so large a wealth in the
        blessings of the poor, and the grateful remembrance of
        kindness and benevolence, as he.'

    "'The New York Times' contained the following:

        "'Most of our readers will call to mind, in connection
        with the name of Isaac T. Hopper, the compact, well-knit
        figure of a Quaker gentleman, apparently about sixty
        years of age, dressed in drab or brown clothes of the
        plainest cut, and bearing on his handsome, manly face
        the impress of that benevolence with which his whole
        heart was filled.

        "'He was twenty years older than he seemed. The fountain
        of benevolence within freshened his old age with its
        continuous flow. The step of the octogenarian was
        elastic as that of a boy, his form erect as a mountain
        pine.

        "'His whole physique was a splendid sample of nature's
        handiwork. We see him now with our mind's eye, but with
        the eye of flesh we shall see him no more. Void of
        intentional offence to God or man, his spirit has joined
        its happy kindred in a world where there is neither
        sorrow nor perplexity.'

    "I sent the following communication to 'The New York Tribune':

        "In this world of shadows, few things strengthen the
        soul like seeing the calm and cheerful exit of a truly
        good man; and this has been my privilege by the bedside
        of Isaac T. Hopper.

        "He was a man of remarkable endowments, both of head and
        heart. His clear discrimination, his unconquerable will,
        his total unconsciousness of fear, his extraordinary
        tact in circumventing plans he wished to frustrate,
        would have made him illustrious as the general of an
        army; and these qualities might have become faults, if
        they had not been balanced by an unusual degree of
        conscientiousness and benevolence. He battled
        courageously, not from ambition, but from an inborn love
        of truth. He circumvented as adroitly as the most
        practiced politician; but it was always to defeat the
        plans of those who oppressed God's poor; never to
        advance his own self-interest.

        "'Few men have been more strongly attached to any
        religious society than he was to the Society of Friends,
        which he joined in the days of its purity, impelled by
        his own religious convictions. But when the time came
        that he must either be faithless to duty in the cause of
        his enslaved brethren, or part company with the Society
        to which he was bound by the strong and sacred ties of
        early religious feeling, this sacrifice he also calmly
        laid on the altar of humanity.

        "'During nine years that I lived in his household, my
        respect and affection for him continually increased.
        Never have I seen a man who so completely fulfilled the
        Scripture injunction, to forgive an erring brother, 'not
        only seven times, but seventy times seven.' I have
        witnessed relapse after relapse into vice, under
        circumstances which seemed like the most heartless
        ingratitude to him; but he joyfully hailed the first
        symptom of repentance, and was always ready to grant a
        new probation.

        "'Farewell, thou brave and kind old Friend! The prayers
        of ransomed ones ascended to Heaven for thee, and a
        glorious company have welcomed thee to the Eternal
        City.'"

SAMUEL D. BURRIS,

Referred to by John Hunn, was also a brave conductor on the Underground
Rail Road leading down into Maryland (via Hunn's place). Mr. Burris was
a native of Delaware, but being a free man and possessing more than
usual intelligence, and withal an ardent love of liberty, he left
"slave-dom" and moved with his family to Philadelphia. Here his
abhorrence of Slavery was greatly increased, especially after becoming
acquainted with the Anti-slavery Office and the Abolition doctrine.
Under whose auspices or by what influence he was first induced to visit
the South with a view of aiding slaves to escape, the writer does not
recollect; nevertheless, from personal knowledge, prior to 1851, he well
knew that Burris was an accredited agent on the road above alluded to,
and that he had been considered a safe, wise, and useful man in his day
and calling. Probably the simple conviction that he would not otherwise
be doing as he would be done by actuated him in going down South
occasionally to assist some of his suffering friends to get the yokes
off their necks, and with him escape to freedom. A number were thus
aided by Burris. But finally he found himself within the fatal snare;
the slave-holders caught him at last, and Burris was made a prisoner in
Dover jail. His wife and children were thereby left without their
protector and head. The friends of the slave in Philadelphia and
elsewhere deeply sympathized with him in this dreadful hour. Being able
to use the pen, although he could not write without having his letters
inspected, he kept up a constant correspondence with his friends both in
Delaware and Philadelphia. John Hunn and Thomas Garrett were as faithful
to him as brothers. After lying in prison for many months, his trial
came on and Slavery gained the victory. The court decided that he must
be sold in or out of the State to serve for seven years. No change,
pardon or relief, could be expected from the spirit and power that held
sway over Delaware at that time.

The case was one of great interest to Mr. McKim, as indeed to the entire
Executive Committee of the Pennsylvania Anti-slavery Society, who felt
constrained to do all they could to save the poor man from his
threatened fate, although they had not advised or encouraged him in the
act for which he was condemned and about to suffer. In viewing his
condition, but a faint ray of hope was entertained from one single
direction. It was this: to raise money privately and have a man at the
auction on the day of sale to purchase him.

John Hunn and Thomas Garrett were too well known as Abolitionists to
undertake this mission. A friend indeed, was desirable, but none other
would do than such an one as would not be suspected. Mr. McKim thought
that a man who might be taken for a negro trader would be the right kind
of a man to send on this errand. Garrett and Hunn being consulted
heartily acquiesced in this plan, and after much reflection and inquiry,
Isaac S. Flint, an uncompromising abolitionist, living in Wilmington,
Delaware, was elected to buy Burris at the sale, providing that he was
not run up to a figure exceeding the amount in hand.

Flint's abhorrence of Slavery combined with his fearlessness, cool
bearing, and perfect knowledge from what he had read of the usages of
traders at slave sales, without question admirably fitted him to play
the part of a trader for the time being.

When the hour arrived, the doomed man was placed on the auction-block.
Two traders from Baltimore were known to be present; how many others the
friends of Burris knew not. The usual opportunity was given to traders
and speculators to thoroughly examine the property on the block, and