Chapter X; letter of A. P. Dutton, Racine, Wis., April 7, 1896;

E. M. Pettit, _Sketches in the History of the Underground Railroad_, pp. 29, 30, 31; letter of Florence and Cordelia H. Ray, referred to on p. 126, this chapter.

[440] Letter of Mr. Cavins, Dec. 5, 1895.

[441] Conversation with James Bayliss, Massillon, O., Aug. 15, 1895.

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

The identity of a few of the tracings with steam railway lines signifies, of course, transportation by rail when the situation admitted of it. Sometimes, when there was not the usual eagerness of pursuit, and when the intelligence or the Caucasian cast of features of the fugitive warranted it, the traveller was provided with the necessary ticket and instructions, and put aboard the cars for his destination. The Providence and Worcester and the Vermont Central railroads furnished quick transportation from New Bedford, Massachusetts, to Canada.[443] In southeastern Pennsylvania the Philadelphia and Reading Railroad carried many slaves on their way to freedom, and according to Smedley, "All who took the trains at the Reading Railroad stations went directly through to Canada."[444] E. F. Pennypacker often forwarded negroes from Schuylkill to Philadelphia over this road, and William Still sent them on their northward journey.[445] Fugitives arriving at Harrisburg, Pennsylvania, sometimes took passage over the Northern Central Railroad to Elmira, New York. Mr. Jervis Langdon and John W. Jones, of Elmira, took care that underground passengers secured transportation from Elmira to their destination. The fugitives were always put in the baggage-car at four o'clock in the morning,[446] and went through without change to the Niagara River. The old Mad River Railroad bore many dark-skinned passengers from Urbana, if not also from Cincinnati and Dayton, Ohio, to Lake Erie.[447] In eastern Ohio the Cleveland and Western Railroad, from Alliance to Cleveland, was much patronized during several years by instructed runaways. Mr. I. Newton Peirce, then living in Alliance, had "an understanding with all the passenger-train conductors on the C. and W. R. R." that colored persons provided with tickets bearing the initials I. N. P. were to be admitted to the trains without question, unless slave-catchers were thought to be aboard the cars.[448] Indiana and Michigan are known to have had their steam railway lines in the secret service system: in the former state the Louisville, New Albany and Chicago Railroad was utilized by operators at Crawfordsville;[449] in the latter the Michigan Central supplied a convenient outlet to Detroit from stations along its course.[450] The Chicago and Rock Island Railroad from Peru, Lasalle County, Illinois, to Chicago was incorporated in the service, so also was the Illinois Central from Cairo and Centralia to the same terminus. The Chicago, Burlington and Quincy Railroad sometimes conveyed fugitives from Quincy on the Mississippi River to Chicago. Two men of prominence connected with this road, who secured transportation over its rails for many Canada-bound passengers, were Dr. C. V. Dyer, of Chicago, and Colonel Berrien, chief engineer of the road.[451]

[443] See p. 80, Chapter III.

[444] _Underground Railroad_, p. 174. See also pp. 176, 177.

[445] _Ibid._, pp. 364, 365.

The following letter from Mr. Pennypacker to Mr. Still explains itself:

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

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

Thine, etc., E. F. PENNYPACKER.

We have within the past two months passed forty-three through our hands, transported most of them to Norristown in our own conveyance. E. F. P."

[446] Letter of Mr. Jones, Elmira, N.Y., Jan. 16, 1897.

[447] See p. 78, Chapter III.

[448] Letter of Mr. Peirce, Folcroft, Delaware Co., Pa., Feb. 1, 1893.

[449] See p. 79, Chapter III.

[450] _Ibid._

[451] _Life and Poems of John Howard Bryant_, p. 30. Mr. Bryant made a practice of receiving fugitives in his house in Princeton, Ill.

Along the portion of the Atlantic coast shown on the map will be seen long lines connecting Southern with Northern ports. These represent routes to liberty by sea. It is reported by a station-keeper of Valley Falls, Rhode Island, that "Slaves in Virginia would secure passage either secretly or with the consent of the captains, in small trading vessels, at Norfolk or Portsmouth, and thus be brought into some port in New England, where their fate depended on circumstances;"[452] and the reporter gives several instances coming within her knowledge of fugitives that escaped from Virginia to Massachusetts as stowaways on vessels.[453] Boats engaged in the lumber trade sometimes brought refugees from Newberne, North Carolina, to Philadelphia.[454] Captain Austin Bearse, who was active in the rescue of stowaways from vessels arriving in Boston harbor from the South, cites two instances in which fugitives came by sea from Wilmington, North Carolina, and another from Jacksonville, Florida.[455] William Still gives a number of cases of escape by boat from Richmond and Norfolk, Virginia, and Wilmington, North Carolina, to the Vigilance Committee at Philadelphia.[456] Negroes arriving in New York City and coming within the horizon of Isaac T. Hopper's knowledge were often sent by water to Providence and Boston.[457]

[452] Mrs. Elizabeth Buffum Chace, _Anti-Slavery Reminiscences_, p. 27.

[453] _Ibid._, pp. 28, 30.

[454] R. C. Smedley, _Underground Railroad_, p. 355.

[455] _Reminiscences of Fugitive-Slave Law Days in Boston_, pp. 34, 36, 37.

[456] William Still, _Underground Railroad Records_, pp. 77, 142, 151, 163, 165, 211, etc.

[457] Letter of James S. Rogers, Chicago, Ill., April 17, 1897.

Of the terminal stations or places of deportation along our northeastern boundary, there are not less than twenty-four, and probably many more. Three of them, Boston, Portland and St. Albans, were located in the New England states. Fugitives were probably less often sent directly to English soil from Boston than from the two other points, and in the few instances of which we have any hint, with perhaps one exception, the passengers so sent were put aboard vessels sailing for England. The boats running between Portland and the Canadian provinces were freely made use of to help slaves to their freedom, especially as the emigrants were often provided with passes. Sailing-vessels also furnished free passage, and carried the majority of the passengers that went from Portland.[458] St. Albans was the terminal of the Vermont line. Many fugitives were received and cared for here, and were sent on by private conveyance across the Canada border before the Vermont Central Railroad was built. Afterwards they were sent by rail, through the intervention of the Hon. Lawrence Brainerd, of St. Albans, who was one of the projectors of the steam railroad and largely interested in it financially.[459]

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

[459] Letter of Aldis O. Brainerd, St. Albans, Vt., Oct. 21, 1895.

Along the northern boundary of New York and Pennsylvania there seem to have been not less than ten resorts facing the Canadian frontier. These were Ogdensburg,[460] Cape Vincent, Port Ontario, Oswego, some port near Rochester, Lewiston, Suspension Bridge, Black Rock, Buffalo, Dunkirk Harbor and Erie. Doubtless the most important of these crossing-places were the four along the Niagara River, for here the most travelled of the routes in New York terminated. The harbors along Lake Ontario and the one on the St. Lawrence River appear to have been the terminals of side-tracks and branches rather than of main lines of Road.

[460] "They crossed at Detroit and at Niagara and at Ogdensburg. Of those in New England, some went up through Vermont, some fled to Maine, and crossed over into New Brunswick." F. W. Seward, _Seward at Washington as Senator and Secretary of State_, Vol. I, p. 170.

Ohio may lay claim to eight terminal stations, all comparatively important. The best-known of these appear to have been Ashtabula Harbor, Painesville, Cleveland, Sandusky and Toledo, although the other three, Huron, Lorain and Conneaut, may be supposed, from their locations, to have done a thriving business. It is impossible to get now a measure of the efficiency of these various ports, for the period during which they were resorted to was a long one, and operators were obliged to work more or less independently, and obtained no adequate idea of the number emigrating from any one point. Custom-house methods were not followed in keeping account of the negroes exported across the Canada frontier. All that can be said in comparing these various ports is that Ashtabula Harbor, Cleveland and Sandusky, each seems to have been the terminus for four or five lines of Road, while perhaps only two or three lines ended at Toledo and Painesville, and one each at Huron, Lorain and Conneaut. Concerning the port at Huron we have a few observations, made by Mr. L. S. Stow, who lived a few miles from Lake Erie on the course of the Milan canal, and near one of the managers of the terminal, on whose premises fugitives often awaited the appearance of a Canada-bound boat. He says: "We used to see, occasionally, the fugitives, who ventured out for exercise while waiting for an opportunity to get on one of the vessels frequently passing down the canal and river from Milan, during the season of navigation. Many of these vessels passed through the Welland Canal on their way to the lower Lakes, and after leaving the harbor at Huron the fugitives were safe from the pursuit of their masters unless the vessels were compelled by stress of weather to return to harbor."[461]

[461] The _Firelands Pioneer_, July, 1888, pp. 80, 81.

Hundreds, nay, thousands of fugitives found crossing-places along the Detroit River, especially at the city of Detroit. The numerous routes of Indiana together with several of the chief routes of western Ohio poured their passengers into Detroit, thence to be transported by ferries and row-boats to the tongue of land pressing its shore-line for thirty miles from Lake Erie to Lake St. Clair upon the very borders of Michigan. The movement of slaves to this region was a fact of which Southerners early became apprised, and their efforts to recover their servants as these were about to enter the Canaan already within sight were occasionally successful, although the majority of the people of Detroit[462] and of the surrounding districts rejoiced to see the slave-catchers outwitted.

[462] Silas Farmer, _History of Detroit and Michigan_, p. 346.

The places of deportation remaining to be mentioned are four, along the southwestern shore of Lake Michigan, namely, Milwaukee, Racine, South Port and Chicago. Of these the last-named was, doubtless, the most important, since through it chiefly were drained off the fugitives that came from Missouri over the routes of Iowa and Illinois. A single operator of Chicago, Mr. Philo Carpenter, is said to have guided not less than two hundred negroes to Canada-bound vessels.[463]

[463] Edward G. Mason, _Early Chicago and Illinois_, p. 110.

The lines of boat-service to the Canadian termini require a few words of comment. The longest line of travel on the lakes was that connecting the ports of Wisconsin and Illinois with Detroit or Amherstburg,[464] and was only approached in length by the route from Chicago to Collingwood, Ontario.[465] Five hundred miles would be a minimum statement of the distance refugees were carried by the boats of abolitionist captains from these westernmost ports to their havens of refuge. On Lake Erie the routes were, of course, much shorter, and ran up and down the lake, as well as across it. Important routes joined Toledo, Sandusky and Cleveland to Amherstburg and Detroit at one end of the lake, and Dunkirk, Ashtabula Harbor, Painesville and Cleveland with Buffalo and Black Rock at the other end of the lake. Certain boats running on these routes came to be known as abolition boats, with ample accommodations for underground passengers. Thus, we are told, such passengers "depended on a vessel named the _Arrow_, which for many years plied between Sandusky and Detroit, but always touched first at Malden, Canada, where the fugitives were landed."[466] Frequent use was also made of scows, sail-boats and sharpies, with which refugees could be "set across" the lake, and landed at almost any point along the shore. Small vessels, a part of whose "freight" had been received from the Underground Railroad, were often despatched to Port Burwell in the night from the warehouse of Hubbard and Company, forwarding and commission merchants of Ashtabula Harbor.[467] Similar enterprises were carried on at various other points along the lake.[468] So far as known, Lake Ontario had only a few comparatively insignificant routes: at the upper end of the lake were two, one joining Rochester and St. Catherines, the other, St. Catherines and Toronto; at the lower end of the lake, Oswego, Port Ontario and Cape Vincent seem to have been connected by lines with Kingston.

[464] See Chapter III, pp. 82, 83.

[465] Letter of John G. Weiblen, Fairview, Erie Co., Pa., Nov. 26, 1895.

[466] The _Firelands Pioneer_, July, 1888, p. 77.

[467] Conversation with Nelson Watrous, Harbor, O., Aug. 8, 1892; conversation with J. D. Hulbert, Harbor, O., Aug. 7, 1892.

[468] The following incident given by Mr. Rush R. Sloane will serve as an illustration: "In the summer of 1853, four fugitives arrived at Sandusky. ... Mr. John Irvine ... had arranged for a 'sharpee,' a small sail-boat used by fishermen, with one George Sweigels, to sail the boat to Canada with this party, for which service Captain Sweigels was to receive thirty-five dollars. One man accompanied Captain Sweigels, and at eight o'clock in the evening this party in this small boat started to cross Lake Erie. The wind was favorable, and before morning Point au Pelee Island was reached, and the next day the four escaped fugitives were in Canada." The _Firelands Pioneer_, July, 1888, pp. 49, 50.

It is impossible to tell how many cities, towns and villages in Canada became terminals of the underground system. Outside of the interlake region of Ontario it is safe to name Kingston, Prescott, Montreal, Stanstead and St. John, New Brunswick. Within that region the terminals were numerous, being scattered from the southern shore of Georgian Bay to Lake Erie, and from the Detroit and Huron rivers to the Niagara. Owen Sound, Collingwood and Oro were the northernmost resorts, so far as now known. Toronto, Queen's Bush, Wellesley, Galt and Hamilton occupied territory south of these, and farther south still, in the marginal strip fronting directly on Lake Erie, there were not less than twenty more places of refuge. The most important of these were naturally those situated at either end of the strip, and along the shore-line, namely, Windsor, Sandwich and Amherstburg, New Canaan, Colchester and Kingsville, Gosfield and Buxton, Port Stanley, Port Burwell and Port Royal, Long Point, Fort Erie and St. Catherines. In the valley of the Thames also many refugees settled, especially at Chatham, Dresden and Dawn, and at Sydenham, London and Wilberforce. The names of two additional towns, Sarnia on the Huron River and Brantford on the Grand, complete the list of the known Canadian terminals. This enumeration of centres cannot be supposed to be exhaustive. A full record would take into account the localities in the outlying country districts as well as those adjoining or forming a part of the hamlets, towns and cities of the whites, whither the blacks had penetrated. The untrodden wilds of Canada, as well as her populous places, seemed hospitable to a people for whom the hardships of the new life were fully compensated by the consciousness of their possession of the rights of freemen, rights vouchsafed them by a government that exemplified the proud boast of the poet Cowper:--

"Slaves cannot breathe in England; if their lungs Receive our air, that moment they are free! They touch our country and their shackles fall."