A Woman's Life-Work-Labors and Experiences of Laura S. Haviland Part 21

buffalo-robe for my bed, an' dragged it into de woods, and tuck my bes'

frien', de Norf star, an' follered clean to dis place."

"What did you do for something to eat?"

"I tuck corn in de fiel'. When I foun' log heaps an' brush burnin' I roasted a heap to las' a few days; but I was weak an' trimbly to start, an' kep' so all de way."

After this little history I made him take off his vest, which was also very reluctantly done. But what a sight! The back of his s.h.i.+rt was like one solid scab! I made him open his collar, and I drew the s.h.i.+rt off from his shoulders and from the appearance of the shoulders and back it must have been cut to one ma.s.s of raw flesh six weeks before, as there were still large unhealed sores. I told him he must sit here until I called in my son and son-in-law to see it. As they looked upon that man's back and arms, and walked around him, said Levi Camburn, my son-in-law:

"Mother, I would shoot the villain that did that as quick as I could get sight at him."

"But, Levi," I replied, "he is not fit to die."

"No, and he never will be; and the quicker he goes to the place where he belongs the better. Indeed, I would shoot him as quick as I would a squirrel if I could see him."

Joseph, my son, responded:

"I think Levi is about right, mother; the quicker such a demon is out of the world the better."

"I know this is a sad sight for us to look upon; but I did not call you in to set you to fighting."

Many of my friends, and my son-in-law Levi, had thought me rather severe in judging the ma.s.s of slaveholders by the few unprincipled men who had fallen under my special notice; but I never heard of any remark whatever from my son-in-law or neighbors, after this incident, that charged me with being too severe in judging slaveholders. I furnished the poor man with healing salve, and tried to persuade him to rest a few days until he would be able to work; but no, he must see Canada before he could feel safe. He was very loath to sleep in any bed, and urged me to allow him to lie on the floor in the kitchen, but I insisted on his occupying the bed over the kitchen. I gave him a note of introduction to the next station agent, with a little change; and a few weeks after I heard from my friend, whose name was George Wilson.

The reporter said: "The first two weeks he seemed to have no energy for any thing. But then he went to work, and quite disappointed us. He is getting to be one of the best hands to hire in Windsor."

This was the second fugitive from slavery who slept in my home--mine being the first house they had dared to sleep in since leaving their old home. A few days later another fugitive came from Louisiana. He was a black-smith. I wrote to a wealthy farmer in Napoleon, Michigan, to learn whether he could not furnish business for one or the other of two new arrivals from slavery. To show the feelings of thousands of our citizens at this date, I will extract a portion of his letter:

"There are constantly in our moral horizon threatenings of strife, discontent, and outbreaks between liberty and slavery. The martyrdom of John Brown only whets the appet.i.te of the monster for greater sacrifice of life. The continued imprisonment of Calvin Fairbanks and others are not satisfying portions. I read your letter to our Arkansas friend, and we are glad to learn that another has escaped from the land of bondage, whips, and chains. In view of the wrongs and cruelty of slavery, how truly may it be said:

'There is no flesh in man's obdurate heart; It does not feel for man.'

"The natural bond of brotherhood is severed as flax that falls asunder at the touch of fire. Let the lot of bitter poverty be mine, and the hand of man blight every hope of earthly enjoyment, and I would prefer it to the condition of any man who lives at ease, and shares in every fancied pleasure, that the toil, the sweat, and blood of slaves can procure. Alas for the tyrant slave-holder when G.o.d shall make his award to his poor, oppressed, and despised children, and to those who seek a transient and yet delusive means of present happiness by trampling his fellow and brother in the dust, and appropriating the soul and body of his own crushed victim to the gratification of his depraved appet.i.tes and pa.s.sions. I would rather enter the gloomy cell of your friend Fairbanks, and spend every hour of this brief existence in all the bitterness that the hand of tyrants can inflict, than live in all pomp and splendor that the unpaid toil of slaves could lavish upon man.

Yours, etc.,

"July 27th, 1860. R.B. REXFORD."

Our blacksmith, whom we called Charles Williams, proved to be an honest and industrious man.

We solicited over seventy dollars for a poor woman by the name of Jackson, from Ma.r.s.eilles, Kentucky, who had bought herself by was.h.i.+ng and ironing of nights, after her mistress's work was done. During seven long years she did not allow herself to undress except to change. Her sleep was little naps over her ironing board. Seven years of night work brought the money that procured her freedom. She had a son and daughter nearly grow up, and to purchase their freedom she was now bending her day and night energies. Her first object was to purchase the son, as his wages would aid her to acc.u.mulate more readily the amount required for the daughter, as she had the promise of both of her children. But her economizing to purchase the son first for the sake of his help failed, as the master's indebtness compelled him to sell one of them, and market was found for the girl of sixteen. Nine hundred dollars was offered, and the distressed mother had but four hundred dollars to pay.

She had trusted in her Lord and Savior in all these years of toiling, and now must she see that daughter sold down the river? In her distress she went from house to house, to plead for a buyer who would advance the five hundred dollars, and take a mortgage on her until she could make it. At length she found a Baptist deacon who purchased her daughter, and she paid him the four hundred dollars. He was to keep her until the mortgage was redeemed by the mother, who was compelled to abandon her first project, and bend her energies toward making the five hundred dollars. After working very hard one year, she was able to pay but one hundred and fifty dollars to ward the mortgage, when her health began to fail. The deacon told her the money was coming too slowly, and that he could not wait longer than another year, before he would have to sell her to get his money back. "Weeping and prayer was my meat and drink day and night. Oh! must I see my poor chile' go after all my hope to save her?" A merchant in that town by whom she had been employed, told her he would give her a little secret advice, which was, to go to Louisville as she had done before, but not to stop there, but to go on to Cincinnati, and he would give her a good recommendation to his brother, Mr. Ketcham, who was a merchant and knew the abolitionists.

They would aid her in raising the three hundred and fifty dollars; but she must not let it be known that he had advised her, or that she was going North. Mr. Ketcham introduced her to Levi Coffin and lawyer John Jolliffe, who gave her letters of introduction to friends at Oberlin, and other places, and by the time she was sent to me she had over two hundred dollars toward the release of the mortgage on the daughter. As her health was poor from constant overwork and troubles incident to slave life, to give her rest I took her papers, and while calling on the friends of humanity, did not slight some of my Democratic friends, some of whom had some years previously told me if I would go to work and purchase the slaves they would aid me.

Consequently I called on one who was living in splendor within his ma.s.sive pile of brick, and reminded him of the promise he made me on a certain occasion. Now was his opportunity, as I was a.s.sisting a mother to purchase her daughter. I gave him the line through which I had received the best of endors.e.m.e.nts as to her industrious and honest Christian character, and what the friends had done for her upon whom I had called, and but for her poor health would have brought her with me.

After listening attentively to all my statements, he arose from his chair, walked nervously to and fro across his room, as if striving to his utmost to brace against sympathy, and said, "Mrs. Haviland, I'll not give a penny to any one who will steal slaves; for you might just as well come to my barn and steal my horse or wheat as to help slaves to Canada, out of the reach of their owners."

"Did I do right," I asked, "in rescuing that Hamilton family from the grasp of those Tennessee slave-holders?"

"If I had taken a family under my wing, of course, I should calculate to protect them."

"That is not the answer I call for. I want from you a direct reply; did I do _right_, or wrong, in that case? You remember all the circ.u.mstances."

"Oh, yes, I remember it well, and as I tell you, if I had undertaken to protect a family I should do it."

"I shall accept no prevarication whatever," said I; "I demand a square answer, and it is your duty to give it; did I do right or wrong in that case?"

He drew out his pocket-book, and emptied it in my lap. "There is hardly a dollar, and if I had more you should have it; of course you are right, and every sane man or woman knows it; but my political relations are such I wish you wouldn't say anything about it."

It is no new thing for politics to stand in the way of humanity. A few weeks later the glad mother returned and redeemed her daughter. I saw them together at Levi Coffin's, in Cincinnati, happy in their freedom.

Another woman was directed to me by William King, who, with Rev. C. C.

Foote, had founded a colony a few miles from Chatham, Ontario, for fugitives from slavery. She managed to escape with seven children, and her husband's master offered him to her for six hundred dollars, two hundred dollars less than the market price. I went with her a few days, and received from the friends one hundred and thirteen dollars. Then the sight of one whom she recognized hastened her back to Canada, a proceeding which probably saved us the fate of the Oberlin or Wellington rescuers, who spent a few weeks in jail. A year after we heard the husband and father was with his family in Canada.

A few weeks elapsed when another woman from Cincinnati learned that her husband could be bought for a low figure because of a rheumatic difficulty. She had been freed three years previously, and by industry had acc.u.mulated three hundred dollars. She came well recommended by Levi Coffin and others. While making calls in her behalf in a store owned by a Democratic friend, upon presenting her claim to the proprietor and a few bystanders, a gentleman stepped into the door with, "I see you come to Democrats for aid."

"She knows her best friends," said our merchant.

"I slight no one," I answered. "I call upon my acquaintances regardless of politics.

"I will give you _five_ dollars for every _one_ you'll get from an abolitionist in this place," said the sparkling, black-eyed stranger.

At this quite a shout arose in the store.

"That speaks well for your abolition friends," was the ironical retort of another bystander.

"Who is that gentleman?" I inquired.

"Mr. Lyons, the banker on Main Street," was the reply.

"All right," I said, "I shall remember him." I stepped into Edwin Comstock's and mentioned this proposition.

"Very well; I will give five dollars for the sake of twenty-five dollars from Mr. Lyons," and I placed that in my book. I next met Stephen Allen on the street and I told him Mr. Lyons's pledge.

"All right," he said; "I will give four dollars, and that takes all I have in my purse to-day; but I am glad to give it for the twenty dollars we are to get from Mr. Lyons."

I called upon Anson Backus with my report and he said: "Here is five dollars for the twenty-five from Mr. Lyons." I then stepped into the Lyons's bank. "This, I believe, is Mr. Lyons, the proprietor, who pledged a few minutes ago five dollars for every one dollar I would get from an abolitionist in this place." His face flushed in reading the names with the fives and four dollar bills in the book I handed him.

"There is no abolitionist's name here."

"Isn't Edwin Comstock an abolitionist?"

"No, he isn't."

"Isn't Stephen Allen an abolitionist?"

"No, he isn't?

"Isn't Anson Backus an abolitionist?"

"No, he isn't."