Part 104

The present volume is a narrative, or rather a collection of narratives, of the adventures of slaves on their way to freedom. The style is perfectly simple and unaffected, and it is well that it is so. The facts and incidents related are themselves so full of interest and dramatic intenseness as to need no coloring. The narratives throughout have the mark of truth upon them, and are based on authentic records. American history would not be complete without some such book as this, written by one within the circle of those devoted philanthropists who were so fearless and unremitting in their efforts for human freedom.

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_FROM THE PROVIDENCE PRESS, PROVIDENCE, R.I._

This large volume is full of facts. To read its pages is to bring the past up with vividness. Many of those who fought with the worse than Ephesus' beasts encountered by Paul, to wit, the man-hunters of the South, we knew personally, and their narratives as given in this volume we can vouch for, having received their accounts at the time, from their own lips. Historically the book is valuable, because it is fact and not fiction, although fifty years from to-day it will read like fiction to the then living.

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_FROM THE NEWBURYPORT HERALD, MASS._

It is not a romance, but it is a storehouse of materials which will hereafter be used in literature, and be studied, not only by historians, dramatists and novelists, but also by those who will seek to comprehend and realize the fact, that there has been, in this country, a condition of society and law which made the Underground railroad possible.

THE UNDERGROUND RAILROAD,

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BY WILLIAM STILL.

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AN AUTHENTIC RECORD OF THE WONDERFUL HARDSHIPS, HAIRBREADTH ESCAPES, AND DEATH STRUGGLES WHICH MARK THE TRACK FROM SLAVERY TO FREEDOM IN THE UNITED STATES.

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This is one of the most remarkable volumes of the century. Its publication has only been made possible by a combination of circumstances which seldom attend the birth of a book. Before emancipation, and while the bane of slavery was on the country, the thrilling facts of this volume could not have been made public. Peace and the blessing of freedom permit their publication, free circulation and unmolested reading.

Of all the thousands who favored freedom for the slaves, who gloried in the odium attached to anti-slaveryism, who witnessed the frequent efforts of the bondsmen to escape, who aided them in their quest for liberty, few dared to take notes of what they witnessed, and fewer still dared to preserve them, lest they should be turned into witnesses against them.

But one man, and that the author of this book, is known to have succeeded in preserving anything like a full account of the workings of the UNDERGROUND RAILROAD, as it was called before emancipation. These records grew on his hands during the years he acted as Chairman of the Philadelphia Branch of that celebrated corporation, until they reached the extent of the present volume. They are made up of letters received, of interviews held, of narratives taken down at the time, of real reminiscence and authentic biography. Nothing imaginative enters into the composition of the volume. It is simply succinct history, always startling, sometimes bloody. The annals of no time since the Inquisition are so full of daring ventures for life and liberty or heroic endurance under most trying circumstances.

As a history of the UNDERGROUND RAILROAD, the work is most curious and valuable. It tells of an ingenuity and faithfulness on the part of the officials of the road which seems well-nigh marvellous. As its pages reveal the methods by which aid was given to the escaping slave, one is compelled to wonder almost as if he were facing a revelation. The secrets of Masonry are not more mysterious than were the ways of these officials who clothed, fed and comforted the fugitive, while they apparently never knew his name or whereabouts. Even those who never believed in the existence of an UNDERGROUND RAILWAY, or who, believing, cursed its existence, will read its history, at this time, with the relish of astonishment and the zest of discoverers.

But the book has a higher meaning and use. It is curious and hitherto unprinted history to the white race. To the black race, and especially that part of it once slave, it is more than a history of a time of peril. It is for them what Exodus was to the fugitives from Egypt, a history and an inspiration as well. They may learn from it of their heroes and how deeply the love of liberty was implanted in their bosoms. The Swiss never tire of the story of their Tell, nor the Welsh of that of their Glendower. Every nation has its exemplar, whose bravery and virtues are a perpetual lesson and source of admiration. The colored race may now read of its real heroes, its Joshuas, Spartacuses, Tells and Glendowers, among the list of those who silently broke their chains and dared everything in order to breathe the sweet air of liberty. They are not blazoned heroes, full of loud deeds and great names, but quiet examples of what fortitude can achieve where freedom is the goal.

It is time now that the colored race should know something of the steps which led from Egypt to Canaan, something of their own contributions to the grand march of the tribes across and beyond the Red Sea. There are no slaves beneath the starry flag. All may read who will, and what they will. For the colored man no history can be more instructive and inspiring than this, of his own making, and written by one of his own race. The generations are growing in light. Not to know of those who were stronger than shackles, who were pioneers in the grand advance toward freedom; not to know of what characters the race could produce when straightened by circumstances, nor of those small beginnings which ended in triumphant emancipation, will, in a short time, be a reproach.

This History of the hardships and struggles of those of their own race is more for them than for mankind at large. It furnishes the world proof that, though slaves, they were nevertheless men. It furnishes them proof that the heroic abounds in their race as in others, and that achievement follows persistent effort, as well with them as with others. The volume will be not only their admiration but constant encouragement. In its pages one is not invited to hard, dry reading. It is narrative in style, simple in language, and possesses the thrill and pathos of a novel. In all its parts it is an evidence of the saying that "Truth is stranger than fiction."

The author scarcely needs an introduction to the public. He is a scholarly, successful business man of Philadelphia, who has long been identified with churches, charities and every project for ameliorating the condition of his race. His word in all things is as good as his bond. An ardent member of the Anti-Slavery Society, and an active officer of the Underground Railroad Company, he made his book as a business man makes his ledger, viz.: by noting daily the transactions of the day. How he preserved them does not matter much now, but if a certain loft in the chapel of an old cemetery could speak, it might a tale unfold.

The volume is quite large and commanding in appearance. It consists of about 800 pages, clearly printed on beautiful white paper, making the largest book ever written by a colored person in this country.

An attractive feature of the book, one which has added largely to its cost, and one which greatly enhances its value to the reader, is its illustrations. These are over seventy in number, and they are made to illustrate the most striking portions of the work. They represent night escapes and day encounters, on land and river, receptions on the soil of freedom, characters of note among the fugitives, and many of those among the anti-slavery people whose names have become historic. It is seldom a volume is seen which so abounds in apt and striking illustration.

The field for the sale of this volume is immense. It will prove desirable as a curious contribution to the literature of the times, and will be bought in every home North and South, East and West, where reading is cherished. It is pre-eminently the book for the colored race. There is not a colored man or woman in the whole land who will not want to possess it. Even if he cannot read, he will want it for his children. It will be their history and their story for generations.

We have fixed the price at a very low figure, so as to completely answer all pleas of poverty or hard times.

The whole book of _800 SUPER-ROYAL OCTAVO PAGES_ is filled with the thrilling History of the Secret work of the U.G.R.R., giving an authentic account of the wonderful Escapes and Daring Deeds, the Endurance and Sacrifice of men and women in their efforts for freedom. It is BEAUTIFULLY ILLUSTRATED and substantially bound, and furnished at the following _VERY LOW PRICES:_

IN FINE ENGLISH CLOTH, PANNELLED,............... $3.00 IN BEAUTIFUL EMBOSSED MOROCCO, GILT CENTRE, ... 4.00

Every book corresponds with above description or the subscriber is not bound to take it.

PEOPLE'S PUBLISHING CO.,

26 SO. 7TH ST., PHILADELPHIA, PA., CINCINNATI, O.,

CHICAGO, ILL., OR, ST. LOUIS, MO.

_FROM THE "NATION," N.Y._

It is, nevertheless, a chapter in our history which connot be skipped or obliterated, inasmuch as it marks one stage of the disease of which the crisis was passed at Gettysburg. It is one, too, for which we ought not to be dependent on tradition; and, all things considered, no one was so well qualified as Mr. Still to reproduce that phase of it with which he was so intimately concerned, as chairman of the Acting Committee of the Vigilance Committee of Philadelphia.

Of all the Border States, Pennsylvania was the most accessible to fugitives from slavery; and as the organization just named was probably the most perfect and efficient of its kind, and served as a distributor to the branches in other States, its record doubtless covers the larger part of the field of operations of the Underground Railroad; or, in other words, of the systematic but secret efforts to promote the escape of slaves.

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_FROM THE CHRISTIAN UNION, N.Y._

"The narratives themselves, told with the simplicity and directness of obvious truth, are full of terror, of pathos, the shame of human baseness and the glory of human virtue; and though the time is not yet sufficiently distant from the date of their occurrence to give to this record the universal acceptance it deserves, there are few, we think, even now, who can read it without amazement that such things could be in our very day, and be regarded with such general apathy. When the question, still so momentous and exciting, of the relations of the two races in this country, shall have passed from the vortex of political strife and social prejudice, and taken its place among the ethical axioms of a Christian civilization, then this faithful account of some of the darkest and some of the brightest incidents in our history--this cyclopædia of all the virtues and all the vices of humanity--will be accepted as a most valuable contribution to the annals of one of the important eras of the world."

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_FROM THE "LUTHERAN OBSERVER," PHILADELPHIA._

"It is a remarkable book in many respects. Like the 'Key to Uncle Tom's Cabin,' by Mrs. Stowe, it reveals many of the most thrilling personal dramas and tragedies in the entire history of slavery. That 'truth is stranger than fiction' has hundreds of striking illustrations in this volume, which is a narrative of facts, the records of which were kept by Mr. Still, and are the only records in existence of the famous organization known as the Underground Railroad. It was established for the purpose of aiding slaves to escape from their masters in the South, but its operations were so mysterious and secret that, although everybody knew and spoke vaguely of its existence during the time of slavery, yet none but the initiated knew the secrets of its management and operations. These are now revealed for the first time in this work, and are as strange and wonderful as the most absorbing pictures of romance."

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_FROM, THE CHRISTIAN RECORDER, PHILA._

There has been no such work produced by any colored man in the country. "My Bondage and my Freedom," by Douglass, was a remarkable book, and was justly appreciated by the liberty-loving people of the North and of England, but it was the story of a single hero. Comparatively, the same may be said of the lives of Jermain Logan and others. But all these were but the exploits of individuals. The work of Mr. Still, however, takes a broader scope. It is the story of scores of heroes--heroes that equalled Douglass in nerve, and Logan in tact, and excelled either in thrilling adventure.

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_FROM "ZION'S HERALD," BOSTON._

"It is a big book in manner, matter, and spirit; the biggest book America has yet written. It is our 'Book of Martyrs,' and William Still is our Fox the Chronicler. It is the 'thousand witnesses' of Theodore Weld, enlarged and intensified. It is more than Uncle Tom, Wilson's 'History of the Anti-slavery War,' or the hundred histories of the war itself....

"The book is well illustrated with portraits of the railroad managers, and with scenes taken from life, and is far the most entertaining and instructive story ever issued from the American press. Everybody should buy, read, and transmit to his children these annals of our heroic age."

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_FROM THE "MORNING STAR," DOVER, NEW HAMPSHIRE._

"The work is intensely interesting. Many of the narratives thrill the reader through and through. Some of them awaken an indignation, a horror, or a sense of humiliation and shame that makes the blood curdle or the cheek flush, or the breathing difficult. The best and the worst sides of human nature are successfully exhibited. Here heroism and patience stand out transfigured; there selfishness and brutality hold carnival till it seems as though justice had been exiled and God had forgotten his own. The number of cases reported is very large, and the method in which the author has done his work is commendable. There is no rhetorical ambition. The narratives are embodied in plain language. The facts are left to make their own impression, without an attempt to embellish them by the aid of imagination. And the work is timely."

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_FROM THE "FRIENDS' REVIEW," PHILADELPHIA._

"We are glad to see this book. We anticipate for it a large circulation, and a permanent rank in a peculiar and painful department of history. The writer is one among very many who are entitled to the hearty support of philanthropists for their services rendered, often at considerable sacrifices and imminent peril, for the rescue and aid of those who were wickedly held in bondage.... The _Underground Railroad_ should have a place in every comprehensive library, private or public.

End of Project Gutenberg's The Underground Railroad, by William Still