Chapter X

, pp. 331-333.

These and other similar cases arising from the attempted enforcement of the Fugitive Slave Act in various parts of the country led to the proposal of a Defensive League of Freedom. A pamphlet, issued soon after the rendition of Burns, by Ellis Gray Loring, Samuel Cabot, Jr., Henry J. Prentiss, John A. Andrew and Samuel G. Howe, of Boston, and James Freeman Clarke, of Roxbury, Massachusetts, stated the object of the proposed league to be "to secure all persons claimed as fugitives from slavery, and to all persons accused of violating the Fugitive Slave Bill the fullest legal protection; and also indemnify all such persons against costs, fines, and expenses, whenever they shall seem to deserve such indemnification." The league was to act as a "society of mutual protection and every member was to assume his portion of such penalties as would otherwise fall with crushing weight on a few individuals." Subscriptions were to be made by the members of the organization, and five per cent of these subscriptions was to be called for any year when it was needed.[314] How much service this association actually performed, or whether, indeed, it got beyond the stage of being merely proposed is not known; in any event, the fact is worth noting that men of marked ability, distinction and social connection were forming societies, like the Defensive League of Freedom, and the various vigilance committees, for the purpose of defeating the Fugitive Slave Act.

[314] Pamphlet proposing a "Defensive League of Freedom," pp. 1, 3, 11 and 12.

Among the underground helpers there are a number of notable persons that have admitted with seeming satisfaction their complicity in disregarding the Fugitive Slave Law. A letter from Frederick Douglass, the famous Maryland bondman and anti-slavery orator, says: "My connection with the Underground Railroad began long before I left the South, and was continued as long as slavery continued, whether I lived in New Bedford, Lynn [both in Massachusetts], or Rochester, N.Y. In the latter place I had as many as eleven fugitives under my roof at one time."[315] In his autobiography Mr. Douglass declares concerning his work in this connection: "My agency was all the more exciting and interesting because not altogether free from danger. I could take not a step in it without exposing myself to fine and imprisonment, ... but in face of this fact, I can say, I never did more congenial, attractive, fascinating, and satisfactory work."[316] Dr. Alexander M. Ross, a Canadian physician and naturalist, who has received the decorations of knighthood from several of the monarchs of Europe in recognition of his scientific discoveries, spent a considerable part of his time from 1856 to 1862 in spreading a knowledge of the routes leading to Canada among the slaves of the South.[317] Dr. Norton S. Townshend, one of the organizers of the Ohio State University and for years professor of agriculture in that institution, acted as a conductor on the Underground Railroad while he was a student of medicine in Cincinnati, Ohio.[318] Dr. Jared P. Kirtland, a distinguished physician and scientist of Ohio, kept a station in Poland, Mahoning County, where he resided from 1823 to 1837.[319]

[315] Letter of Frederick Douglass, Anacostia, D.C., March 27, 1893.

[316] _Life of Frederick Douglass_, 1881, p. 271.

[317] Ross, _Recollections and Experiences of an Abolitionist_, pp. 30-44, 67-71, 121-132; also letters of Alexander M. Ross, Toronto, Ont.

[318] Conversations with Professor N. S. Townshend, Columbus, O.

[319] Conversation with Miss Mary L. Morse, Poland, O., Aug. 11, 1892; letter of Mrs. Emma Kirtland Hine, Poland, O., Jan. 23, 1897.

Harriet Beecher Stowe gained the intimate knowledge of the methods of the friends of the slave she displays in _Uncle Tom's Cabin_ through her association with some of the most zealous abolitionists of southern Ohio. Her own house on Walnut Hills, Cincinnati, was a refuge whence persons whose types are portrayed in George and Eliza, the boy Jim and his mother, were guided by her husband and brother a portion of the way towards Canada.[320] Colonel Thomas Wentworth Higginson, the essayist and author, while stationed as the pastor of a free church in Worcester, Massachusetts, from 1852 to 1858, often had fugitives directed to his care. In a recent letter he writes of having received on one occasion a "consignment of a young white slave woman with two white children" from the Rev. Samuel J. May, who had put her "into the hands, for escort, of one of the most pro-slavery men in Worcester." The pro-slavery man, of course, did not have a suspicion that he was

## acting as conductor on the Underground Railroad.[321]

[320] See