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.

[Illustration: THE DETROIT RIVER, AT DETROIT, MICHIGAN, IN 1850,

THE FAVORITE PLACE FOR FUGITIVES TO CROSS INTO CANADA.

(From an engraving in possession of C. M. Burton, Esq., of Detroit.)]

[Illustration: HARBOR, ASHTABULA COUNTY, OHIO, IN 1860,

A PLACE OF DEPORTATION FOR FUGITIVES ON LAKE ERIE.

(From a photograph in possession of J. D. Hulbert, Esq., of Harbor, Ohio.)]

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