Still, William, Underground Rail Road:
A Record of Facts, Authentic Narratives, Letters, Etc.

Porter & Coales, Publishers, Philadelphia, PA, 1872
Call Number: 1400, MSA L1117

MSA L1117, Image No: 711   Enlarge and print image (49K)

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Still, William, Underground Rail Road:
A Record of Facts, Authentic Narratives, Letters, Etc.

Porter & Coales, Publishers, Philadelphia, PA, 1872
Call Number: 1400, MSA L1117

MSA L1117, Image No: 711   Enlarge and print image (49K)

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LEWIS TAPPAN. 683 To my inquiry, have you parents living, and also brothers and sisters, she replied : " There is no child but myself." " Were not your parents kind to you, and did you not love them ?" " Yes I love them very much." " How were you treated by your master and mistress ?" " They treated me very well." "How then," said I, "could you put yourself in the care of that sailor, who was a stranger to you, and leave your parents ?" I shall never forget her heart-felt reply: " He told me I should be free !" * 3. One Sunday morning, I received a letter, informing me that an officer belonging to Savannah, Ga., had started for New York, in pursuit of two young men, of nineteen or twenty, who had been slaves of one of the principal physicians of the place, and who had escaped and were supposed to be in New York. The letter requested me to find them and give them warning. As there was no time to be lost, I concluded to go over to Xew York, notwithstanding the doubtfulness of attempting to fiud them in so large a city. I wrote notices to be read in the colored churches and colored Sabbath-schools, which I delivered in person. I then went to the colored school, superintended by Rev. C. B. Bay. I stated my errand to him, with a description of the young men. "Why," said he, "I must have one of them in my school." He took inc to a class where I found one of the young men, to whom I gave the needful information. He told me that his father was Dr. ————, of Savannah, and that he had five children by the young man's mother, who was his slave. On his marriage to a white woman, he sent his five colored children and their mother to auction, to be sold for cash to the highest bidder. On being put upon the auction-block, this young man addressed the bystanders, and told them the circumstances of the case; that his mother had long lived in the family of the doctor, that it was cruel to sell her and \\cr children, and he warned the people not to bid for him, for he would no longer be a slave to any man, and if any one bought him, he would lose his money. He added, " I thought it right to say this." I then spoke to the crowd. "My father," said I, " has long been one of your first doctors, and do you think it right for him to sell my mother and his children in this way?" " I was sold, and my brother also, and the rest, although my brother said to the crowd what I had said. We soon made our escape, and are now both in the city. I am a blacksmith, and have worked six months in one shop, in New York, with white journeymen, not one of whom believes, I suppose, that I am a colored man." It was not surprising, for so fair was his complexion, that "with the aid of a brown wig, after he had cut off his hair, he was completely disguised. He soon notified his brother, who lived in another part of the city, and both put themselves out of harm's way. They were remarkably fine young men, and it seemed a special Providence that I should find them in such a large