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TASK FORCE TO STUDY THE HISTORY AND LEGACY OF SLAVERY IN MARYLAND (Final Report) 1999/12/31 MdHR 991422 MdHR 991422, Image No: 398 Print image (113K) |
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TASK FORCE TO STUDY THE HISTORY AND LEGACY OF SLAVERY IN MARYLAND (Final Report) 1999/12/31 MdHR 991422 MdHR 991422, Image No: 398 Print image (113K) |
| Untitled 11/7/99 9:52 PM and hours were days during this part of rry flight. After Maryland, I was to pass through Delaware—another slave State, where slave-catchers generally awaited their prey, for it was not in the interior of the State, but on its borders, that these human hounds were most vigilant and active. The border lines between slavery and freedom were the dangerous ones for the fugitives. The heart of no fox or deer, with hungry hounds on his trail in full chase, could have beaten more anxiously or noisily than did mine from the time I left Baltimore till I reached Philadelphia. The passage of the Susquehanna River at Havre de Grace was at that time made ty ferry-boat, on board of which I met a young colored man ty the name of Nichols, who came very near betraying me. He was a "hand" on the boat, but, instead of minding his business, he insisted upon knowing me, and asking me dangerous questions as to where I was going, when I was coning tack, etc. I got away from ny old and inconvenient acquaintance as soon as I could decently do so, and went to another part of the boat. Cnce across the river, I encountered a nsv danger. Only a few days before, I had been at wDrk on a revenue cutter, in Mr. Price's ship-yard in Baltimore, under the care of Captain McGcwan. On the meeting at this point of the tv\o trains, the one going south stepped on the track just opposite to the one going north, and it so happened that this Captain McGcwan sat at a window where he could see me very distinctly, and wDuld certainly have recognized me had he looked at me but for a second. Fortunately, in the hurry of the monent, he did not see ire; and the trains soon passed each other on their respective ways. But this was not rry only hairbreadth escape. A Gerrren blacksmith whan I kne^ well was on the train with me, and looked at me very intently, as if he thought he had seen me somewhere before in his travels. I really believe he kne// me, but had no heart to betray me. At any rate, he saw me escaping and held his peace. The last point of imminent danger, and the one I dreaded most, was Wilmington. Here we left the train and took the steam-boat for Philadelphia. In making the change here I again apprehended arrest, but no one disturbed me, and I was soon on the broad and beautiful Delav\ere, speeding away to the Quaker City. Cn reaching Philadelphia in the afternoon I inquired of a colored man how I could get on to New York. He directed me to the William-street depot, and thither I went, taking the train that night I reached New York Tuesday morning, having corpleted the journey in less than twsnty-four hours. M/ free life began on the third of Septorber, 1838. Cn the morning of the fourth of that month, after an anxious and most perilous but safe journey, I found rryself in the big city of New York, a FREE MAN— one more added to the mighty throng which, like the confused waves of the troubled sea, surged to and fro between the lofty walls of Broadway. http://www.msstate.edu/Archives/History/USA/Afro-Amer/dugl210.txt Page 4 of 17 |