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| 268 THE UNDERGROUND RAILROAD. the master. The father repeated, " I have a right to have," etc., " I am my own man/' etc. " I have found out whose he is/' the hunter said. " I am going presently to take him home with me." At this juncture he seized the little fellow, at the same time calling out, " Dinah, put his clothes on." By this time the father too had seized hold of the child. Mustering courage the father said, "Take notice that you are not in the country, pulling and hauling people about." "I will have him or I will leave my heart's blood in the house/' was the savage declaration of the master. In his rage he threatened to shoot the father. In the midst of the excitement George called in two officers to settle the trouble. " What are you doing here ?" said the officers to the slave-holder. " I am after my property—this boy," he exclaimed. " Have you ever seen it before ?" they inquired. " No," said the slave-holder. "Then how do you know that he belongs to you?" inquired the officers. "I believe he is mine," replied the slave-holder. All the parties concerned were then taken by the officers before an Alderman. The father owned the child but the mother denied it. The Alderman then decided that the child should be given to the father. The slave-holder having thus failed, was unwilling, nevertheless, to relinquish his grasp. Whereupon he at once claimed the mother. Of course he was under the necessity of resorting to the Courts in order to establish his claim. Fortunately the mother had securely preserved the paper given her by her master so many years before, releasing her. Notwithstanding this the suit was pending nearly a year before the case was decided. Everything was so clear the mother finally gained the suit. This decision was rendered only about two months prior to the escape of Richard and George. ARRIVAL No. 6. Henry Cromwell. This passenger fled from Baltimore county, Md. The man that he escaped from was a farmer by the name of William Roberts, who also owned seven other young slaves. Of his treatment of his slaves nothing was recorded. Homy was about six feet high, quite black, visage thin, age twenty-five. He left neither wife, parents, brothers nor sisters to grieve after him. In making his way North he walked of nights from his home to Harrislmrg, Pa., and there availed himself of a passage on a freight car coming to Philadelphia. ARRIVAL No. 7. Henry Bohm. Henry came from near Norfolk, Va. He was about twenty-five years of age, and a fair specimen of a stout man, possessed of more than ordinary physical strength. As to whom he fled from, how he had been treated, or how he reached Philadelphia, the record book is silent. Why this is the case cannot now be accounted for, unless the hurr^ of getting him off forbade sufficient delay to note down more of the particulars. ARRIVAL. No. 8. Ralph Whiting, James H. Forman, Anthony Atkinson, Arthur Jones, Isaiah Nixon, Joseph Harris, John Morris, and Henry |