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: 468   Enlarge and print image (46K)

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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: 468   Enlarge and print image (46K)

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ARRIVAL FROM MARYLAND, 1858. 443 free land, but unfortunately the pursuers were on their track ; the wife was captured and carried back, but the husband escaped. It was particularly with a view of saving his poor wife that Townsend was induced to peril his life, for she (the wife) was not owned by the same party who owned Towns-end, and was on the eve of being taken by her owners some fifty miles distant into the country, where the chances for intercourse between husband and wife would no longer be favorable. Rather than submit to such an outrage, Townsend and his wife made the attempt aforementioned. ARRIVAL FROM MARYLAND, 1858. EDWARD CABKOLL. EDWARD, a youthful passenger about twenty-one years of age, slow of speech, with a stammering utterance, and apparently crushed iii spirits, claimed succor and aid of the Committee. At first the Committee felt a little puzzled to understand, how one, apparently so deficient, could succeed in surmounting the usual difficulties consequent upon traveling, via the Underground Rail Road; but in conversing with him, they found him possessed of more intelligence than they had supposed; indeed, they perceived that he could read and write a little, and that what he lacked in aptness of speech, he supplied as a thinker, and although he was slow he was sure. He was owned by a man named John Lewis, who also owned about seventy head of slaves, whom he kept on farms near the mouth of the Sassafras River, in Sussex county. Lewis had not only held Edward in bondage, but had actually sold him, with two of his brothers, only the Saturday before his escape, to a Georgia trader, named Durant, who was to start .south with them on the subsequent Monday. Moved almost to desperation at their master's course in thus selling them, the three brothers, after reflection, determined to save themselves if possible, and without any definite knowledge of the journey, they turned their eyes towards the North Star, and under the cover of night they started forJPennsylvania, not knowing whether tlicy would ever see the goodly land of freedom. After wandering for about two weeks, having been lost often and compelled to lie out in all weathers, a party of pursuers suddenly came upon them. Both parties were armed; the .fugitives therefore resolved to give their enemies battle, before surrendering. Edward felt certain that one of the pursuers received a cut from his knife, bat the extent of the injury was unknown to him. For a time the struggle was of a very serious character; by using his weapons skillfully, however, Edward managed to keep the hand-cuff off of himself, but was at this point separated from his two brothers. No further knowledge of them did he possess; nevertheless,