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: 625   Enlarge and print image (51K)

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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: 625   Enlarge and print image (51K)

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PAMPHLET—TO THE F&IENDS OF THE SLA VE. 599 FUGITIVE SLAVES.—We next torn to the communication of another warm friend to the fugitives in the State of ————. The following is an extract from a recent letter of his: " We have had within, the last week just nineteen Underground passengers. Fifteen came last Saturday, between the hoars of six in the morning and eleven at night. Three only were females, wives of men in the parties, the rest were all able-bodied young men. That they were all likely-looking it needed no southern eye to decide, and that their hearts burned within them for freedom was apparent in every look of their countenances. But it is only of one arrival that my time will allow me to speak on the present occasion. This consisted of two married couples, and two single young men. They had been a week on the way. To accomplish the desired object they could see no way so feasible as to cross the ———— Bay. By inquiry they gained instructions as to the direction they should steer to strike for the lighthouse on the opposite shore. Consequently they invested six dollars in a little boat, and at once prepared themselves for this most fearful adventure. To the water and their little bark they stealthily repaired, and off they started. For some distance they rowed not far from the shore. Being in sight of land, they were spied by the ever-watchful slave-holder or some one not favorable to their escape. Hence a small boat, containing four white men, soon put out after the fugitives. On overhauling them, stern orders were given to surrender. The boat the runaways were in was claimed, if not the party themselves. With determined words the fugitives declared that the boat was their own property, and that they would not give it up; they said they would die before they would do so. At this sign of resistance one of the white men, with an oar, struck the head of cue of the fugitives, which knocked him down. At the same moment another white man seized the chain of their boat, and the struggle became fearful in the extreme for a few moments. However, the same spirit that 'prompted the effort to be free, moved one of the heroic black bond men to apply the oar to the head of one of their pursuers, which straightway laid liira prostrate. The whites, like old Apollyon in the Pilgrim's Progress, at this decided Indication that their precious lives might not 1x3 spared if they did not avail themselves of an immediate retreat, suddenly parted from their antagonists. Xot being contented, however, thus to give up the struggle, after getting some yards off, they fired a loaded gun in the midst of the fugitives, peppering two of them considerably about the head and face, and one about the arms. As the shot was light they were not much damaged, however, at any rate not discouraged. Not forgetting which way to steer across the bay, in the direction of the lighthouse, they rowed for that point with all -possible speed, but their bark being light, and the wind and rough water by no means manageable,