A Woman's Life-Work-Labors and Experiences of Laura S. Haviland Part 41

I was told by General Armstrong, commander of the post in Elizabeth City, that twenty-five thousand inhabitants had been supplied with food, and that more whites than blacks had called for rations. There were six thousand freedmen in this district. Twenty-six hundred of their children were in schools; and thirteen hundred were half or entire orphans, that drew rations. They had had no civil court here since March 20th, and no justice was shown to freedmen. There was as much complaint here as elsewhere about their unwillingness to work; but the general said it was only because they got no pay. A few plantations were rented here by Northerners; but they made no complaint for want of hands, and had more applications for work than they could furnish.

General Armstrong secured a carriage, May 18th, to take his wife and myself to the Downey School, a few miles distant, to see what a n.o.ble work the two Stewart sisters were there doing. He took us to a large farm of eight hundred and six acres, rented by a Northern man by the name of Jackson, who said he had worked it three years, and had taken it for two years longer. He had no difficulty in keeping good help.

"All these people want is fair and kind treatment" he said, "to make good and faithful hands the year around. I can not employ all who come for work. I have seen them leave weeping over their disappointment."

Near this place was the school conducted by the two sisters, Emily and Jennie Stewart, of South Hill, Steuben County, New York. They had one hundred and eighty-five scholars, and were doing a grand work among the white people in that community. Two young men were converted through their instrumentality, and were exerting a powerful influence over the white people. They were attending the school, to which a number of white families sent their children. It widely differs from all others I have visited In the South. These earnest Christian girls were emphatically teaching a school of Christ on week-days as well as on the Sabbath. The two young men referred to had the ministry in view, and were very earnest in their exhortations. I addressed the school, and conversed with those young white men, who seemed in a very tender frame of mind. These dear sisters urged me to spend a week with them; and General Armstrong kindly offered to send his conveyance for me at the close of the week, or whenever I might fix the time. But as my supplies were out, I wished to hasten back to Washington.

During the day's ride we pa.s.sed the place of a large Sabbath school, which was first opened by a soldier, W. Badger, Jun., a faithful laborer in this work. It had flourished ever since.

We visited a number of plantations with which the general was unacquainted. He hailed a pa.s.ser-by to inquire the distance to the Old Brick Church. "O, you're smash up to it," he said. I looked up to see it, when he continued, "'T ain't but two miles ahead." The general thought it was three miles, at least, before we reached the old colonial church, built one hundred and twenty-five years ago, out of brick brought from England.

We pa.s.sed through, a forest of young pines that had been rented three years to colored people in five and ten acre lots. They were to receive one-fourth of all they raised, and pay the remainder as rent. Said the general, as we came opposite a ten-acre lot where a man, his wife, and daughter were all hard at work grubbing. "That man will hardly get a meager subsistence from one-fourth of that land." And he inquired of the man if he expected to get his living off the fourth of that lot.

"I reckon so," was the answer. "After we gets the crop in my wife and gal can tend it, and I'll get work by the day while its growin'."

Sunday, May 20th, was a pleasant Sabbath. I attended a large meeting, and listened to a very interesting discourse by a freedman. At the close he earnestly exhorted his hearers to purity of life in their new freedom. He wanted to see all filthy habits left behind with bondage.

"Do not let us take with us," he said, "any habit of drinking--not even using tobacco. Let us search ourselves, and see if we are worshiping G.o.d with clean hearts and mouths."

Opportunity being offered, I made a few remarks from II Chronicles, xv:12, "And they entered into covenant to seek the Lord G.o.d of their fathers with all their heart and with all their soul." After meeting, minister and people gathered around me to shake my hands, until they were lame a number of days. Said one, "Da's took de bridle off our heads, an' let us loose to serve G.o.d." Near the place was the Zion Methodist Church, that had been used occasionally for _auction sales of slaves_. There were thirty acres here, purchased by colored people, laid out in two-acre lots. Most of them had built little cabins, but others were working out by the day to earn means to pay for their lots before they built.

In the evening I visited a school of twenty-five adults, who could not attend during the day. A number of them read for me very intelligibly.

James Wright did not know his letters at Christmas, but could now read fluently. He was sixty years of age. Robert Bell, aged fifty, who did not know his letters in March, could now read in the second reader.

Captain Flagg and wife invited me to take another ride out in the country where colored people had rented land.

On our way we met five carts laden with F. F. V.'s. The captain inquired of one man how far it was to Providence Church. "Sir," he answered, "you are slap-jam on to it; only a mile and a half, sure." As usual we went twice the distance; the captain said he always calculated a Virginia mile to be double the length of ours. This church had been built one hundred years before with brick brought from England. We called on six families. Said one woman, "I tried hard to serve G.o.d forty years ago, but mighty idle; Ma.s.sa's lash so sharp, 'peared like we poor creturs never rest till we drop in our graves."

We visited Ex-Governor Henry A. Wise's plantation of five hundred acres, with fifty cabins in the negro quarters. This was confiscated.

There were many of his former slaves here, aged and helpless, and a successful school was taught in his dwelling-house. Here were seventeen schools under the charge of the American Missionary a.s.sociation, which were taught by eleven lady teachers and six gentlemen. H. C. Perry was the superintendent of schools in Norfolk District.

The Taylor plantation was the next which we visited. It contained seventeen thousand acres, seven hundred acres of which were worked, and ready for renting to freedmen. In Captain Flagg's district there were three thousand four hundred and eighty-six freed children attending day-school, and five hundred and one scholars in the night-schools. One hundred and ninety-two of these were over sixteen years of age. The above included seven counties: Norfolk, Princess Ann, Nansemond, Isle of Wight, Southampton, Accomack, and Northampton, the last two on the eastern sh.o.r.e of Chesapeake Bay. It is well to note the _income_ of these confiscated plantations, that had, up to May 25, 1866, been returned to original owners. There had been paid over by Captain Flagg to government toward liquidating the war debt, thirteen thousand dollars. All of this was the avails of negro help on the government farms, except the Wise and Taylor plantations, that were still occupied for the benefit of the aged, sick, blind, and crippled men, women, and orphans.

I returned to Washington, where I found a request that I should take fifteen colored orphans to our Home in Michigan.

The commissioners having charge of money sent here by all the Free States, for sanitary purposes, proposed to place five hundred dollars in my hands for the two orphan asylums in Michigan, out of the nine hundred dollars that came from our State. This was to be equally divided between Detroit Orphan Asylum and the one in Raisin Inst.i.tute, known at that time as Haviland Home. A majority of the commissioners objected to its being placed in the hands of a woman, to select goods to be purchased at auction rates. Consequently, a young man was sent with me to see that wise selections were made for the little homeless waifs for whom the relief was designed. Being somewhat acquainted, with my work, he said he was ashamed of the vote of the board, in distrusting my ability to select goods for the little children of the asylums, when I had been at this work all my life, and constantly during three years past. But I told him I was thankful to get the five hundred dollars, and could waive their notions of woman's inability very comfortably. He a.s.sented to all the selections I made, and I arranged to return home with the fifteen orphans and forty laborers, who wished to go to Cleveland, Ohio, where their friends had gone for work and reported to them favorably.

I found in these people a strong attachment to their own color; hence the unwillingness for a few to go a great distance without a prospect of others to follow. It was a heavy pressure of persecution that could drive them from their old Southern homes to Washington for protection, and the heavy pressure of want staring them in the face that could induce them to leave for Northern States to find work. Fifteen thousand were then huddled in and about Washington. Hundreds could not get work at ten cents a day, besides rations. General O. O. Howard gave transportation for many car-loads to go to the States of New York, Pennsylvania, Ohio, and other free States. But the freedmen could not be persuaded to go into the former slave States, after having left them. General Howard said Northern humanitarians ought to have a share in this Christian enterprise of furnishing work for the able-bodied and a.s.sisting to care for these indigent children; and he urged me to bring as many as practicable.

Mrs. Ricks knew of fifteen who wished to follow their friends that had gone to Ohio, and said she would a.s.sist me in going through to Adrian, where Joseph McKenzie had spoken to me for eight or ten strong men for his brickyard. If they had families he said he would help them in building houses on his own land, and if both were suited he would eventually sell lots to them.

While calling on F. C. Beaman, member of Congress, and wife, I was urged to rest three or four days, at least, before leaving for home.

But I told them I must hasten home to rest. Transportation was secured for fifty-five adults and fifteen orphans. Before we reached Altoona I found rations had not been provided for adults, and that we must purchase at least seventy-five loaves of bread at that town. As the train halted a few minutes, I left for the bakery, but found that it had been removed a block further. We went on a run, and secured the bread; and I sent the men running with it, so as to reach the cars before they should start. But I was left behind, with three young men who refused to desert me. The men with the bread reached the cars just as they were beginning to move. Mrs. Ricks being with them, I was easy as to their condition. I found I had better keep as quiet as possible, as I was threatened with an attack of dysentery. But transportation, with my official papers, had all gone on, and there was not a soul in Altoona that I ever knew. Yet I was not discouraged, but took the three young men with me to the railroad superintendent's office, and told the superintendent I had come on a queer errand, and told my short story.

"And now I solicit the favor of a pa.s.s for myself and these three young men. But you do not know whether I have given you a truthful representation, for I have not so much as a scratch of a pen with me to prove it."

Said he: "You say your name is Laura S. Haviland. Did you not secure a pa.s.s to Chicago and return, three years ago, of Mr. Campbell, at Adrian?"

"I did," was my reply, "as I was going South with sanitary supplies."

"I thought I had seen you before," he said. "I was his chief clerk, and made out those pa.s.ses for you; and I will give you a pa.s.s, as you request. Would you like to telegraph to the lady a.s.sistant?"

"I suppose," I said, "she will stop over at Pittsburg until I overtake them; but it would be a favor if their baggage could be properly rechecked at Pittsburg to stop over one train at Cleveland, as a portion of the adults are to stop there."

"I will telegraph the freight agent to take special care in rechecking their baggage, and request the operators to telegraph to railroad authorities at Cleveland that this car-load of blacks in charge of Mrs.

Ricks are to wait over one train for you."

I told him if that could be done without fail it would be a great favor, as I was sick, and Mrs. Ricks would have time to send these colored people up town to their friends. He telegraphed all these directions, and also requested the ticket agent to meet me with the pa.s.ses.

While waiting for the train I was furnished with a sofa by the kind matron who kept the ladies' waiting-room. I was met at the Pittsburg depot with pa.s.ses, and conducted to the waiting-room for a few moments, when the young man came to a.s.sist me on the right car. By this time my fever ran high, but higher still on reaching Cleveland, and finding that all had gone on to Adrian. Here tickets to Adrian were waiting for me.

I met brother J. Berry at Adrian depot, who informed me that all were cared for. I left all with the Lord and the good people of Adrian, who knew nothing of my trying experiences.

My children were urgent to send for the doctor at once. I insisted on my water treatment, but promised to comply with their request if not materially better in twelve hours. A few days of rest and quiet restored my health.

Although Adrian was a little alarmed at this new experience of army stampedes, yet in due time places were found for all to work, and eventually many of them became owners of their own homes.

The children of soldiers and other homeless waifs, needed attention, and I found more than a dozen in our Orphans' Home without a shirt for a change. But sister Annie Berry donated forty yards of heavy sheeting, and within two weeks we had a hundred yards made up into substantial garments for these little homeless ones. My health being still too poor for hard work, I spent a few weeks with my son, Joseph B. Haviland, at Acme, Grand Traverse County.

On my return home, I found our commission had concluded to close the asylum work, and expend its means in supporting schools in the South.

They had sold the West Hall, and it had been removed to Tec.u.mseh, and they were about to sell the team and other property. I now stated the motive I had when I gave the deed with a proviso, and said that removing the building was a wrong step for our commission to take, in view of the proviso. I met the commission in Detroit, and laid before them my object, and my desire to make it a State asylum, for the children of soldiers and all others who were in our county poor-houses, that were mere nurseries for the prison. I had inquired of superintendents of penitentiaries, how many of the convicts had been left orphans in childhood; and the average in Virginia, Maryland, Pennsylvania, and our Michigan State Prison was more than three-fourths. Emma A. Hall, matron of the female prisoners in the Detroit house of correction, informed me that every girl and woman under her care had been left an orphan in childhood. In view of this record, and of there being a greater number of that cla.s.s since the war than ever before, I had felt the necessity for this asylum.

George Duffield, D. D., the president of our commission, replied: "We know not but this check is of the Lord, for we are finding it hard work to secure homes for the forty children now in the Home who are under ten years of age." And he moved that a month be allowed me to make satisfactory arrangements according to my design. While I was endeavoring to secure ten-dollar subscriptions to effect this result, J. R. Shipherd, secretary, of the Western Division American Missionary a.s.sociation, sent an agent to purchase the asylum and continue it in its present form. He stated the American Missionary a.s.sociation could not take it with the proviso, but would pay me two hundred and fifty dollars of the five hundred dollars I had agreed to deduct out of the two thousand dollars purchase money, if I should relinquish the proviso. I feared the result, thinking the enterprise might be only an experiment, and might close at some future period, leaving these children a public burden. But J. R. Shipherd pledged his word that no child of whom the American Missionary a.s.sociation should take control should become a public burden, and would further agree to expend on the building and grounds, at least from three thousand to five thousand dollars within a year and a half or two years at longest.

From the confidence I had in the a.s.sociation I yielded, though reluctantly. The agent desired me to take charge of the asylum as matron, ten days or two weeks, as Mr. Shipherd could secure a matron from Vicksburg, Mississippi, in that time. I agreed to do this free of charge. Mrs. Edgerton, whom se engaged as matron, arrived in four weeks.

It was now late in October, and my Winter cough began to trouble me.

This the Southern Winters had melted away during three Winters past, and I concluded to resign my agency in our State Freedmen's Aid Commission and work under the auspices of American Missionary a.s.sociation of the middle division. I secured transportation from General O. O. Howard to Atlanta, Georgia, and again left my dear ones at home for that field. I spent a few days with my dear friends, Levi and Catharine Coffin, at Cincinnati. As the secretary, brother Cravath, was on an investigating tour in the South, Levi Coffin proposed that I should go to work over the river, in Covington and Newport, Kentucky, as there were a few thousand freedmen congregated in those towns. He introduced me to a lieutenant, in whose charge the freedmen's department was left, who took me to a number of barracks, where the sick and suffering were occupying bunks with a bed sack that had, when possible, been filled with hay, leaves, or husks.

One poor woman had nothing in her sack, and that was all she had for her bed, aside from an old condemned blanket. She was suffering intensely with rheumatism. Her limbs and hands were all drawn out of shape, thus disabling her from dressing herself. I purchased some hay immediately and had her moved so as to have her bed-sack filled, and then furnished her with a warm quilt. I procured quant.i.ty of thick red flannel and made her a long-sleeved garment to reach over her feet, and made it before I slept. The next morning I took it to her and saw it on her. The poor woman could say nothing for weeping, but after commanding her feelings, she said, "This is more than I deserve. All the sufferin'

I's had all the year is nothin' compared to the sufferin' of my Jesus for poor me." The colored woman who had the care of her said she never had seen such patience in all her life. The next day I took her another flannel garment, and relieved many others during the month I spent in this field.

Our lieutenant was an excellent man. One day he wished me to go with him to see his old building that he had ordered fitted up for a school for three hundred freed children in that part of his district. But he found that nothing had been done. "Upon my word," he exclaimed, "not a stroke, not a stone, not a window. O, I can't stand this red tape; I just want to leave every other duty and pitch into this house. I know I am too impulsive, but that is the way of an Irishman. I have often thought Peter was an Irishman, he was so impulsive."

I spent the greater portion of New-year's day, 1867, in calling upon twelve families and taking to the sick and aged ones, blankets and clothing. I walked nearly a mile to the ferry, and called at the mission-rooms, where I found the secretary, E, M. Cravath, just returned from his Southern tour. He thought my work was most needed in Memphis, Tennessee. I received from him my commission for that field. I met in his office Rev. A. Scofield and daughter, just driven from Camp Nelson, by returned secessionists. After a very busy New-year's day, I returned to Levi Coffin's for the night, and the next day left for Memphis, which I reached on the 6th, spending two days in Cairo.

In the evening I attended a large colored church, and at the close of the service introduced my work. The meeting, as usual, was very demonstrative. The home a.s.signed me was a Mission Home, with thirteen teachers, Joseph Barnum, formerly of Oberlin, Ohio, being superintendent. It was a rich treat to meet several who had been co-workers in the field of clashing arms and roar of cannonading. But few can realize the strength of the tie that binds those who have labored together in the lion's den. One of the teachers being sick, at the request of the superintendent I temporarily took her place.

On my way to school, one morning, I was conducted to the place where lay twelve dead bodies till the third day after the terrible riot which occurred a few months previously. One of the bodies was half burned. I was shown another corner of the streets where lay six bodies more at the same time. O what horrible scenes were enacted then. My conductor pointed to a charred spot of earth where had stood a cabin in which lay a very sick woman, whose daughter of sixteen years stood in the door pleading with the infuriated mob not to burn their house for her mother was near dying, and it was impossible for her to carry her out. One fiend caught her up on his bayonet and tossed her into the midst of the flames of an adjoining cabin. In a moment her screams of agony were hushed by the crackling flames. Fire was then thrown into the dying woman's cabin, and both mother and daughter perished. Their charred bodies were taken out by their friends and buried with others slaughtered in the riot of May, 1866. In that riot there were forty-six negroes killed, seventy-five wounded, five rapes were committed, ten persons maltreated, and one hundred robbed, and ninety-one houses and cabins burned, besides four churches and twelve school-houses reduced to ashes. These facts were given me by white witnesses as well as colored, and they probably may be found in General Kiddoo's military record, as he was one of the officers with armed soldiers who quelled the terrible riot. I was soon relieved of school duty, and as I received a few boxes of goods, a portion of which were from England, I found constant employment in the ever-varying mission work.

The grandmother of a little girl who had died a few days before was very sick and in great distress of mind when I entered her cabin, she said imploringly, "O missus, do pray for poor me. Can G.o.d forgive sich an ole sinner as me? Can I fin' Jesus so quick as poor Mary Jane did afore she died? I knows she went so happy; I prayed all night, but 'pears like so dark; don't see de place o' de candle." I read to her of the readiness of Jesus to forgive, and how he forgave the thief on the cross, because he repented and looked to Jesus in faith even in his last moments. As I knelt by her cot I implored unbounded mercy in the Spirit's teaching this precious soul the way to enter in through the door. I left her more calm. She lingered a few days, but her mind became clear from the shadow of a cloud. She died in the triumphs of faith, leaving, she said, her little lambs with the dear Shepherd, "Dat hunted de lost sheep an' foun' her 'mid de wolves, dat scratch her mightily." The children were taken to the orphanage.

While pursuing this work our lives were daily threatened, and some had fears of another riot. One Union woman on our block told me that she had often spent sleepless nights on our account. She had heard such frequent threats that "n.i.g.g.e.r teachers should be cleared out, as well as free n.i.g.g.e.rs," that she expected every day would be our last, and every pistol shot she heard in the night, or the alarm of fire, she listened and looked in the direction of our Mission House. But I told her I did not believe we should have another riot; I believed the G.o.d of Daniel was able and willing to protect us, and that in him was my confidence.

"But you don't know these people as I do," she said, "for I have always lived here. I have sometimes thought I would not tell you. And then I made up my mind that I would, so you could be more on your guard; because they threatened, just as they do now, before that awful riot a few months ago."

The teachers who were my room-mates said they had heard of the same threats, but there were soldiers near at hand now, and when the riot broke out there were so few here they had to be called from other points to quell it.

On April 13th I visited the sick and relieved eight families. Then I went over old Fort Pickering and through the freedmen's hospital, containing one hundred and eighty-eight inmates, four of them cripples, and fifteen very old. Of one I inquired how old she was:

"I's goin' on two hundred," she answered. "Ma.s.sa's book say I's one hundred and eight, an' dat is eight years for another hundred, ain't it? Dey name me Esther Jane. I was sole at sheriff's sale for debt to Ma.s.sa Sparks. In de ole war Ma.s.sa George Washington was a mighty kind man. He boarded wid Ma.s.sa Sparks four or five weeks. He wore short breeches an' knee-buckles an' a c.o.c.ked hat I kep' his room clar'd up."