The Underground Railroad Part 142

BY MISS GRACE A. LEWIS.

Among the many fugitives whose stories were full of interest, was that of a woman named Rachel. She was tall, muscular, slight, with an extremely sensitive nervous organization, a brain of large size, and an expression of remarkable sagacity and quickness. She was living in West Chester, Chester county, Pa., when attempts were made to retake her to Slavery. With wonderful swiftness and adroitness she eluded pursuit, and was soon hurried away. Speedily reaching our house, she hid herself away during the day, and in the evening, as a place of greater safety, she was transferred to the house of our uncle, Dr. Fussell, then residing on an adjoining farm. As was his wont, this kind-hearted man soon entered into a conversation with her, and in a few minutes discovered that she had once been a pupil of his during his residence in Maryland many years before.

At the moment of recognition she sprang up, overwhelming him with her manifestations of delight, crying: "You Dr. Fussell? You Dr. Fussell?

Don't you remember me? I'm Rache--Cunningham's Rache, down at Bush River Neck." Then receding to view him better, "Lord bless de child! how he is grown!"

Her tongue once loosened, she poured forth her whole history, expressing in every lineament her concentrated abhorrence of her libertine master, "Mort Cunningham." Over that story, it is needful to pa.s.s lightly, simply saying, she endured all outraged nature could endure and survive.

For the sake of humanity we may trust there were few such fiends even among southern masters as this monster in human shape. Cunningham finally sold her to go further South, with a master whose name cannot now be recalled. This man was in ill health, and after a time he and his wife started northward, bringing Rache with them. On the voyage the master grew worse, and one night when he was about to die, a fearful storm arose, which Rache devoutly believed was sent from Heaven. In describing this scene, she impersonated her surroundings with wonderful vividness and marvellous power. At one moment she was the howling wind; at another the tumultuous sea--then the lurching ship--the bellowing cow frightened by the storm--the devil, who came to carry away her master's soul, and finally the weak, dying man, as he pa.s.sed to eternity.

They proceeded on their voyage and landed at their place of destination.

Rache sees the cow snuffing the land breeze and darting off through the crowd. The captain of the vessel points to the cow and motions her to follow its example. She needs nothing more. Again she is acting--she is now the cow; but human caution, shrewdness, purpose, are lent to animal instinct. She looks around her with wary eye--scents the air--a flash, and she is hidden from the crowd which you see around her--she is free!

Making her way northward, she finally arrived at the house of Emmer Kimber, Kimberton, Chester county, Pa., and proving a remarkably capable woman, she remained a considerable time in his family, as a cook. She finally married, and settled in West Chester, where the pair prospered and were soon surrounded by the comforts of a neat home. After several years of peaceful life there, she was one day alarmed, not by the heirs of her dead master, but by the loathed "Mort Cunningham," who, without the shadow of legal right, had come to carry her back to Slavery. Fear lent her wings. She darted into a hatter's shop and out through the back buildings, springing over a dye kettle in her way, and cleared a board fence at a bound. On her way to a place of safety she looked back to see, with keen enjoyment, "Mort Cunningham" falling backward from the fence she had leaped. Secure in a garret, she looked down into the streets below, to see his vacant, dazed look as he sought, unable to find her. Her rendering of the expression of his face at this time, was irresistibly ludicrous, as was that of his whole bearing while searching for her. "Mort Cunningham" did not get her, but whether or not she ever returned to the enjoyment of her happy home, in West Chester, we never knew, as this sudden flight was the last we ever heard of her. She was one of the most wide-awake of human beings, and the world certainly lost in the uneducated slave, an actor of great dramatic power.

FRANCES ELLEN WATKINS HARPER.

The narratives and labors of eminent colored men such as Banneker, Dougla.s.s, Brown, Garnet, and others, have been written and sketched very fully for the public, and doubtless with advantage to the cause of freedom. But there is not to be found in any written work portraying the Anti-Slavery struggle, (except in the form of narratives,) as we are aware of, a sketch of the labors of any eminent colored woman. We feel, therefore, not only glad of the opportunity to present a sketch not merely of the leading colored poet in the United States, but also of one of the most liberal contributors, as well as one of the ablest advocates of the Underground Rail Road and of the slave.

No extravagant praise of any kind,--only simple facts are needed to portray the n.o.ble deeds of this faithful worker.

The want of s.p.a.ce forbids more than a brief reference to her early life.

Frances Ellen Watkins Harper (Watkins being her maiden name) was born in the City of Baltimore in 1825, not of slave parentage, but subjected of course to the oppressive influence which bond and free alike endured under slave laws. Since reaching her majority, in looking back, the following sentences from her own pen express the loneliness of her childhood days. "Have I yearned for a mother's love? The grave was my robber. Before three years had scattered their blight around my path, death had won my mother from me. Would the strong arm of a brother have been welcome? I was my mother's only child." Thus she fell into the hands of an aunt, who watched over her during these early helpless years. Rev. William Watkins, an uncle, taught a school in Baltimore for free colored children, to which she was sent until she was about thirteen years of age. After this period, she was put out to work to earn her own living. She had many trials to endure which she would fain forget; but in the midst of them all she had an ardent thirst for knowledge and a remarkable talent for composition, as she evinced at the age of fourteen in an article which attracted the attention of the lady in whose family she was employed, and others. In this situation she was taught sewing, took care of the children, &c.; and at the same time, through the kindness of her employer, her greed for books was satisfied so far as was possible from occasional half-hours of leisure. She was noted for her industry, rarely trifling away time as most girls are wont to do in similar circ.u.mstances. Scarcely had she reached her majority ere she had written a number of prose and poetic pieces which were deemed of sufficient merit to publish in a small volume called "Forest Leaves." Some of her productions found their way into newspapers and attracted attention. The ability exhibited in some of her productions was so remarkable that some doubted and others denied their originality.

Of this character we here copy an extract from one of her early prose productions:

CHRISTIANITY.

"Christianity is a system claiming G.o.d for its author, and the welfare of man for its object. It is a system so uniform, exalted and pure, that the loftiest intellects have acknowledged its influence, and acquiesced in the justness of its claims.

Genius has bent from his erratic course to gather fire from her altars, and pathos from the agony of Gethsemane and the sufferings of Calvary. Philosophy and science have paused amid their speculative researches and wondrous revelations to gain wisdom from her teachings and knowledge from her precepts.

Poetry has culled her fairest flowers and wreathed her softest to bind her Author's 'bleeding brow.' Music has strung her sweetest lyres and breathed her n.o.blest strains to celebrate his fame; whilst Learning has bent from her lofty heights to bow at the lowly cross. The constant friend of man, she has stood by him in his hour of greatest need. She has cheered the prisoner in his cell, and strengthened the martyr at the stake. She has nerved the frail and shrinking heart of woman for high and holy deeds. The worn and weary have rested their fainting heads upon her bosom, and gathered strength from her words and courage from her counsels. She has been the staff of decrepit age and the joy of manhood in its strength. She has bent over the form of lovely childhood, and suffered it to have a place in the Redeemer's arms. She has stood by the bed of the dying, and unveiled the glories of eternal life, gilding the darkness of the tomb with the glory of the resurrection."

Her mind being of a strictly religious caste, the effusions from her pen all savor of a highly moral and elevating tone.

About the year 1851 she left Baltimore to seek a home in a Free State, and for a short time resided in Ohio, where she was engaged in teaching.

Contrary to her expectations, her adopted home and calling not proving satisfactory, she left that State and came to Pennsylvania as a last resort, and again engaged in teaching at Little York. Here she not only had to encounter the trouble of dealing with unruly children, she was sorely oppressed with the thought of the condition of her people in Maryland. Not unfrequently she gave utterance to such expressions as the following: "Not that we have not a right to breathe the air as freely as anybody else here (in Baltimore), but we are treated worse than aliens among a people whose language we speak, whose religion we profess, and whose blood flows and mingles in our veins.... Homeless in the land of our birth and worse off than strangers in the home of our nativity."

During her stay in York she had frequent opportunities of seeing pa.s.sengers on the Underground Rail Road. In one of her letters she thus alluded to a traveler: "I saw a pa.s.senger _per_ the Underground Rail Road yesterday; did he arrive safely? Notwithstanding that abomination of the nineteenth century--the Fugitive Slave Law--men still determine to be free. Notwithstanding all the darkness in which they keep the slaves, it seems that somehow light is dawning upon their minds....

These poor fugitives are a property that can walk. Just to think that from the rainbow-crowned Niagara to the swollen waters of the Mexican Gulf, from the restless murmur of the Atlantic to the ceaseless roar of the Pacific, the poor, half-starved, flying fugitive has no resting-place for the sole of his foot!"

Whilst hesitating whether or not it would be best to continue teaching, she wrote to a friend for advice as follows: "What would you do if you were in my place? Would you give up and go back and work at your trade (dress-making)? There are no people that need all the benefits resulting from a well-directed education more than we do. The condition of our people, the wants of our children, and the welfare of our race demand the aid of every helping hand, the G.o.d-speed of every Christian heart.

It is a work of time, a labor of patience, to become an effective school teacher; and it should be a work of love in which they who engage should not abate heart or hope until it is done. And after all, it is one of woman's most sacred rights to have the privilege of forming the symmetry and rightly adjusting the mental balance of an immortal mind." "I have written a lecture on education, and I am also writing a small book."

Thus, whilst filling her vocation as a teacher in Little York, was she deeply engrossed in thought as to how she could best promote the welfare of her race. But as she was devoted to the work in hand, she soon found that fifty-three untrained little urchins overtaxed her naturally delicate physical powers; it also happened just about this time that she was further moved to enter the Anti-Slavery field as a lecturer substantially by the following circ.u.mstance: About the year 1853, Maryland, her native State, had enacted a law forbidding free people of color from the North from coming into the State on pain of being imprisoned and sold into slavery. A free man, who had unwittingly violated this infamous statute, had recently been sold to Georgia, and had escaped thence by secreting himself behind the wheel-house of a boat bound northward; but before he reached the desired haven, he was discovered and remanded to slavery. It was reported that he died soon after from the effects of exposure and suffering. In a letter to a friend referring to this outrage, Mrs. Harper thus wrote: "Upon that grave I pledged myself to the Anti-Slavery cause."

Having thus decided, she wrote in a subsequent letter, "It may be that G.o.d himself has written upon both my heart and brain a commission to use time, talent and energy in the cause of freedom." In this abiding faith she came to Philadelphia, hoping that the way would open for usefulness, and to publish her little book (above referred to). She visited the Anti-Slavery Office and read Anti-Slavery doc.u.ments with great avidity; in the mean time making her home at the station of the Underground Rail Road, where she frequently saw pa.s.sengers and heard their melting tales of suffering and wrong, which intensely increased her sympathy in their behalf. Although anxious to enter the Anti-Slavery field as a worker, her modesty prevented her from pressing her claims; consequently as she was but little known, being a young and homeless maiden (an exile by law), no especial encouragement was tendered her by Anti-Slavery friends in Philadelphia.

During her stay in Philadelphia she published some verses ent.i.tled, "Eliza Harris crossing the River on the Ice." It was deemed best to delay the issuing of the book.

After spending some weeks in Philadelphia, she concluded to visit Boston. Here she was treated with the kindness characteristic of the friends in the Anti-Slavery Office whom she visited, but only made a brief stay, after which she proceeded to New Bedford, the "hot-bed of the fugitives" in Ma.s.sachusetts, where by invitation she addressed a public meeting on the subject of Education and the Elevation of the Colored Race.

The occasion and result of the commencement of her public career was thus given by her own pen in a letter dated August, 1854:

"Well, I am out lecturing. I have lectured every night this week; besides addressed a Sunday-school, and I shall speak, if nothing prevent, to-night. My lectures have met with success.

Last night I lectured in a white church in Providence. Mr.

Gardener was present, and made the estimate of about six hundred persons. Never, perhaps, was a speaker, old or young, favored with a more attentive audience.... My voice is not wanting in strength, as I am aware of, to reach pretty well over the house.

The church was the Roger Williams; the pastor, a Mr. Furnell, who appeared to be a kind and Christian man.... My maiden lecture was Monday night in New Bedford on the Elevation and Education of our People. Perhaps as intellectual a place as any I was ever at of its size."

Having thus won her way to a favorable position as a lecturer, the following month she was engaged by the State Anti-Slavery Society of Maine, with what success appears from one of her letters bearing date--Buckstown Centre, Sept. 28, 1854:

"The agent of the State Anti-Slavery Society of Maine travels with me, and she is a pleasant, dear, sweet lady. I do like her so. We travel together, eat together, and sleep together. (She is a white woman.) In fact I have not been in one colored person's house since I left Ma.s.sachusetts; but I have a pleasant time. My life reminds me of a beautiful dream. What a difference between this and York!... I have met with some of the kindest treatment up here that I have ever received.... I have lectured three times this week. After I went from Limerick, I went to Springvale; there I spoke on Sunday night at an Anti-Slavery meeting. Some of the people are Anti-Slavery, Anti-rum and Anti-Catholic; and if you could see our Maine ladies,--some of them among the n.o.blest types of womanhood you have ever seen!

They are for putting men of Anti-Slavery principles in office, ... to cleanse the corrupt fountains of our government by sending men to Congress who will plead for our down-trodden and oppressed brethren, our crushed and helpless sisters, whose tears and blood bedew our soil, whose chains are clanking 'neath our proudest banners, whose cries and groans amid our loudest paeans rise."

Everywhere in this lat.i.tude doors opened before her, and her gifts were universally recognized as a valuable acquisition to the cause. In the letter above referred to she said: "I spoke in Boston on Monday night.... Well, I am but one, but can do something, and, G.o.d helping me, I will try. Mr. Brister from Lowell addressed the meeting; also Rev.

---- Howe. We had a good demonstration."

Having read the narrative of Solomon Northrup (12 years a slave), she was led to embrace the Free Labor doctrine most thoroughly; and in a letter dated at Temple, Maine, Oct. 20, 1854, after expressing the interest she took in the annual meeting of the Anti-Slavery Society of that state, she remarked:

"I spoke on Free Produce, and now by the way I believe in that kind of Abolition. Oh, it does seem to strike at one of the princ.i.p.al roots of the matter. I have commenced since I read Solomon Northrup. Oh, if Mrs. Stowe has clothed American slavery in the graceful garb of fiction, Solomon Northrup comes up from the dark habitation of Southern cruelty where slavery fattens and feasts on human blood with such mournful revelations that one might almost wish for the sake of humanity that the tales of horror which he reveals were not so. Oh, how can we pamper our appet.i.tes upon luxuries drawn from reluctant fingers? Oh, could slavery exist long if it did not sit on a commercial throne? I have read somewhere, if I remember aright, of a Hindoo being loth to cut a tree because being a believer in the transmigration of souls, he thought the soul of his father had pa.s.sed into it ... Oh, friend, beneath the most delicate preparations of the cane can you not see the stinging lash and clotted whip? I have reason to be thankful that I am able to give a little more for a Free Labor dress, if it is coa.r.s.er. I can thank G.o.d that upon its warp and woof I see no stain of blood and tears; that to procure a little finer muslin for my limbs no crushed and broken heart went out in sighs, and that from the field where it was raised went up no wild and startling cry unto the throne of G.o.d to witness there in language deep and strong, that in demanding that cotton I was nerving oppression's hand for deeds of guilt and crime. If the liberation of the slave demanded it, I could consent to part with a portion of the blood from my own veins if that would do him any good."

After having thus alluded to free labor, she gave a short journal of the different places where she had recently lectured from the 5th of September to the 20th of October, which we mention here simply to show the perseverance which characterized her as an advocate of her enslaved race, and at the same time show how doors everywhere opened to her: Portland, Monmouth Centre, North Berwick, Limerick (two meetings), Springvale, Portsmouth, Elliott, Waterborough (spoke four times), Lyman, Saccarappo, Moderation, Steep Falls (twice), North Buxton, Goram, Gardner, Litchfield, twice, Monmouth Ridge twice, Monmouth Centre three times, Litchfield second time, West Waterville twice, Livermore Temple.

Her ability and labors were everywhere appreciated, and her meetings largely attended. In a subsequent letter referring to the manner that she was received, she wrote, "A short while ago when I was down this way I took breakfast with the then Governor of Maine."

For a year and a half she continued in the Eastern States, speaking in most or all of them with marked success; the papers meting out to her full commendation for her efforts. The following extract clipped from the Portland Daily Press, respecting a lecture that she was invited to deliver after the war by the Mayor (Mr. Washburne) and others, is a fair sample of notices from this source:

"She spoke for nearly an hour and a half, her subject being 'The Mission of the War, and the Demands of the Colored Race in the Work of Reconstruction;' and we have seldom seen an audience more attentive, better pleased, or more enthusiastic. Mrs.

Harper has a splendid articulation, uses chaste, pure language, has a pleasant voice, and allows no one to tire of hearing her.

We shall attempt no abstract of her address; none that we could make would do her justice. It was one of which any lecturer might feel proud, and her reception by a Portland audience was all that could be desired. We have seen no praises of her that were overdrawn. We have heard Miss d.i.c.kinson, and do not hesitate to award the palm to her darker colored sister."

In 1856, desiring to see the fugitives in Canada, she visited the Upper Province, and in a letter dated at Niagara Falls, Sept. 12th, she unfolded her mind in the following language:

"Well, I have gazed for the first time upon Free Land, and, would you believe it, tears sprang to my eyes, and I wept. Oh, it was a glorious sight to gaze for the first time on a land where a poor slave flying from our glorious land of liberty would in a moment find his fetters broken, his shackles loosed, and whatever he was in the land of Washington, beneath the shadow of Bunker Hill Monument or even Plymouth Rock, here he becomes a man and a brother. I have gazed on Harper's Ferry, or rather the rock at the Ferry; I have seen it towering up in simple grandeur, with the gentle Potomac gliding peacefully at its feet, and felt that that was G.o.d's masonry, and my soul had expanded in gazing on its sublimity. I have seen the ocean singing its wild chorus of sounding waves, and ecstacy has thrilled upon the living chords of my heart. I have since then seen the rainbow-crowned Niagara chanting the choral hymn of Omnipotence, girdled with grandeur, and robed with glory; but none of these things have melted me as the first sight of Free Land. Towering mountains lifting their h.o.a.ry summits to catch the first faint flush of day when the sunbeams kiss the shadows from morning's drowsy face may expand and exalt your soul. The first view of the ocean may fill you with strange delight.

Niagara--the great, the glorious Niagara--may hush your spirit with its ceaseless thunder; it may charm you with its robe of crested spray and rainbow crown; but the land of Freedom was a lesson of deeper significance than foaming waves or towering mounts."