USA > Massachusetts > Worcester County > Worcester county; a narrative history, Volume II > Part 4
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The Butman Riot-Then came the Butman riot. Only through the resolute action of a group of brave men, every one an anti-slavery partisan, was a Deputy United States Marshal saved from the hands of a great mob of enraged citizens. Had this man Butman been delivered to them, it might very well have happened that he would have died, and the Heart of the Common- wealth of Massachusetts would have been guilty of a lynching.
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Living in Worcester was William H. Jenkins, an escaped slave, as it was supposed, and his family. On Sunday, October 29, 1854, word was received that Asa O. Butman, the same Deputy United States Marshal who had arrested Burns, had arrived in the city for the purpose of arresting Jenkins.
Immediately the Spy issued a handbill, the newspaper "extra" of the day, setting forth in bold black type :
LOOK OUT FOR KIDNAPPERS !
BUTMAN, THE KIDNAPPER OF THOMAS SIMS AND ANTHONY BURNS IS IN TOWN, ACCOMPANIED BY ANOTHER OFFICER! ! THEY ARE BOOKED AT THE AMERICAN TEMPERANCE HOUSE ! LOOK OUT FOR THEM ! !
The warning was broadcast to all negroes living in the city, and there were many of them, including a goodly sprinkling of runaway slaves, for most of whom the Underground Railroad was responsible.
Further announcement was made at an Anti-Slavery meeting held in the City Hall Sunday evening.
A vigilant committee had previously been appointed for service in case of an emergency such as this, and took up its station around the Temperance House. Its members were soon joined by volunteers, and the crowd grew rapidly until the hotel was beleaguered by a mob whose hearts burned with hatred for the man who had been named "the Human Bloodhound." It was a noisy crowd, and abusive, and remained on duty through the night.
Butman finally made the bad error of showing a pistol. At three o'clock in the morning Judge Howe of the police court was awakened and a com- plaint of carrying dangerous weapons was lodged against the marshal. He was arrested when daylight came and brought into court, where he gave bonds for his appearance later.
By then he was badly frightened, and he had good cause. The men of Worcester were by this time thoroughly aroused. Without a doubt theirs was a dangerous mob spirit. Butman appealed to the police for protection, which was accorded him, and City Marshal Baker took him into his office. Then, while Marshal Baker was outside the building addressing the people and urging them to disperse to their homes, "six or seven colored men broke in and dealt Butman a blow on the knowledge box, which felled him to the ground," as the Spy told the story. Fortunately, the marshal returned in time to prevent further injury, and arrested one of the assailants and locked him up. The prisoner did not remain long, but jumped down from a window
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a dozen feet to the ground, landing in the press of the crowd. And this added fuel to the flames.
George Frisbie Hoar, then a young lawyer, appealed to his fellow-citizens to desist from their threat against a representative of the Federal Govern- ment. The words of his brief speech are preserved as follows: "It was some ten years ago that my father and sister were driven out of Charleston, South Carolina, by an infuriated mob of slaveholders, because, in obedience to a commission issued by the authority of the State of Massachusetts, he had gone thither to test, in the courts of the United States, the validity of those laws under which they imprison our citizens for no crime but the color of their skins; and none of you, I think, will accuse me of having any great sympathy for slaveholders. It is gratifying to see such a feeling of indigna- tion manifested against any individual whose acts have rendered him odious to your eyes-but yet I trust none of you have come here to do him any personal violence. Even in Charleston, low and degraded as a majority of citizens are, some persons were found to maintain the majesty of the law, and to their interference my father and my sister owe the preservation of their lives. Let it not be said of us, citizens of Worcester, that we have less respect for law and order than was manifested by them. Let us all remem- ber that the cause which we all have so much at heart cannot but suffer if we engage in acts of violence against the obnoxious and odious individual who, whatever may have been his past course, assures me that he came here with no intention of molesting a slave. Believing that your sentiments upon this subject are in unison with mine, I have ventured to assure Mr. Butman in your behalf, that he may depart from the city unmolested and in peace ; and I have offered to accompany him to the depot, so that he may leave by the earliest train."
A good speech it was, and difficult for its hearers to reject. They listened with respect and apparent conviction. But the sight of Butman issuing from the building rekindled their fury, and they rushed upon him as he paused, white with terror, Mr. Hoar beside him. Violence seemed certain. A few moments more and they would have torn him from the side of his protector and he would have been engulfed in the mob.
But before anyone had realized what had happened, Stephen Foster had the man's other arm, and he was surrounded by a body guard of anti-slavery men-Thomas Wentworth Higginson and Martin Stowell, who, as aboli- tionists, had been charged in Boston, and others of influence in the com- munity. Should the mob harm Butman, they must first harm their own respected friends and neighbors. "The protection given by these friends of liberty to the person of this cringing coward, whose supposed business they loathed, was a brave and inspiring act."
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Under the guard of these enemies of slavery, and of the police, Butman was taken to the Foster Street railroad station. But because of the delay, his train had gone. The mob filled the station. Bitter words were hurled, stones were thrown. Stephen Foster addressed the crowd, assuring them that Butman had promised never again to enter the precincts of Worcester. But there was no movement to disperse. Finally "a hack was procured by order of the city marshal," said the Spy, "and into it the poor, abject, debased, degraded and trembling white fugitive was hustled, and the Rev. Mr. Hig- ginson took a seat by his side." The crowd jeered and a dangerous incident ended.
There is little doubt that Butman's visit to Worcester had nothing what- ever to do with the negro Jenkins. He had been manumitted, in other words emancipated and set free by his owner, W. E. Taylor, of Norfolk, Virginia, three years before, through the good offices of Hon. Emory Washburn of Worcester. This document was recorded in Norfolk in 1851 and at the office of the Worcester City Clerk, June 9, 1854, and is the only one of its kind ever to be recorded in the county since the days when slavery existed here. It set forth :
"Know all men by these presents, that I, William E. Taylor, of the City of Norfolk and State of Virginia, have manumitted, Emancipated, and set free, and by these presents do manumit, emancipate and set free a mulatto man slave named Henry Jenkins, and sometimes called William Henry Jenkins, who was purchased by me in the year 1837 of the late John N. Walke, of the said City of Norfolk, and I hereby declare him, the said Henry, to be entirely liberated from slavery and entitled to all the rights and privileges of a free person, with which it is in my power to invest him. The said Henry hereby emancipated is a man of light complexion, about five feet eight or nine inches high, and about thirty-five years of age."
But there were other colored people in Worcester and in the towns round about who had escaped from Southern slavery, and it is not unlikely that Deputy Marshal Butman had papers which he proposed to serve in the mak- ing of an arrest under the Fugitive Slave Law. But of this there is no known record.
Eli Thayer and the Emigrant Aid Society-In 1854, Congress passed the Kansas-Nebraska Act, repealing the Missouri Compromise Act of 1821, under which slavery could not have been established in either of the two territories. The new act left the decision as to whether they should leave slavery to the vote of their peoples. Today we would call it a plebiscite. Immediately it became a question of colonization. The slavery element sent large bands of armed men to take up residence. The anti-slavery element of the North sought means of taking control of the situation.
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Eli Thayer of Worcester found the way. The decision of the territories must rest on "Squatter Sovereignty." So he conceived the Emigrant Aid Society to induce and assist New England men to emigrate into the rich prairie lands and colonize. He believed that the most effective blow to slav- ery would be delivered by an organized colony whose members had looked all their lives on slavery as a moral wrong.
His plan was first publicly revealed at a meeting held in Worcester City Hall, in March, 1854. As news of it went abroad it was recognized as the solution of a difficult problem, and many prominent people all over the State, in fact all over New England, and elsewhere, lent their aid and contributed their money. The Massachusetts Emigrant Aid Society was incorporated. Its executive committee contained eminent names. The Worcester members were Alexander H. Bullock and Edward Everett Hale, then minister of the Worcester Church of the Unity, and destined to be known as one of the great among Unitarian divines and as a distinguished author. Dr. Charles Robinson of Fitchburg, later to become Governor of Kansas, was sent into the disputed territory to explore its possibilities and to gather information as to conditions generally, a task for which he was eminently well fitted, for he had been a resident of California and had had wide experience in pioneer life. Meetings were held throughout Worcester County and in various other parts of the State.
Each emigrant paid $20, and the society provided tents, hatchets and plows, and, no doubt, firearms, for it was well known that Kansas and Nebraska could not be won without fighting, as was soon proved to be the case. The name of "Bloody Kansas" was truly won. The Free State men, whom the enemy called "Black Republicans" and the even more bitter word "Abolitionists," knew their opponents as "Border Ruffians."
There was an epoch-making meeting one cold morning early in May, in Worcester City Hall. It was conducted by Edward Everett Hale. His audi- ence was composed of men most of whom were to make the long overland journey to Kansas. The great divine himself wrote of the occasion :
"In the great Town Hall, in which I had often spoken to an audience of twelve hundred people, there were perhaps one or two hundred men. They had the look of determination which belongs to the New Englander when he is well wound up and ready to start. People who were engaged in their daily business did not come to the meeting. As I recollect there were few persons there I had ever seen before, but I made some friends there who have been my friends to this day. A heavy storm was raging out of doors.
"There was no 'buncombe' nor 'popcock' in what we said. I was there to explain to them the practical method of going to Kansas, and as well as I
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knew how, I did so. These men asked questions-and I gave them the best answers I could. I said that we should arrange for parties of two or three hundred to go together, that we proposed to build for each colony a central boarding house, or boarding houses, in which men could live while they were preparing their houses, and that we should make ourselves responsible for sawmills, printing presses, and other necessary machinery. All these promises we kept. Mr. Thayer bade me say that there would be two thousand men from Massachusetts in a short time. The prophecy of this was more than fulfilled."
To take a paragraph from William E. Barton's President Lincoln, 1933 : "In 1854, under the Kansas-Nebraska Act, Blue Lodges were organized in Missouri to terrorize the border and make Kansas a slave state; and Eli Thayer, of Massachusetts, began organizing his emigrant aid societies with intent to fill up Kansas with settlers from New England, carrying in their covered wagons, as was alleged, not only Bibles but Sharp's rifles, as expo- nents of their anti-slavery convictions. As Kansas moved toward statehood, her importance either as a free state or a slave state grew enormously. When on November 29, 1854, the polls were opened for the election of a territorial delegate to Congress, the pro-slavery vote of the state, which of itself would have elected a democrat to the House of Representatives, was swelled by the vote of 1,729 residents of Missouri who came over into Kansas to make the territory safe for Democracy. At the beginning it was generally con- ceded that . . . Kansas would come in as a slave state; and there appeared for a time no general disposition to contest the result. However, Eli Thayer's Bibles and bullets were making their way into Kansas, and the settlers from New England sent back favorable reports concerning the new territory and its opportunities. The first anti-slavery settlers were followed by consider- able numbers of their New England neighbors. . . . . The influx of settlers from the North, surprising though it might appear, outnumbered the immi- gration from Missouri and the states farther south. Kansas was destined to be a free state." And this was due to Eli Thayer of Worcester County.
The train which took the first group of settlers passed through Worces- ter July 17, 1854, stopping to take aboard "twenty strong young men." The total number leaving Boston was forty-three. Said the Spy next day: "Our friends will all be in Kansas, the Eden of the West, and in a short time will be able to report progress, so that a second delegation of emigrants with all the elements of society and civilization-wives, printing presses, ballot- boxes, school-masters and ministers-may join them." This was soon the case. And because of this emigration, a large part of it made up of Worces- ter County men, Kansas was admitted a free State in 1861.
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The Fosters and the Anti-Slavery Society-The Worcester County South Anti-Slavery Society was early in the field. Its records show that in 1847 it had begun to adopt resolutions such as "it is the duty of the non-slave-hold- ing states to immediately secede from the Union." In 1851, while its members rejoiced in the election of Charles Sumner to the United States Senate, they declared that he and others occupied an entirely indefensible position because they had taken an oath to defend the Constitution. In 1854, after the forma- tion of the Republican party, the society resolved "that the support of the new party is practical treason to the anti-slavery cause." They were dis- unionists. They were to learn that the cause of the negro could be served only by the Union.
In Worcester County the Abolitionist leader was Stephen S. Foster, a man of strong intellect, with features rugged as a rock, blue eyes, his hands gnarled and hard from toil, his gestures ungainly, but a voice beautiful to hear. He was described as a man "as nearly as it is possible for a man to be, free from unkind personal feelings." It was typical of him when he said "I love my friend Higginson, but I loathe his opinions."
But as a hater of slavery, he out-Garrisoned William Lloyd Garrison. When on this subject he was a firebrand. He published a pamphlet, The Brotherhood of Thieves, a True Picture of the American Church and Clergy, inspired by a belief that they upheld slavery. He entered churches where services were in progress and demanded to be heard on his own anti-slavery doctrines. Frequently he had to be removed by force, and the terms he served in jail and the fines he paid made a long list.
It is related that a slaveholder was permitted to speak from the same plat- form as representatives of the Anti-Slavery Society. Stephen Foster con- tradicted one of his statements, and the angry Southerner turned on him. "Do you think, sir," he shouted, "that I would lie?" "Well," was the reply, "I don't know as you would lie, but I do know that you would steal."
Abby Kelly Foster was perhaps a greater woman than her husband was a man. Their views on slavery and means of abolishing it did not conflict. An Irish Quaker by birth, she was educated in a Friends' School, and early aban- doned teaching to take the lecture platform in the cause of Abolition. It was no unusual experience for her to have her lecture hall stormed by an angry mob. But her courage would not be put down. She founded the "Anti- Slavery Bugle," was an organizer of the Webster Anti-Slavery Society, and was one of the first women to be admitted to membership in the American Anti-Slavery Society. James Russell Lowell wrote of her :
"A Judith there, turned Quakeress, Sits Abby in her modern dress. No nobler gift of heart and brain,
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No life more white from spot or stain, Was e'er on freedom's altar laid, Than hers-the simple Quaker Maid."
Stephen and Abby Foster settled on a farm in the Tatnuck section of Worcester. The ancient brick house still stands, no longer a farmhouse, but converted into a substantial suburban residence. About the place lingers, and always will linger so long as the house stands, the tradition of a subter- ranean chamber, where once upon a time slaves were hidden. For this was an important station of the Underground Railroad, and it is beyond all doubt that the Fosters kept concealed many a negro man and woman and child as they awaited safe conveyance to the next station on the long route to Canada. Perhaps there is a hidden chamber. But successive owners of the place have never been able to find it, and they have all tried.
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The Underground Railroad and the Rescue of Shadrach-Mrs. Mar- tha E. Crocker of Leominster, addressing the Fitchburg Historical Society in 1894, told many details of the operations of the Underground Railroad with which most people of today are wholly unacquainted. She said :
"Many people of the North hailed with joy the passage of that odious bill, the Fugitive Slave Law, unjust and inhuman as it was, and how ready and eager they were to receive and bow down in obedience to its behests ! This law required citizens of free states to aid in reclaiming and returning to their masters fugitives who escaped from slavery into their jurisdiction, and imposed a penalty of one thousand dollars and imprisonment on every citizen found protecting or aiding them in any way in their escape.
"Many people of the North were' willing to do anything to please and conciliate the South which would promote their own selfish interests. These people were intent on business and money making, which were remarkably prosperous at that time, and therefore hailed with joy the announcement that all differences between the diverse sections were now adjusted and settled by the passage of that bill. The terms of the settlement were of no consequence if it only secured to them peace and prosperity. They were in no wise inclined to let the condition and welfare of the colored man interfere with their accumulating gains.
"These Northern sympathizers were called doughfaces; and later, in secession times, copperheads. They were the bloodhounds of the North, ready to scent, hunt, catch and return fugitives to their masters. To another class-the anti-slavery people of the country, who comprised a large and earnest minority-this law was intensely obnoxious, both in principle and practice.
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"Indignation meetings were held in many cities and towns, and a deter- mined resistance to the Fugitive Slave Law was manifested. These meet- ings were often persecuted and treated to rotten eggs, brickbats, etc., by their opponents.
"Underground railroads were projected and put into operation. Depots and stations were systematically arranged all along the line from Boston to Canada, via Leominster and Fitchburg, to aid fugitives in their escape to a free country, in defiance of law. Joel Smith, Jonathan Drake and many others in Leominster were superintendents, while Benjamin Snow and S. S. Crocker of Fitchburg were in the same business. These men were engineers, conductors, etc., on the road, and stood faithfully at their posts as long as there was one fugitive to travel over it.
"It was a quiet route. No shrill whistle sounded, no bell was rung to warn of the approaching train, but silently and noiselessly it moved on in the darkness of the night-time, freighted with trembling, oppressed human beings, excluded from God's sunlight, which was created for all His creatures, black as well as white. No mistakes by careless, negligent officials were made, and no accidents ever occurred on the road from Boston to Canada. That 'glori- ous summer,' which passed in prophetic vision before that great political seer, Daniel Webster, in 1851, never was realized and enjoyed by the people, North or South, till the booming cannon and the whizzing shell had done their terrible and effective work, and thousands of our young men had laid down their lives on the battlefield for peace and liberty.
"Intense excitement and indignation were felt throughout the country when the arrest of Shadrach, Sims and of Anthony Burns was made in Boston. Shadrach escaped, but poor Sims and Burns were tried and doomed to life-long bondage again. Boston's militia and her orthodox citizens were called out to aid in preventing their escape during the trial. Of course they were only acting in obedience to law, forgetting that when a civil law con- flicts with the higher one-the law of God-it shall not be obeyed, but tram- pled under the feet of men. When the trials were over, the victims were marched off with their triumphant masters, by the aid of the good people of the city, to the boat that took them from the boasted land of freedom back to the vile southern domain of slavery.
Shadrach Escapes to Leominster-"Shadrach was the first one of the three arrested, and when on trial a large company of colored people rushed into the court-room and took him out and hustled him into a carriage and drove off to Concord, where he was put aboard the Underground Railroad, came to Leominster and stopped with Mr. Drake for awhile. When there he
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attended a meeting disguised in woman's clothing, and was not detected. From Leominster he went to Mr. Snow's at Fitchburg.
"The following evening a little company of friends had gathered at the home of Mr. Crocker to pay the family a visit. Among them was the ven- erable and good Deacon L- -, a conservative anti-slavery man-like many others in the Baptist church and other churches in Fitchburg at that time, as well as in most all of the religious bodies everywhere-who meekly and piously went for obeying the law. This good deacon had a great deal to say about the majesty of the law. 'We must sustain the majesty of the law,' were words always and ever on his lips. This topic was probably the main theme of conversation during the evening. Late, when the company were about to leave, a carriage drove to the door, and lo and behold ! there was Mr. Snow with the fleeing Shadrach. He was taken into the house by the side door as quietly as possible, but all felt that something unusual had occurred, and when sufficient promises of secrecy were made by the visitors, the name of the fugitive was announced.
"All were acquainted with circumstances of his arrest and escape. Every- one was anxious and earnest to see him, Deacon L- - with the rest. After much persuasion and promise of secrecy, the fugitive reluctantly went into the room where the people were. They were all much pleased with his appearance and felt disposed to converse a long time. After the prolonged interview with him, Mr. Crocker said to his friends, 'This poor fellow is destitute ; it is cold weather, and he is going to Canada to a colder climate. Can't we make up a little purse of money for him?' A hat was passed and every one put into it. Those who had no money with them, borrowed of their neighbors, and a nice little sum was given him. But what became of the 'majesty of the law' about this time? It vanished, and was forgotten in the presence of justice. It was not potent enough to stand before appealing human suffering and distress. When the visitors left for their homes every blessed one of them had broken the law.
"No tale was ever told of that evening's experience by any one. Later on that night Mr. Crocker sent Bolivar Crane, one of his workmen, with his team and Shadrach up to North Ashburnham to the Wards. Mr. Ward was a friend and helper of the fugitives. At his home Shadrach was taken sick and remained secreted in his attic for some time. When sufficiently recov- ered he went on to Canada where all such were safe from pursuers who hunted them in the states with dog and gun.
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