USA > New Jersey > Hudson County > Paper read before the historical society of Hudson County. 1908 > Part 8
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The leader on the ethical side was John Woolman, a Qua- ker preacher, and he easily won the aid of the Society of Friends, who were quite numerous in South and West Jersey. By 1738 slavery, so far as the Quakers were concerned, was pratically abolished in this State.
In the meantime, the spirit that culminated in the Declar- ation of Independence had spread among the people, and for a
3 series of years petitions setting forth the evils of slavery, and praying for relief, had been sent to the Legislature annually, but these met the fate that has overtaken local petitions for the last quarter of a century. The Revolutionary war and the hard times that followed it, overshadowed the slavery question for a time, but in 1785, a law was enacted, providing a penal- ty of fifty pounds for bringing a slave imported from Africa into this State, if imported after 1776, and twenty pounds for any others imported. In 1788, the importation of slaves from abroad was prohibited, and for several years there were many laws passed to regulate and restrict slavery, but it was not un- til 1804 that a law was enacted that was intended to put an end to slavery in New Jersey. This bill was before the legislature for two years before it passed. It was strongly favored- and bitterly opposed.
It provided that children born to slaves after July 4, 1804, should be free after reaching twenty-five years of age, if inales, and twenty years if females. The right of service being the transferable personal property of the owner. It was believed that this law would gradually extinguish slavery, but it did not, and an emancipation act was passed in 1846. This law also permitted slavery to continue, though it made a rapid reduction in the numbers held in bondage. This is shown by the Na. tional Census. In 1790 the census showed 11,500 slaves. In 1800 there were 12,500. Bergen County, then including Hud- son County, had 2300 slaves in 1800, or about one sixth of the population. After this, each census showed a falling off due to the gradual emancipation act. In 1850 there were still 236 slaves, and 18 remained in 1860. In fact, it was still possible to own a slave under certain conditions in New Jersey until the 13th Amendment to the National Constitution was adopted in 1865.
Francis Newton Thorpe in his constitutional history of the American people says-"The negro in bondage was an outcast ; overlooked by the tax-gatherer; refused admission to the schools; denied entrance to the trades; living on the thorny side of village life; doctored by charity; watched by a slave- holding democracy; rejected from the society of the whites, and forbidden to mingle freely with his own." They were in a condition to excite pity and compassion.
It was natural that those who believed that all men were
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created equal, should oppose slavery, also that the opposition should in time take definite form. It was equally natural that the first abolition society should be organized in Philadelphia. There under the shadow of Carpenter's Hall, in 1785, the first society was started. Other States followed ;- the first in this State was organized in 1792.
These early abolitionists considered only the ethical side of the matter, and did not engage in aiding fugitives to escape, but according to Lucius Q. C. Elmer, "confined themselves to protecting slaves from abuse, and to aiding their manumission by legal proceedings."
In addition to these abolitionists who were contented with academic discussion of slavery, there grew up another class who felt that something should be done to check the spread of slavery. They felt that they had a mission in life-an aim for their effort.
They believed that a great movement was in progress, and they wanted to know that they were doing something to aid its development. They were morally and physically brave, and they wanted to share their liberty. These were the men who began to aid fugitive slaves to escape from bondage.
These men held no meetings to denounce the sin of slave- ry. They worked secretly and in danger, and their numbers and their ability increased with years, until they developed what came to be known as the Underground Railroad.
There were general causes which led to this organization, just as the general question of Slavery produced the other class of Abolitionists.
The efforts of slave-holders to enlarge the slave territory, produced this second class of active abolitionists, and we need merely glance at the leading events in the slave-holders work in this direction to see how it embittered the liberty-loving peo- ple of the North.
In 1802 the Louisiana territory was bought. In 1809 Flor- ida was purchased, thus adding immensely to the slave area, and creating a demand for slaves that caused wholesale import- ation from Africa. This buiness assumed such proportions that a law was enacted by Congress in 1808 prohibiting the further importation of slaves, but this law was evaded, and slaves were brought until very near the outbreak of the war. The last slaver captured was executed on one of the islands in
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New York Bay but a few years before the outbreak of the Civil War.
In 1818 the upper part of the Louisiana purchase, then called Missouri, petitioned for admission as a State, and started a feud among the settlers that frequently caused bloodshed, and continued for half a century.
So acute was the controversy at the time, that the academic Abolitionists talked of an African colonization scheme to get rid of the negroes. In 1816 a society was organized in Prince- ton for this purpose, and Liberia is the outcome of its efforts.
The prohibition of slave importation, and the great de- mand for slaves due to the enlargement of the slave territory, changed the condition of the slaves, and introduced breeding farms to raise them for the market. It may be noted that healthy babies were quoted as having a trade value of ten dol- lars a pound.
The independence of Texas offered another opportunity to expand the slave territory, and the agitation of this question produced the celebrated "Gag law" in Congress which prohib- ited any speech or resolution relating to slavery. It also re- sulted in the exclusion of all abolition letters or pamphlets from the mails.
The efforts at repression were unsuccessful, and an at- tempt to intimidate by riotous attacks on abolitionists was equally abortive, though many places suffered from the riots, the worst being in Philadelphia. One of these riots took place in Newark on July 11, 1834, during which a church was dam- aged, and minor riots in many places broke out from time to time. The first time the late Major Pangborn spoke in Jersey City, he was stoned on the platform in an open air meeting on Jersey Avenue between York and Montgomery Streets, no hall being open for an abolition meeting. I may mention incident- ally that the Major made his speech, though his clothing was soiled by the missiles thrown at him before the audience ral- lied, and used the "cooper's butts" which they had carried in expectation of some interference.
But to go back. It was in 1837 that Texas offered annex- ation-an offer that was declined because it would involve a war with Mexico. Calhoun subsequently got up a treaty pro- viding for this annexation in the interests of slave owners, but this was defeated in the Senate, and thus became an issue in
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the campaign of 1844, in which Martin Van Buren and Henry Clay were both defeated, and Harrison was elected after a campaign that still holds the record for political excitement. Harrison did not live long enough to do anything, and John Tyler succeeded him, and made possible the annexation of Texas, and the Mexican War. The slave owners thus gained a territory larger than France or Germany, and the demand for slaves was stimulated to such a degree that free colored people were in danger. Many were kidnapped, and it was proposed to enslave all free colored residents of the southern States. Arkansas did pass such a law.
The efforts of the early settlers of Kansas to make that a free State caused a repetition of the outrages which had dis- graced Missouri, and the South tried by colonization and vio- lence to drive the "free-soilers," as the anti-slavery people were called, out of the State. By 1850 an organized effort de- veloped the border ruffians, and produced a civil war that con- tinued for years, and gave to the state the name of "Bleeding Kansas".
In 1850 the Fugitive Slave law was passed by Congress. Under its provisions, slave hunting in the North became pro- fitable.
Within the first year after the law became operative, there were more fugitive slaves seized in the North than had been captured in the preceding sixty years. This is very fully set forth in Horace Greely's Irrepressible Conflict, and in the Court records.
Great brutality was used in this business, and many men and women with their families were taken from their homes in the North, even where they had lived here peacably for twenty or thirty years, and raised their families here-and they were returned to slavery,-the individuals being sold to different owners and permanently separated.
A number of sensational cases attracted wide attention- not a few victims committing suicide to escape the horrors of a return to slavery.
The Dred Scott case which began in 1852, and was held back until after the Presidential election of 1854 for fear that it would defeat Buchanan, caused a fresh outburst in the free States against slavery. The Dred Scott case is so little known now, that its bearing is not generally recognized. Dred Scott
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was a slave owned by Dr. Emerson, an army surgeon. In 1834 the doctor was transferred to Rock Island in Illinois, and took his slave with him. Major Taliaferro, also of the army, was transferred to the same army post in 1835, and took with him his slave woman, Harriet.
In 1836, both were transferred to Fort Snelling in Minne- sota, then a territory. Dred and Harriet had, with the consent of their owners, married and had two children, both girls. The Doctor later moved to St. Louis, and there afterward sold the family, consisting of the parents and the two children. Dred subsequently brought suit for his freedom, and the Cir- cuit Court of St. Louis decided in his favor. The case was appealed to the United States Supreme Court, and Chief Jus- tice Taney decided that a slave had no standing in court, and reversed the decision of the lower court.
In his opinion he outraged public sentiment in the North, by declaring that residence is a free State did not make a free- man; that a negro could not be a citizen, and that the Declar- ation of Independence did not include negroes. It was a long opinion, and calculated to arouse enmity.
To this was added the continued violence in Kansas, which finally led to John Brown's ill-advised raid in 1859. These events added a cumulative flame to public opinion, which was drifting toward civil war unconsciously. The pro-slavery peo- ple were more bitter than the anti-slavery people, but there was as much determination on one side as there was on the other, and out of that determination the Underground Rail- way gained force and popularity.
The enactment by the British Parliament in 1833 of a law which provided for the abolition of slavery in all British Colo- nies, was preceded by eloquent speeches whose winged words carried hope to many victims of man's inhumanity to man, and negroes in the South learned that freedom would be theirs if they could set their feet on British soil. Prior to this there had been sporadic escapes, and many fugitives had secured homes in the northern States, but each knew that danger lurked in unexpected places, while many were recaptured, and re- turned to servitude more galling because of the taste of free- dom that had been enjoyed.
The abolition of slavery in the British Colonies made Can- ada the Mecca of the hopes which were cherished among the
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slaves, and helped to give direction to their efforts to escape, and to the assistance required by their sympathizers in the northern States.
Thus there were two currents in abolition thought ;- lines of faith and lines of work; and in looking back on a closed past, it is evident that these lines coalesced after the Presidential campaign of 1844. Many of the Abolitionists were willing to risk their lives and their property in the cause of humanity, and they found all of the common faith ready to aid in money or kind, in maintaining lines of communication between slav- ery and freedom.
It was the passage of the Fugitive Slave law in September 1850 that made the U.G. R. R. popular and gave it national prominence.
This law provided that any United States Commission could surrender a colored man or woman to any one who claimed the negro as a slave; that the negro could not give test- imony; that citizens were commanded to aid slave hunters, as a sheriff's posse is directed to assist in the search for an escaped murderer, and it provided fine and imprisonment for those who prevented recapture, or who harbored runaway slaves. It also provided for civil as well as criminal procedure, and that damages up to the assessed value of the slave, could be collected from those who aided an escape, as well as a fine and imprisonment. Rewards were offered for the capture of runaways, and shifty and shiftless men in the "neck of travel" formed bands to catch slaves. The efforts of these slave catch- ers but caused extra precautions in conducting fugitives, and enlarged the number of contributors to the fund that paid for clothing, railroad fare, and other expenses.
The leakage from slavery extended all along the Pennsyl- vania border, though the short cut across Deleware from the Chesapeake and the banks of the Susquehanna were favored routes. All these minor routes led to New Jersey, where there were four regular lines of communication, all converging in Jersey City.
The most important, because the most travelled route be- gan at Camden, where Rev. T. C. Oliver received the fugitives from Philadelphia, a convergent point for many routes extend- ing far south into slave area. Mr. Oliver in person or by dep- uty took the fugitives by the river road to Burlington, known
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on the route as Station A. There John Coleman, Robert Evans, Enoch Middleton, and Samuel Stevens provided food, shelter and transportation. They also provided raiment where required, especially shoes-for many of the fugitives arrived barefoot or nearly so, or else had the yellow split-leather shoes which were provided for slaves in the South. These shoes were not only cheap, but served to distinguish the slave.
From Burlington to Bordentown through Mercer County to Princeton, there were many Quaker farmers all ready to afford food and shelter in case of bad weather or pursuit. The principal agents in this section were J. J. Earl, Elias Conove and Bush B. Plumley.
From Princeton to New Brunswick was a short stage, but it was considered dangerous because spies and slave catchers watched the bridge over the Raritan River, and notified their employers at points beyond. Jonathan Freedlyn, and Adam Sichler were the main station agents in New Brunswick to whom the runaways were delivered. Cornelious Cornell who lived near the bridge, acted as scout for the line, and warned those who forwarded the fugitives of the presence of spies or danger.
In describing this section of the route, Francis B. Lee in his history of New Jersey said-"North of the Raritan River the system of the Underground Railway was diversified. Of minor routes, some passed around Metuchen and Rahway lead- ing to Elizabethport. However, after the slave chasers gath- ered there so thickly, the extension went around Newark and thence to New York."
When there was too much risk on the bridge over the Raritan, the wagons were sent down to Perth Amboy, or skiffs were used for crossing the river below the bridge. This detour made fresh stations, but their locations and the owners are now unknown.
The second route started at Salem, about forty miles be- low Philadelphia. This was an independent route for about sixty miles, with its own agents and stopping places, merging with the main line at Bordentown. It was made in three stages; the first ending at Woodbury, the second at Evesham's Mount, and the third at Bordentown. This route was well known to the slaves along the Chesapeake, who reached the Deleware river at various points, and were carried to Salem,
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where the Rev. T. C. Oliver and Abigail Goodwin took charge of them. Miss Goodwin confined her personal expenditure to the barest necessities in order to provide food and raiment for the fugitives, and her connection with the Society of Friends gave her means for disposing of escaping slaves with speed and safety. She received gifts of money and clothing from many sources, and always had supplies for men, women and children.
She was a liberal contributor, and a model of sustained self-sacrifice. She died November 2, 1867, aged seventy-three years.
The third route began at Greenwich, the little town on the Deleware that raised a monument a few weeks ago to the patri- ots who destroyed a cargo of tea about the time that Boston had its Tea Party, before the Revolution. The fugitives for this route arrived by boat from the vicinity of Dover, and col- ored lights were used as signals of approach and identification. These blue and yellow lights were shown from boats manned by volunteer watchers, and the exchange was made out of sight from land. This route led by Swedesboro and Mount Holly to Burlington, and thence by the main line.
The visible workers on the Greenwich line in Cumberland County were Levin Bond, Ezekiel Cooper, Nathaniel Murray, J. R. Sheppard, Thomas B. Sheppard, Alges Stanford, and Julia Stanford. In Glouscester County, on both the Salem and Greenwich line, the workers who are known were William Douden and two colored men, Pompey Lewis and Jubilee Sharper. In Mercer County the active agents were Elias Con- ove, J. J. Earl, and Rush B. Plumley. In Union County Joseph Garrison was the leader. There were many more who were active agents, but there are no records to be found that show who they were, how the messages were sent, or where the fugitives were lodged and supplied with necessities. Orig- inally there were letters, later there was cypher code, but the passage of the Fugitive Slave law not only made these hazard- ous, but made it necessary to destroy every scrap of writing that could become evidence. The more active workers even quit attending abolition meetings to avoid even the appear- ance of interest in the cause. This obnoxious law made it eas- ier and more profitable for the slave hunters as well as more dangerous for the active abolitionists.
The absence of records makes research along this line of
inquiry difficult; for the most diligent search fails to reveal anyone who was engaged in aiding the runaways. They have all gone to their reward, and presumably have been joined by those who benefited by their assistance and sympathy.
It is known that at many points between New Brunswick and Jersey City there were men and women who watched for danger, and whose warnings caused delay or divergence. There were many barns along the route that afforded shelter, -but how the warnings were conveyed, and by whom, must remain unknown. It is probable that many of these shelters were similar to that provided in my father's barn. This was off the main line, about three miles from Newark. It had a sleeping
place in the loft behind the hay, supplied with horse blankets, and hay for bedding. When the retreat was in use, a ladder was placed in a sheltered position against the back of the barn, thus offering a means of escape if enemies entered below. This shelter was used when danger at the Passaic or Hackensack bridges made a detour of Newark desirable. The fugitive ar- rived at the barn sometime during the night, frequently with- out notice. Food was carried into the loft very early in the morning, and the children on the farm were notified to keep away from the barn during the day. They soon learned when there was "a fresh coon" in the barn, and were early impressed with the need for knowing nothing about the presence of these strange visitors.
After sleeping the most of the day in strict seclusion, the fugitives were forwarded to Jersey City, where John Everett, or Peter James Phillips, or some agent of theirs, took them in charge.
From Jersey City the negroes were taken to the Hudson River Passenger Station at the corner of Church and Chambers Streets, just in time for a night train for Albany. If this sta- tion were too closely watched, the fugitives were taken to a house on West Broadway where Lewis Tappan and his brother Arthur conducted a Sunday School for adult negroes. This af- forded temporary shelter until the coast was clear.
Frequently it was decided to ship the negroes to river ports up the Hudson, and the small sloops and schooners, and even the coal-laden canal boats were utilized for this purpose. Some of these small vessels arrived at Harsimus Cove at the foot of Washington Street-with brick and building material
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for Washburn & Campbell; some brought lumber for Samuel Davidson at the foot of Montgomery Street, -his wharf being about where the First National Bank now stands. Some brought lumber for Morrel and Van der Beek, in the neighborhood of the foot of Steuben or Morgan Street.
The canal boats which were towed to up-river points loaded with coal, were sometimes used, -the skippers being willing to run some risk for the sake of the free labor offered, -a very de- sirable item in windy weather on a canal boat, which requires constant pumping because of limited freeboard. Whether each shipment was a separate transaction with the skipper, or was known to the principals, must remain a mystery. It seems probable that they knew of it, but preferred not to acknow- ledge it, for prudence dictated seeming ignorance.
The general route led by the Newark or Belleville turn- pike along Newark Avenue to the ferry, and thence to the railroad station in New York. Spies watched the wagons arriving after dark, and the necessity of paying ferriage on the cargo made it compulsory for drivers to divulge to the ferry- master that there were passengers in the covered vehicle. Sometimes the spies caught sight of the fugitives, and cap- tures and escapes were frequent. For this reason, there were always men in the crowd who knew how to guide the fugitives, and there were runways known to these guides which led to safety.
Sometimes the negroes were hurried to the home of Dr. Henry Holt in Washington Street, where a rear entrance gave egress on Plymouth Street, and friends directed the hunted creatures to New York by way of the Hoboken ferry to Bar- clay Street. Sometimes they were led to the foot of Wash- ington Street, or to the lumber yard wharf near the ferry; sometimes they were taken to the foot of Hudson Street, and hidden in the coal boats. Mr. Daniel Van Winkle of our Soci- ety was a witness to one of these escapes, where the guides shook off the pursuers and reached a coal-laden boat discharg- ing a cargo, where the runaway was placed in a small, cave- like compartment beneath the cabin of the boat, the entrance to which, was then covered with coal; there, half smothered by coaldust, the fugitive remained in hiding until the pursuit ceased, and he could be dug out and started again on his way to freedom.
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The general feeling in Jersey City was adverse to the slaves, and to abolitionists. The anti slavery sentiment was confined to the Whig party, a political organization that out- lived its usefulness, but which in dissolution gave birth to a new party, that drew from the old, elements to create a strong or - ganization.
The anti-slavery tendency of the new party caused it to be known as the Black Republican party, and in the beginning, it attracted all the animosity which had been concentrated on the abolitionists. There was such a predominance of pro-slav- ery sentiment in Jersey City that it even affected the churches, and these closed their doors to all who wished to speak for the slaves, or who denounced the attitude of Congress and the Courts in connection with the Fugitive Slave law. The revul- sion of sentiment produced by the outrageous methods used in enforcing this law, and especially the decision in the Dred Scott case, made recruits for the abolitionists, and created a desire for a new church where freedom would be the keynote, This led to the organization of a Church Society under Congre- gational rules in 1857, out of which came the Tabernacle, a church that filled a very important part in this city's history for a couple of decades. The number of persons who sympa- thized with this movement was growing at that time, but the number of those who were willing to assume the risks involved in openly espousing the cause, was small; and the temporary or- ganization worshipped in hired halls-first in the Lyceum, then in Park Hall, in Franklin Hall, and back to the Lyceum; fin- ally, to the old church at the corner of Grove and Montgomery Streets. It was only through the courtesy of the Hedding M. E. Church that a church edifice was procured to install the first pastor of the Congregational Church, and it was not till May, 1863, that the congregation completed its building, and the Tab- ernacle became the most popular church in the city. By that time the great war had changed the opinions of the people, and every family had representatives at the front with the colors, and every church in the city had a flag flying to attest its loy- alty to the Union. The Emancipation Proclamation had been issued, and the need for an Underground Railway had forever ceased.
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