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7 ALLEN COUNTY PUBLIC LIBRARY 3 1833 03547 9523
GO 974.8 Sm29h Smedley, Robert C., d. 1883. History of the Underground railroad in Chester and the
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1. 1 21
DR. R. C. SMEDLEY.
HISTORY
OF THE
Underground Railroad IN
CHESTER AND THE NEIGHBORING COUNTIES OF PENNSYLVANIA.
BY R. C. SMEDLEY, M. D.
ILLUSTRATED.
" Verily I say unto you, inasmuch as ye have done it unto one of the least of these, my brethren, ye have done it unto me." - MATTHEW XXV : 40. "If there is one attribute of our nature for which I thank God more. than for any other, it is that of sympathy." Sermon by Darlington Hoopes
7326
LANCASTER, PA. PRINTED AT THE OFFICE OF THE JOURNAL. 1883.
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Entered according to Act of Congress, in the year 1883, by AGNES SMEDLEY, In the office of the Librarian of Congress, at Washington.
PRINTED BY JOHN A. HIESTAND, LANCASTER, PA.
1201954 TO THE · SURVIVING MEMBERS OF THOSE HOUSEHOLDS IN WHICH
THE FUGITIVE SLAVE WAS FED,
CLOTHED, AND ASSISTED TO A LIFE OF FREEDOM, THIS VOLUME
IS AFFECTIONATELY INSCRIBED BY
THE AUTHOR.
T 2
m
2
ERRATUM. On page 153, last line, for "Wells " read " Weld."
EDITORS' PREFACE.
A FEW days before Dr. Robert C. Smedley's death, which occurred early in January of this year, he re- quested that the present editors be asked to prepare this history for the press. The task thus unexpectedly given them, has been performed in the best manner possible under the circumstances. Many pages have been entirely rewritten, considerable matter has been added, and but one account, that of Zebulon Thomas has been abridged, at the request of the family. The editors are responsible only for the statements or accounts inserted by them, they giving the rest of the book to the world just as the author left it. The con- tinued illness of one of them will, they trust, be ac- cepted as an apology for some errors that will be noticed.
ROBERT PURVIS, MARIANNA GIBBONS.
PHILADELPHIA, June 30, 1883.
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PREFACE.
"Peace hath her victories No less renowned than war."
WHEN the author began this work, it was simply with the view of writing a newspaper article on the main lines and general management of the Underground Railroad in Chester county. Submitting what he had written to the agent giving the information (to be assured that the statements contained therein were correct) .he was furnished with the names of several others, whose earnest and active labors in the cause should not, it was said, go unrecorded. Further inquiry into the course pursued, and the character of the persons engaged in the work, revealed such well-established and well-conducted plans, such nobleness of purpose, such an amount of secret charity and unrecompensed labors freely given, that the idea suggested itself that the true Christian principles and commendable works of those noble philanthropists, should not be allowed to die with the times in which they lived. Many who had given largely of secret aid to the fugitive, had already passed away, and soon there AªK
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PREFACE.
would be none left but their descendants to tell of the perils and privations they endured to relieve and set free a " brother in chains," while they were confronted by a Government, and surrounded by a people adverse to negro liberty.
To visit the aged throughout the country who could relate their experiences better than write them, to cor- respond with others who were connected with the work, and thus to glean reminiscences of facts and record them in an interesting manner, worthy of preservation, was a task the writer felt himself unable to perform as fully as the intrinsic merits of the cause called for. But, admiring the unselfishness and sympathizing spirit of those noble-hearted men and women who sacrificed comfort and imperiled property to aid the fugitive to freedom, endured obloquy and maintained their inde- pendence and firmness in the face of all opposition in pleading for the rights of an oppressed and down-trodden race, he commenced the work, humbly trusting that his labors in collecting and writing this traditional history might prove interesting to the reader, and rescue from oblivion the works of a quiet, unpretending, liberty- loving and Christian people.
Heroes have had their deeds of bravery upon battle-
PREFACE.
xi
fields emblazoned in history, and their countrymen have delighted to do them honor ; statesmen have been re- nowned, and their names have been engraved upon the enduring tablets of fame ; philanthropists have had their acts of benevolence and charity proclaimed to an appre- ciating world ; ministers, pure and sincere in their gospel labors, have had their teachings collected in religious books that generations might profit by the reading ; but these moral heroes, out of the fullness of their hearts, with neither expectation of reward nor hope of remem- brance, have, within the privacy of their own homes, at an hour when the outside world was locked in slumber, clothed, fed, and in the darkness of night, whether in calm or in storms, assisted poor, degraded, hunted human beings on their way to liberty, despite the heavy penal- ties fixed by law for so doing. If the Government was wrong, as they claimed, in holding one race in bondage for the emolument and aggrandizement of a few-and that upon no other grounds than the color of their skin- they could not tacitly acquiesce in that injustice, but prompted by their conscientious convictions of duty, raised their voices against it, and advocated universal freedom and equality before the law.
It is not the object of the writer in this work to treat
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PREFACE.
of the anti-slavery principles and movement in general, nor of the pro-slavery principle combatted, except so far as these relate to, or have a direct bearing upon the management of this secret passage of the slave to free- dom. Nor was it the intention at first to enter into a description of this route of the assistance given fugitives, except incidentally, beyond the limits of Chester county. But the sections of the line in contiguous counties being such important parts could not be omitted. Hence the labors of the author in collecting reminiscences, and the size of the volume, have been proportionately increased.
He has endeavored to glean only well-authenticated facts, unadorned by the glowing colors of fancy, which lend such a charm and fascination to many descriptions of adventures.
As the narration of incidents, amusing and pathetic, of well-devised plans, promptness of action, and hair- breadth escapes, are as necessary to a history of this kind as the description of battles is to the history of a war, the author has endeavored to be punctiliously exact and truthful in relating those events as described to him by the families having immediate knowledge of the transactions, or who were themselves participators in them.
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PREFACE.
xiii
It is with feelings of much gratification that he is able to present to the readers the portraits of many of the leading men and women who were actively engaged in the " Underground Railroad," who dared to open their houses to the fugitive slave, and to do unto him as they would be done by. With the exception of a few cuts, furnished through the kindness of William Still, all have been engraved expressly for this work from the best likenesses in the possession of the families.
When we consider that from the beginning of the anti-slavery conflict until after the breaking out of the Rebellion, the whole North was, by a vast majority, pro- slavery ; when abolitionists were individually reviled and persecuted, even by churches of all denominations ; when their country meetings were frequently broken up by ruffians, and their city conventions dispersed by mobs ; when Faneuil Hall, the " Cradle of American Liberty," was refused by the Board of Aldermen to abolitionists for holding a convention, and afterwards used for pro- slavery purposes ; when but three ministers in all Boston could be found who would read to their congregations a notice of an anti-slavery meeting ; when Miss Prudence Crandall, of Canterbury, Conn., who opened a school for colored persons, was refused all supplies and accom-
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PREFACE.
modations in the town, was arrested and imprisoned according to a law passed by the Legislature of that State, after the commencement of her school, expressly for the purpose of suppressing the education of the colored people, and that, too, in intelligent New England, where a system of public school education received its earliest support ; when a convention for the purpose of forming a State Anti-slavery Society in Utica, N. Y., was broken up and dispersed by a mob, headed by a former Judge of the county ; when newspapers refused to publish anti- slavery speeches, but poured forth such denunciations as: " The people will hereafter consider abolitionists as out of the pale of legal and conventional protection which society affords to its honest and well-meaning members," that "they will be treated as robbers and pirates, and as the enemies of the human kind;" when the offices of anti-slavery papers were broken into and the presses and the type destroyed ; when William Lloyd Garrison, then editor of The Liberator, was seized and dragged bareheaded through the streets of Boston by a mob, many of whom sought to kill him ; when Elijah P. Lovejoy, for the same offence of editing an anti-slavery paper, was mobbed and shot to death in his office in Alton, Ill .; when Northern merchants extensively en-
PREFACE.
XV
gaged in Southern trade, told abolitionists that as their pecuniary interests were largely connected with those of the South, they could not afford to allow them to suc- ceed in their efforts to overthrow slavery, that millions upon millions of dollars were due them from Southern merchants, the payment of which would be jeopardized by any rupture between the North and South, and that they would put them down by fair means if they could, but by foul means if they must; with all this violent pro-slavery spirit existing throughout the North, and the Fugitive Slave Law, like a sword of power in the hands of slave-holders, ready to be wielded by them against any one assisting a slave to freedom, we must concede that it required the manhood of a man, and the unflinching fortitude of a woman, upheld by a full and firm Christian faith, to be an abolitionist in those days, and especially an Underground Railroad agent.
It need scarcely be reiterated that this malevolent spirit was wrought up to white heat in the South. An abolitionist could not travel there without persecution and threats of death; from five to twenty thousand dollars reward was offered at different times by Southern gentlemen for the arrest and delivery into their hands of William Lloyd Garrison, Arthur Tappan and others.
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PREFACE.
Yet slave-holders could travel through the North without any fear of personal or physical violence from abolition- ists. Their principles and their teachings were against using brute force or encouraging a feeling of hatred for their adversaries.
Aside from the direct antagonists to anti-slavery, there were apathetic people who heard recitals of tales of torture inflicted upon slaves, of the labors of abolition- ists to educate people against the tyranny of the system, and the persecutions inflicted upon them for so doing, without giving a thought or manifesting a feeling upon either side. William Lloyd Garrison became quite warm in conversation one time when alluding to these two classes and the sin of slavery. His friend, Samuel J. May, said to him : " Do try to keep cool, my friend ; why, you are all on fire." Laying his hand upon May's shoulder with a kind and sympathetic pressure, he said slowly, and with a deep emotion: "Brother May, I have need to be all on fire, for I have mountains of ice about me to melt."
Thanks to an over-ruling Providence, those mountains have melted, and their clear waters have descended to Southern fields of recent carnage, and washed away the crimson stains of a fratricidal war growing out of the
PREFACE.
xvii
institution of slavery-a rebellion against the Govern- ment which had recognized and protected the system, and still offered protection to it that the Union might be preserved. By the Proclamation of Lincoln, as a means to acquire victory, to hasten the termination of war and to establish a peace, the fetters of four millions of human beings were struck off and they were declared henceforth and forever free.
The stars and stripes of American liberty are now no longer fanned by the mingled breath of master and slave, and the American eagle looks down exultantly from his majestic soarings upon a broad, free country, of which he is the proud and honored National emblem.
The one great cause of sectional animosity being now removed, let us devoutly hope that all will be united in one common brotherhood, actuated by one common purpose-the prosperity, welfare and happiness of the whole people living under the protection and regulation of a wise, well-administered, general Government.
Trusting that this volume may fulfill the limited mission for which it is designed, it is humbly submitted to the public as a brief record of a few incidents in the lives of those who, although environed by constant danger in the days of slavery, successfully managed the
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PREFACE.
L
Underground Railroad in Chester and adjoining counties, until universal freedom made it no longer a necessary pathway of the slave to liberty.
ROBERT C. SMEDLEY.
WEST CHESTER, PA., 10th Mo. 9th, 1882.
ILLUSTRATIONS.
THE AUTHOR,- FRONTISPIECE.
PAGE.
WILLIAM WRIGHT,- 37
DANIEL GIBBONS, 53
RESIDENCE OF DANIEL GIBBONS, 54
56
DR. JOSEPH GIBBONS,-
59
THOMAS WHITSON,.
80
LINDLEY COATES,
84
SARAH MARSH BARNARD,.
137
JOHN VICKERS, 143
RESIDENCE OF JOHN VICKERS, 144
GRACEANNA LEWIS, 170
NORRIS MARIS,- 191
ELIJAH F. PENNYPACKER, 206
DR. JACOB L. PAXSON,-
222
THOMAS GARRETT, -. 237
ISAAC MENDENHALL, -. 249
DINAH MENDENHALL, 250
DR. BARTHOLOMEW FUSSELL, 260
JOHN COX,- 273
HANNAH COX,- 274
EUSEBIUS BARNARD
288
HANNAH W. GIBBONS,-
67
CALEB C. HOOD, -.
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XX ILLUSTRATIONS.
PAGE.
SARAH P. BARNARD,- 290 NATHAN EVANS,- 338
JAMES LEWIS,- 344
JAMES T. DANNAKER, 347
ROBERT PURVIS,_
353
CONTENTS.
CHAPTER I.
Opposition to Clause in Constitution Sanctioning Slavery .- Origin of Organized System of Underground Railroad work in Columbia .- Early Settlement of Friends There .- First Attempt at Kidnapping. -WILLIAM WRIGHT .- Increasing Number of Fugitives .- Routes and Agents Established .- Origin of the Term, Underground Railroad. PAGE 25
CHAPTER II.
Slaves Escape in Large Numbers from Harford and Baltimore Coun- ties, Md .- Agents at Gettysburg .- At York Springs .- William Wright .- Twenty-Six Fugitives .- Another Party of Sixteen .- Another of Four .- Death of WM. WRIGHT, York Springs .- Agents in York .- Attempts to Intercept Fugitives at Columbia .- SAMUEL W. MIFFLIN .- Incidents. 36
CHAPTER III.
DANIEL AND HANNAH GIBBONS .- JAMES GIBBONS .- Incidents .- Daniel Gibbon's Method of Questioning Fugitives .- Other Incidents. 53
CHAPTER IV.
DR. JOSEPH GIBBONS .- Early Education .- Studies Medicine .- His Wife PHEBE EARLE GIBBONS, a Contributor to Literature .- Dr. Gibbons Establishes The Journal .- DR. J. K. ESHLEMAN .- Ineidents. 59
CHAPTER V.
THOMAS WHITSON .- Member of First National Anti-Slavery Conven- tion .- Incidents .- JACOB BUSHONG .- Incidents .- JEREMIAH MOORE. -Incidents. 67
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CONTENTS.
CHAPTER VI.
JOSEPH AND CALEB C. HOOD .- Women Aided by Rev. Charles T. Torrey on His Last Trip to Maryland .- Sketch of the Life of TORREY .- Three Men Who Had Been Engaged in the Christiana Riot .- Other Incidents .- LINDLEY COATES .- Incidents .- JOSHUA BRINTON .- Incidents. 80
CHAPTER VII.
JOSEPH FULTON .- Incidents .- Assists Wives of Parker and Pinkney .- MOSES WHITSON .- Colored Man Betrayed by Fortune-Teller .- Inci- dents .- William Baer Assists in Capturing a Slave at Marsh Cham- berlain's .- ABRAHAM BONSALL .- Elisha Tyson .- THOMAS BONSALL. Meeting of Abolitionists .- Clarkson Anti-Slavery Society Formed. -Incidents .- Marriage to Susan P. Johnson. 90
CHAPTER VIII.
THE CHRISTIANA TRAGEDY .- Sketch of Life of William Parker .- Dick- erson Gorsuch Lay Wounded, and was Cared for at the House of Levi Pownall .- Castner Hanway Tried for Treason .- Other Cases Removed to Lancaster .- Acquittal. 107
CHAPTER IX.
J. WILLIAMS THORNE .- Incidents .- Kidnapping at Michael Myers .- SEYMOUR C. WILLIAMSON .- JAMES FULTON, JR., AND GIDEON PIERCE .- Incidents .- GRAVNER AND HANNAH MARSHI .- Incidents .- Sarah Marsh marries Eusebius Barnard .- Work of Station Closes. 131
CHAPTER X.
John Vickers, Early Education and Domestic Life .- Incidents .- Abner Landrum .- Other Incidents .- Paxson Vickers .- Charles Moore. Micajah and William A. Speakman .- Sarah A., daughter of Mica- jalı, marries J. Miller McKim. 143
CHAPTER XI.
THE LEWIS FAMILY .- Descent .- Labors for the Slave .- Clothing Fur- nished Fugitives by Friends .-- Incidents .- DR. EDWIN FUSSELL. - Experience and Incidents. 168
CONTENTS.
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CHAPTER XII.
NORRIS MARIS .- LEWIS PEART .- A Dream .- EMMION KIMIBER .- Sketch of Experiences of RACHEL HARRIS .- "Cunningham's Rache."- Abbie Kimber .- Gertrude Kimber Burleigh. 191
CHAPTER XIII.
ELIJAH F. PENNYPACKER .- Incidents .- Parentage .- Member of Legis- lature .- Marriage .- Enters Ministry .- JOSEPH P. SCARLETT .- Saved Life of Dickerson Gorsuch at Christiana .- Arrested .- Ac- quitted .- THOMAS LEWIS .- THOMAS READ .- Incidents .- Daniel Ross .- Amusing Incident at Company .- Public Opinion .- DR. JACOB L. PAXSON .-- Assists Parker, Pinkney and Johnson .- Inter- esting Colored Family. 206
CHAPTER XIV.
JOSEPH SMITH .- Incident in Canada .- Marriage and Death .- OLIVER FURNISS .- JOHN N. RUSSELL .- THOMAS GARRETT .- Inspiration .- Marriage .- Arrested and Fined .- Prospered Afterward .- Reward Offered .- Plan of Management .- Woman Escaped in Wife's Cloth- ing .- Death .- JacoB LINDLEY. - Earliest Worker. - Death .- LEVI B. WARD .- Kidnapping .- JAMES N. TAYLOR .-- Assisted Parker, Pinkney and Johnson. 227
CHAPTER XV.
ISAAC AND DINAH MENDENHALL .- Interesting Incidents .- HARRIET TUBMAN .- Assists Parker, Pinkney and Johnson .- 'Squire Jacob Lamborn .- Sarah Pearson Opens Free Produce Store in Hanior- ton .- Isaac Mendenhall Disowned .- Assist in Organizing Society of Progressive Friends. - Reimited to Originnl Society .- Golden Anniversary of Wedding. - Original Estate. 249
CHAPTER XVI.
DR. BARTHOLOMEW FUSSELL .- Parentage .- Teaches Colored School in Maryland .- Studies Medicine .- Lydia Morris Fussell .- Influence of Charles C. Burleigh .- Incidents .- About Two Thousand Fugi- tives Passed .- Women's Medical College .- Death and Burial .- Incidents Related by His Son .- JOHN AND IIANNAN Cox .- Inci- dents .- Take Active Part in Anti-slavery Societies .- Golden Wed- ding Anniversary .- Greeting .- Death. 260
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CONTENTS.
CHAPTER XVII.
SIMON BARNARD .- Differences at Kennett Square .- Incidents .- Arrest of Charles C. Burleigh .- EUSEBIUS BARNARD .- Incidents .- Euse- bius R. Barnard's tedious journey .- Eusebius Barnard's Ministry. -William Barnard with Eusebius and Others Assists in Founding Society of Progressive Friends .- Kidnapping at house of Zebulon Thomas. 282
CHAPTER XVIII.
ISAAC AND THAMAZINE P. MEREDITH .- MORDECAI AND ESTHER HAYES. -MAHLON AND AMOS PRESTON .- CHANDLER AND HANNAH M. DAR- LINGTON .- BENJAMIN AND HANNAH S. KENT .- A Large Party of Fugitives .- ENOCH LEWIS .- Conscientious Labors .- Redeems a Negro at Great Risk. 301
CHAPTER XIX.
BENJAMIN PRICE .- His Father, Philip Price, Assists Runaways .- In- cidents .- Golden Weddings .- SAMUEL M. PAINTER .- Abraham D. Shadd, John Brown and Benjamin Freemen .- NATHAN EVANS. 323
CHAPTER XX.
JAMES LEWIS and JAMES T. DANNAKER .- Many Fugitives Taken to the Anti-slavery Office, Philadelphia .- ROBERT PURVIS .- The Dorsey Brothers. 344
APPENDIX.
Letters Received by William Still, 363 .- American Anti-Slavery So- ciety, 368 .- The Fugitive Slave Law, 381 .- Lincoln's Caution and Conscientiousness, 387 .- Letter to Horace Greely, 388 .- Visit From Delegation_of Ministers, 390 .- Proclamation of Emancipation, 391 .- Extracts From Messages, &e., 393 .- Amendments to Constitution, 394.
HISTORY OF THE
UNDERGROUND RAILROAD.
CHAPTER I.
Opposition to Clause in Constitution Sanctioning Slavery .- Origin of Organized System of Underground Railroad work in Columbia .- Early Settlement of Friends There .- First Attempt at Kidnapping. -WILLIAM WRIGHT .- Increasing Number of Fugitives .- Routes and Agents Established .- Origin of the Term, Underground Railroad.
· When the convention to frame the Constitution of the United States met in Philadelphia in May, 1787, many were opposed to the clause sanctioning negro slavery. They felt it to be incompatible with the prin- ciples of the Declaration of Independence which had inspired, encouraged and supported them during their long and arduous struggle for liberty,-" that all men were created equal; that they were endowed by their Creator with certain inalienable rights; that among these are life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness." And they felt it to be an abjuration of the solemn pro- mise made at the close of that Declaration, that " for the support of which, with a firm reliance on the pro- tection of Divine Providence, they mutually pledge to each other their lives, their fortunes, and their saered honor." And they further held it to be inconsistent with the principles of the free government they were B
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HISTORY OF THE
about to establish, to hold any class of people in a bondage more oppressive, more degrading, and more tyrannical than that from which they had just emanci- pated themselves through the trials, vicissitudes and privations of a seven years' war. After much discussion and dissension, they yielded to the adoption of this clause, with the hope that ere long the wisdom, humanity and justice of the people would annihilate forever the obnoxious system of human slavery from a soil they had nobly fought to make free.
This relic of ancient despotism, making chattel pro- perty of man, having now been incorporated as a part of the Constitution, the friends of universal liberty as- sumed very little direct antagonism toward it until some cases of kidnapping and shooting of fugitives who at- tempted to escape, occurred in Columbia, Pa., in 1804. This incited the people of that town, who were chiefly Friends or their descendants, to throw around the col- ored people the arm of protection, and even to assist those who were endeavoring to escape from slavery to a section of country where they might be free. This gave origin to that organized system of rendering aid to fugi- tives which was afterward known as the " Underground Railroad."
The active and determined position to which the op- ponents of slavery were now aroused, and the large number of colored people who had settled in Columbia, made that place the goal of the fugitive to which he directed his anxious footsteps with the reasonable hope that when arriving there he would receive aid and direc- tions on his way to freedom. His expectations were not disappointed.
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UNDERGROUND RAIILROAD.
More than a passing allusion is due to Columbia, as it was there those sentiments were fostered and feelings aroused which developed into a secret and successful plan of transporting the slave through friendly hands from bondage to freedom. In 1726 John Wright and Robert Barber removed from Chester, Pa., and settled there. In the following year Samuel Blunson also removed there from the same place. These persons were Friends, or Quakers. Barber and Blunson owned a number of slaves, mostly domestics in their families. When Samuel Blunson died, in September, 1746, he manumitted his slaves and provided for them. The descendants of Barber gradually quit owning slaves and came to hate slavery. Their influence and example made an impression upon the small community which lived upon their lands at and around Wright's Ferry.
In 1787 Samuel Wright, grandson of Jolin Wright, Esq., laid out the town of Columbia. The lots were disposed of by lottery and all sold, and many substan- tial persons from Bucks, Montgomery and Chester counties, and Philadelphia settled there. A majority of them were Quakers, who bore a decided testimony against the holding of human beings in slavery.
Gradually all the colored people in the vicinity col- lected in the northeastern part of the borough upon lots given them by the Wrights. Being thus brought into one community it was quite natural that any strange colored persons going that way would seek shelter among them.
In 1804 General Thomas Boude, of Columbia, a revo- lutionary officer of distinction, who had been a member of the State Legislature, and who had represented Lan-
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HISTORY OF THE
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