USA > Pennsylvania > A pioneer outline history of northwestern Pennsylvania > Part 31
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3II
HISTORY OF NORTHWESTERN PENNSYLVANIA
SLAVERY AUGUST I, 1790. Slaves.
AUGUST 1, 1810. Slaves.
Free States 40,850
Free States 27,510
Southern States
645,047
Southern States 1,063,854
685,897
1,091,364
AUGUST I, 1800.
AUGUST I, 1820.
Free States
35,946
Free States 19,108
Southern States
857,095
Southern States 1,524,580
893,941
1,543,688
JUNE 1, 1830.
Slaves.
Free States
3,568
Southern States
2,005,475
2,009,043
FREE STATES JUNE I, 1840.
Maine, no slaves.
Ohio
3
New Hampshire
I
Indiana
3
Vermont, none.
Illinois
331
Massachusetts, none.
Michigan, none.
Rhode Island
5
Wisconsin
Connecticut
17
Iowa
New York
4
New Jersey
674
Total in Free States 1,129
Pennsylvania
64 Total in Southern States
2,486,226
The first man who died in the Revolution was a colored man, and Peter Salem, a negro, decided the battle of Bunker Hill; clinging to the Stars and Stripes, he cried, "I'll bring back the colors or answer to God the reason why !" His example fired the hearts of the soldiers to greater valor, and the great battle was won by our men.
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" It was on the soil of Pennsylvania in 1682 that the English penalty of death on over two hundred crimes was negatived by statute law, and the penalty of death retained on only one crime,-viz., wilful murder. It was in the province of Pennsylvania that the law of primogeniture was abol- ished. It was on the soil of Pennsylvania that the first mint to coin money in the United States was established. It was on the soil of Pennsylvania in 1829, and between Honesdale and Carbondale, that the pioneer railroad train, propelled by a locomotive, was run in the New World. It was on the soil of Pennsylvania that the first Continental Congress met. It was on the soil of Pennsylvania that the great Magna Charta of our liberties was written, signed, sealed, and delivered to the world. It was on the soil of Pennsylvania that the fathers declared 'that all men are born free and equal, and are alike entitled to life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness.' It was on the soil of Pennsylvania that the grand old Republican party was organized, and the declarations of our fathers reaffirmed and proclaimed anew to the world. It was on the soil of Pennsylvania that Congress created our national emblem,
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Branding slaves
HISTORY OF NORTHWESTERN PENNSYLVANIA
the Stars and Stripes; and it was upon the soil of Pennsylvania that fair women made that flag in accordance with the resolution of Congress. It was upon the soil of Pennsylvania that our flag was first unfurled to the breeze, and from that day to this that grand old flag has never been disgraced nor defeated. It was upon the Delaware River of Pennsylvania that the first steamer was launched. It was in Philadelphia that the first national bank opened its vaults to commerce. It was upon the soil of Pennsylvania that Colonel Drake first drilled into the bowels of the earth and obtained the oil that now makes the 'bright light' of every fireside 'from Greenland's icy mountains to India's coral strand.' It was on the soil of Pennsylvania that the first Christian Bible Society in the New World was organized. It was on the soil of Pennsylvania that the first school for the education and mainte- nance of soldiers' orphans was erected. It was on the soil of Pennsylvania that the first medical college for the New World was established.
" And now, Mr. President, I say to you that it was permitted to Penn- sylvania intelligence, to Pennsylvania charity, to Pennsylvania people, to erect on Pennsylvania soil, with Pennsylvania money, the first insane institution, aided and encouraged by a State, in the history of the world."
The above is an extract from a speech made by me when Senator in the Senate of Pennsylvania in 1881. I reproduce it here only to reassert it and crown it with the fact that Pennsylvania was the first of the united colonies to acknowledge before God and the nations of the earth, by legal enactment, the Fatherhood of God and the brotherhood of man. Pennsylvania was the first State or nation in the New World to enact a law for the abolition of human slavery. This act of justice was passed, too, when the struggle for independence was still undetermined. The British were pressing us on the east, and the savages on the west were torturing and killing the patriot fathers and mothers of the Revolution.
George Bryan originated, prepared, offered, and carried this measure successfully through the Legislature. I quote from his remarks on this meas- ure: "Honored will that State be in the annals of mankind which shall first abolish this violation of the rights of mankind; and the memories of those will be held in grateful and everlasting remembrance who shall pass the law to restore and establish the rights of human nature in Pennsylvania." George Bryan did this. He was born in Dublin, Ireland, in 1732, died in Philadel- phia, Pennsylvania, in 1791. To exhibit the advanced sentiment of George Bryan, I republish his touching and beautiful preamble to his law, and a section or two of the law which will explain its work :
" AN ACT FOR THE GENERAL ABOLITION OF SLAVERY
" When we contemplate our abhorrence of that condition to which the arms and tyranny of Great Britain were exerted to reduce us, when we look back on the variety of dangers to which we have been exposed, and how
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HISTORY OF NORTHWESTERN PENNSYLVANIA
miraculously our wants in many instances have been supplied, and our de- liverances wrought, when even hope and human fortitude have become unequal to the conflict, we are unavoidably led to a serious and grateful sense of the manifold blessings which we have undeservedly received from the hand of that Being from whom every good and perfect gift cometh. Impressed with these ideas, we conceive that it is our duty, and we rejoice that it is in our power, to extend a portion of that freedom to others which hath been extended to us, and release from that state of thraldom to which we ourselves were tyrannically doomed, and from which we have now every prospect of being delivered. It is not for us to inquire why, in the creation of mankind, the inhabitants of the several parts of the earth were distinguished by a difference in feature or complexion. It is sufficient to know that all are the work of an Almighty hand. We find, in the distribution of the human species, that the most fertile as well as the most barren parts of the earth are inhabited by men of complexions different from ours, and from each other; from whence we may reasonably, as well as religiously, infer that He who placed them in their various situations hath extended equally His care and protection to all, and that it becometh not us to counteract His mercies. We esteem it a peculiar blessing granted to us that we are enabled this day to add one more step to universal civilization, by removing, as much as possible, the sorrows of those who have lived in undeserved bondage, and from which, by the assumed authority of the kings of Great Britain, no effectual legal relief could be obtained. Weaned, by a long course of experience, from those narrow preju- dices and partialities we had imbibed, we find our hearts enlarged with kind- ness and benevolence towards men of all conditions and nations ; and we con- ceive ourselves at this particular period extraordinarily called upon, by the blessings which we have received, to manifest the sincerity of our profession and to give a substantial proof of our gratitude.
" II. And whereas the condition of those persons, who have heretofore been denominated Negro and Mulatto slaves, has been attended with circum- stances which not only deprived them of the common blessings that they were by nature entitled to, but has cast them into the deepest afflictions, by an unnatural separation and sale of husband and wife from each other and from their children, an injury the greatness of which can only be conceived by supposing that we were in the same unhappy case. In justice, therefore, to persons so unhappily circumstanced, and who, having no prospect before them whereon they may rest their sorrows and their hopes, have no reasonable inducement to render their service to society, which they otherwise might, and also in grateful commemoration of our own happy deliverance from that state of unconditional submission to which we were doomed by the tyranny of Britain-
" III. Be it enacted, and it is hereby enacted, That all persons, as well Negroes and Mulattoes as others, who shall be born within this State from
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HISTORY OF NORTHWESTERN PENNSYLVANIA
and after the passage of this act, shall not be deemed and considered as ser- vants for life, or slaves; and that all servitude for life, or slavery of children, in consequence of the slavery of their mothers, in the case of all children born within this State from and after the passing of this act as aforesaid, shall be, and hereby is, utterly taken away, extinguished, and forever abolished.
"IV. Provided always, and be it further enacted, That every Negro and Mulatto child born within this State after the passing of this act as aforesaid (who would, in case this act had not been made, have been born a servant for years, or life, or a slave) shall be deemed to be, and shall be, by virtue of this act, the servant of such person, or his or her assigns, who would in such case have been entitled to the service of such child, until such child shall attain unto the age of twenty-eight years, in the manner and on the conditions whereon servants bound by indenture for four years are or may be retained and holden; and shall be liable to like correction and punishment, and enti- tled to like relief, in case he or she be evilly treated by his or her master or mistress, and to like freedom, dues, and other privileges, as servants bound by indenture for four years are or may be entitled, unless the person to whom the service of such child shall belong, shall abandon his or her claim to the same; in which case the overseers of the poor of the city, township, or district, respectively, where such child shall be so abandoned, shall by indenture bind out every child so abandoned as an apprentice, for a time not exceeding the age herein before limited for the service of such children."
Passed March 1, 1780.
THE " UNDERGROUND RAILROAD" IN NORTHWESTERN PENNSYLVANIA
" My ear is pained, My soul is sick with every day's report Of wrong and outrage with which this earth is filled."
The origin of the system to aid runaway slaves in these United States was in Columbia, Lancaster County, Pennsylvania. In 1787 Samuel Wright laid out that town, and he set apart the northeastern portion for colored people, and to many of whom he presented lots. Under these circumstances this sec- tion was settled rapidly by colored people. Hundreds of manumitted slaves from Maryland and Virginia migrated there and built homes. This soon created a little city of colored people, and in due time formed a good hiding- place for escaped slaves. The term " underground railroad" originated there, and in this way: At Columbia the runaway slave would be so thoroughly and completely lost to the pursuer, that the slave-hunter, in perfect aston- ishment, would frequently exclaim, " There must be an underground railroad somewhere." Of course, there was no railroad. There was only at this place an organized system by white abolitionists to assist, clothe, feed, and conduct fugitive slaves to Canada. This system consisted in changing the
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HISTORY OF NORTHWESTERN PENNSYLVANIA
clothing, secreting and hiding the fugitive in daytime, and then carrying or directing him how to travel in the night-time to the next abolition station, where he would be cared for. These stations existed from the Maryland line clear through to Canada. In those days the North was as a whole for slavery, and to be an abolitionist was to be reviled and persecuted, even by churches of nearly all denominations. Abolition meetings were broken up by mobs, the speakers rotten-egged and murdered; indeed, but few preachers would read from their pulpit a notice for an anti-slavery meeting. Space will not permit me to depict the degraded state of public morals at that time, or the low ebb of true Christianity in that day, excepting, of course, that exhibited by a small handful of abolitionists in the land. I can only say, that to clothe, feed, secrete, and to convey in the darkness of night, poor, wretched human
Charles Brown handcuffed and shackled in Brookville jail, 1834
" The shackles never again shall bind this arm, which now is free."
"My world is dead, A new world rises, and new manners reign."
beings fleeing for liberty, to suffer social ostracism, and to run the risk of the heavy penalties prescribed by unholy laws for so doing, required the highest type of Christian men and women,-men and women of sagacity, coolness, firmness, courage, and benevolence; rocks of adamant, to whom the down- trodden could flock for relief and refuge. A great aid to the ignorant fugitive was that every slave knew the " north star," and, further, that if he followed it he would eventually reach the land of freedom. This knowledge enabled thousands to reach Canada. All slave-holders despised this "star."
To William Wright, of Columbia, Pennsylvania, is due the credit of put- ting into practice the first " underground railroad" for the freedom of slaves. There was no State organization effected until about 1838, when, in Phila-
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HISTORY OF NORTHWESTERN PENNSYLVANIA
delphia, Robert Purvis was made president and Jacob C. White secretary. Then the system grew, and before the war of the Rebellion our whole State became interlaced with roads. We had a route, too, in this wilderness. It was not as prominent as the routes in the more populous counties of the State. I am sorry that I am unable to write a complete history of the pure, lofty, gen- erous men and women of the northwest and in our county who worked these roads. They were Quakers and Methodists, and the only ones that I can now recall in Jefferson County were Elijah Heath and wife, Arad Pearsall and wife, James Steadman and wife, and the Rev. Christopher Fogle and his first and second wife, of Brookville (Rev. Fogle was an agent and conductor in Troy), Isaac P. Carmalt and his wife, of near Clayville, James A. Minish, of Punxsutawney, and William Coon and his wife, in Clarington, now Forest County. Others, no doubt, were connected, but the history is lost. Jefferson's route started from Baltimore, Maryland, and extended, via Bellefonte, Gram- pian Hills, Punxsutawney, Brookville, Clarington, and Warren, to Lake Erie and Canada. A branch road came from Indiana, Pennsylvania, to Clayville. At Indiana, Pennsylvania, Dr. Mitchell, James Moorhead, James Hamilton, William Banks, and a few others were agents in the cause.
In an estimate based on forty years, there escaped annually from the slave States fifteen hundred slaves; but still the slave population doubled in these States every twenty years. Fugitives travelled north usually in twos, but in two or three instances they went over our wilderness route in a small army, as an early paper of Brookville says, editorially, "Twenty-five fugi- tive slaves passed through Brookville Monday morning on their way to Canada." Again: "On Monday morning, October 14, 1850, forty armed fugitive slaves passed through Brookville to Canada."
Smedley's " Underground Railroad" says, " Heroes have had their deeds of bravery upon battle-fields emblazoned in history, and their countrymen have delighted to do them honor; statesmen have been renowned, and their names have been engraved upon the enduring tablets of fame; philanthro- pists 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 fulness of their hearts, with neither expectations of reward nor hope of remembrance, 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. * * *
" When, too, newspapers refused to publish antislavery speeches, but poured forth such denunciations as, ' The people will hereafter consider abo- litionists as out of the pale of legal and conventional protection which society affords its honest and well-meaning members,' that 'they will be treated as
319
HISTORY OF NORTHWESTERN PENNSYLVANIA
robbers and pirates, and as the enemies of mankind;' when Northern mer- chants extensively engaged 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 succeed in their efforts to overthrow slavery, that millions upon millions of dollars were due them from Southern mer- chants, the payment of which would be jeopardized, and that they would put them down by fair means if they could, by foul means if they must, 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."
SLAVE TRAFFIC AND TRADE
" And he that stealeth a man, and selleth him, or if he be found in his hand, he shall surely be put to death."-Exod. xxi. 16.
In the United States Constitutional Convention of 1787 the Carolinas, Georgia, and New York wanted the slave-trade continued and more slave property. To the credit of all the other colonies, they wanted the foreign slave traffic stopped. After much wrangling and discussion a compromise was effected by which no enactment was to restrain the slave-trade before the year 1808. By this compromise the slave-trade was to continue twenty-one years. On March 2, 1807, Congress passed an act to prohibit the importation of any more slaves after the close of that year. But the profits from slave- trading were enormous, and the foreign traffic continued in spite of all law. It was found that if one ship out of every three was captured, the profits still would be large. Out of every ten negroes stolen in Africa, seven died before they reached this market. A negro cost in Africa twenty dollars in gun- powder, old clothes, etc., and readily brought five hundred dollars in the United States. Everything connected with the trade was brutal. The daily ration of a captive on a vessel was a pint of water and a half-pint of rice. Sick negroes were simply thrown overboard. This traffic "for revolting, heartless atrocity would make the devil wonder." The profits were so large that no slave-trader was ever convicted in this country until 1861, when Nathaniel Gordon, of the slaver "Erie," was convicted in New York City and executed. It was estimated that from thirty to sixty thousand slaves were carried to the Southern States every year by New York vessels alone. A wicked practice was carried on between the slave and free States in this way. A complete description of a free colored man or woman would be sent from a free State to parties living in a slave State. This description would then be published in hand-bills, etc., as that of a runaway slave. These bills would be widely circulated. In a short time the person so described would be arrested, kidnapped in the night, overpowered, manacled, carried away, and sold. He had no legal right, no friends, and was only a "nigger." Free
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colored men on the borders of Pennsylvania have left home to visit a neigh- bor and been kidnapped in broad daylight, and never heard of after. A negro man or woman would sell for from one to two thousand dollars, and this was more profitable than horse-stealing or highway robbery, and attended with but little danger. A report in this or any other neighborhood that kid- nappers were around struck terror to the heart of every free colored man and woman. Negroes of my acquaintance in Brookville have left their shanty homes to sleep in the stables of friends when such rumors were afloat.
Before giving any official records in this history, I must pause to present the fact that one Butler B. Amos, an all-around thief, then in Jefferson County, was, in 1834, in jail, sentenced to "hard labor" under the law, and to be fed in the manner directed by law,-viz., on bread and water.
Early convicts were sentenced to hard labor in the county jail, and had to make split-brooms from hickory-wood, as will be seen from this agreement, between the commissioners and the jailer :
" Received, Brookville, Sept. 29th, 1834, of the commissioners of Jeffer- son county, thirty-seven broomsticks, which I am to have made into brooms by Butler B. Amos, lately convicted in the Court of Quarter Sessions of said county for larceny and sentenced to hard labour in the gaol of said county for six months, and I am also to dispose of said brooms when made as the said commissioners may direct, and account to them for the proceeds thereof as the law directs. Received also one shaving horse, one hand saw, one drawing knife and one jack knife to enable him to work the above brooms, which I am to return to the said commissioners at the expiration of said term of servitude of the said Butler B. Amos, with reasonable wear and tear.
" ARAD PEARSALL, Gaoler."
Amos had been arrested for theft, as per the following advertisement in the Jeffersonian of the annexed date :
" Commonwealth vs. Butler B. Amos. Defendant committed to Sep- tember term, 1834. Charge of Larceny. And whereas the act of General Assembly requires that notice be given, I therefore hereby give notice that the following is an inventory of articles found in the possession of the said Butler B. Amos and supposed to have been stolen, viz .: I canal shovel, I grubbing hoe, 2 hand saws, 2 bake kettles, I curry comb, 2 wolf traps, I iron bound bucket, I frow, 3 log chains, I piece of log chain, 2 drawing chains. I piece of drawing chain, I set of breast chains, I hand ax, &c. The above mentioned articles are now in possession of the subscriber, where those inter- ested can see and examine for themselves.
" ALX. M'KNIGHT, J. P.
" BROOKVILLE, August 25th, 1834." 21
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A few years after this sentence was complied with Amos left Brookville on a flat-boat for Kentucky, where he was dirked in a row and killed. Al- though Amos was a thief, he had a " warm heart" in him, as will be seen farther on. In the year 1829 seventy thousand persons were imprisoned in Pennsylvania for debt.
The earliest official record I can find of Jefferson's underground road is in the Jeffersonian of September 15, 1834, which contained these advertise- ments,-viz. :
"$150 REWARD
" ESCAPED from the jail of Jefferson county, Pennsylvania, last night -a black man, called Charles Brown, a slave to the infant heirs of Richard Baylor, deceased, late of Jefferson county, Virginia; he is about 5 feet 7 inches high, and 24 years of age, of a dark complexion-pleasant look, with his upper teeth a little open before. I was removing him to the State of Virginia, by virtue of a certificate from Judges' Shippen, Irvin & M'Kee, of the Court of Common Pleas of the county of Venango, as my warrant, to return him to the place from which he fled. I will give a reward of $150 to any person who will deliver him to the Jailor of Jefferson county Virginia, and if that sum should appear to be inadequate to the expense and trouble, it shall be suitably increased.
" Sept. 15, 1834."
" JOHN YATES, " Guardian of the said heirs.
" $150 REWARD !!
" ESCAPED from the Jail of Jefferson county; Pennsylvania last night, a black man, nam'd WILLIAM PARKER alias ROBINSON a slave, be- longing to the undersigned : aged about 26 years, and about 5 feet 6 inches high; broad shoulders; full round face, rather a grave countenance, and thick lips, particularly his upper lip, stammers a little, and rather slow in speech .- I was removing him to the State of Virginia, by virtue of a certifi- cate, from Judges Shippen and Irvin, of the Court of Common Pleas, of Venango county; as my warrant to return him to the place, from which he fled. I will give a reward of $150, to any person, who will deliver him to the Jailor of Jefferson county Virginia ; and if that sum should appear to be inadequate to the expense and trouble, it shall be suitably increased.
" STEPHEN DELGARN.
" September 15, 1834."
These slaves were very intelligent and good-looking.
Arad Pearsall was then our jailer, and he was a Methodist and an abolitionist.
Jefferson's pioneer jail, as I remember it, was constructed from stone
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HISTORY OF NORTHWESTERN PENNSYLVANIA
spawls, with wooden doors and big iron locks. For safety, the prisoners were usually shackled and handcuffed, and they were fed on "bread and water." When recaptured, escaped slaves were lodged in county jails and shackled for safety. These slaves had been so lodged, while their captors slept on beds " as soft as downy pillows are." Charles Brown and William Parker reached Can- ada. Heath and Steadman furnished augers and files to the thief Amos, who filed the shackles loose from these human beings, and with the augers he bored the locks off the doors. Pearsall, Heath, and Steadman did the rest. In addi- tion, Steadman had Yates and Delgarn arrested for travelling on Sunday, and this trial, before a justice of the peace, gave the two slaves time to get a good start through the woods for Canada. Some person or persons in Brookville were mean enough to inform, by letter or otherwise, Delgarn and Yates that Judge Heath, Arad Pearsall, and James Steadman had liberated and run off their slaves, whereupon legal steps were taken by these men to recover dam- ages for the loss of property in the United States Court at Pittsburg, the minutes of which I here reproduce :
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