USA > Pennsylvania > Delaware County > Chester > History of the Underground railroad in Chester and the neighboring counties of Pennsylvania > Part 11
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After the death of their mother, the sisters continued their work of benevolence as before: and so skillfully did they manage the affairs of that station, that so far as was ever learned, not one of the vast numbers who passed directly through their hands, or who were kept for weeks and nursed, was ever retaken, although they
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were surrounded by persons adverse to the cause, and eager to find some proof by which they could persecute the " detested abolitionists." And some of those men were especially vindictive toward these sisters on ac- count of their additional offense of giving aid to temp- erance.
On one occasion when they had, within a week, passed forty fugitives on the road to freedom, they were amused at hearing the remark of one of their pro-slavery neighbors, that " there used to be a pretty brisk trade of running off niggers at that place, but there was not much of it done now."
They frequently employed fugitives to labor on the farm and in the house. Some of these remained with them a long time, and were industrious, trust-worthy and economical. One carried away with him to Canada the sum of five hundred dollars, and others smaller sums in proportion to the length of their stay.
Quite recently, after the lapse of many years, while Graceanna Lewis was walking along Walnut street, Philadelphia, a colored woman who was scrubbing the front steps of a house recognized her, and, dropping the brush, ran to her as if forgetful of surroundings, and throwing her arms around her exclaimed, "Oh Miss Lewis, I'se glad to see you. Don't you know me? It was my baby that died in your arms one time."
When the sick and weary were sufficiently restored to leave, Norris Maris or others took them to E. F. Pennypacker's, Lewis Peart's, or to places more remote; sometimes to different stations on the Reading Railroad. All who took the trains at the Reading Railroad sta- tions, went directly through to Canada. These had to
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be well dressed to give them the appearance of " through passengers," and to enable them more readily to elude the searching eyes of slaveholders who might be on their track. For this purpose a great amount of clothing had to be furnished by the friends of these fugitives. They were always good clothes that had been partly worn. Rebecca, wife of Dr. Edwin Fussel, late of Media, who was one of the Lewis sisters, contributed largely, as did William Fussell and his two sons, Joseph and Milton, and a few other anti-slavery persons in the region, whose opportunities did not admit of their assisting in other ways.
Large quantities of exquisitely clean and nicely mended clothing were frequently sent by the many de- scendants of John Price, a Dunkard minister belonging to an earlier generation. He and his wife were strong- ly opposed to slavery, and opposition to it became hereditary in the family. These friends, living in Potts- town, Lawrenceville, and a great portion of the region around, could at all times be relied upon for aid in any especial emergency. Occasionally, as circumstances re- quired, the women of the neighborhood, being willing and even desirious to give assistance in this way, would meet at one of their houses, on an afternoon and make up such articles of wear as were most frequently needed. In this manner an ample supply was constantly kept on hand, even for the many changes required. Articles of Southern manufacture were wholly unlike those made at the North, those designed for the use of slaves being of the coarsest material. Occasionally women would come with only one garment, fashioned in the rudest manner of cloth less fine than our bagging. This un-
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cleanly article had to be disposed of as a means of safety, and the speediest and best way was to burn it, and with it as many of the old slave habits as possible. Their exhibition anywhere was fraught with danger as evidence of Southern origin.
At one time a company of eleven men, women and children left the South in a body, willing to peril every- thing for liberty. The owners immediately started out men in pursuit of them, sending large advertisements, with careful descriptions, in advance. These advertise- ments, printed in the interests of slavery, served the argus-eyes of Northern Underground Railroad agents and put them on the alert. The company, having reached the home of the Lewis sisters, were resting awhile from their dangers, but speedily a messenger ar- rived from William Still who had learned of their dan- ger and also of their place of halting, by means known only to those engaged in the work. The request from the anti-slavery headquarters in Philadelphia, was to scatter the body of fugi- tives as widely as possible. The first require- ment was an entire change of clothing-not a thread of Southern tow was to be left unburned to tell the story. C. C. Burleigh with his wife and children was visiting the house at the time and entered heartily into the work of rehabilitation. A few other friends who could be relied upon, were hastily called together- dresses were fashioned, bonnets trimmed, veils bestowed, and in a few hours, all was in readiness. It was judged best to send the women and children immediately to Canada by the Reading Railroad, funds for the purpose having been sent by the messenger from Philadelphia.
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These passengers must be so attired as not to excite sus- picion and as much change of identity be made as pos- sible. One little boy was dressed as a girl, his pretty little face and laughing eyes, looking very becoming in a bonnet wreathed with artificial flowers, given for the purpose by Lydia P. Jacobs. The bonnets of the mothers were decorated in a similar way, and these, by the addition of veils, completed the disguises which had been wrought by nimble fingers. That very evening they were distributed at different stations on the Read- ing Railroad so as not to call attention by their num- ber at any one point. They reached Canada and were in safety before there was time for the slaveholders to ascertain their route. The men were sent in different directions among farmers who could be trusted-and worked in corn-fields and elsewhere in rural districts until they had earned sufficient to pay their own way, when they, one by one, joined their wives in Canada, and the whole party were secure.
In taking passengers to the railroad, the twilight of cvening was generally chosen, night being the least dan- gerous time for recognition. At one station at least, the railroad officials did not feel they were placed there in the interests of Southern masters. They gave tickets to whomever paid for them, and asked no questions.
A woman with her child arrived one winter and re- niained as an assistant in the house for over two years. She was remarkable for the warmth of her affection, and for her unusual degree of mental ability, proving a sincere and valuable friend in seasons of sickness and death. She mourned almost as did her own daughters, when Esther Lewis, the head of the house, was removed. HK
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After a time she married and went to Canada, where; she gave birth to a daughter and died. On her death- bed she requested her two children to be sent to her friends, the Lewis sisters, to be brought up under their guardianship. The youngest child died after its return to Pennsylvania, the other was placed in the family of Isaac Lewis, of Brandywine township, and is at pre- sent living in Philadelphia.
Another woman reached this home who was the daughter of her master, having with her a daughter who bore the same relation to her master's son. This condi- tion of morals under the "sacred" (?) institution of slavery, was so extensive throughout the South, that a mere allusion to this case is sufficient to characterize what was general.
At one time, a man having been injured by jumping from a train while in motion, because he thought he saw his master, was brought to the Lewis' by Samuel Pen- nock, in the early winter, and being unable to be re- moved, had to be cared for until spring. He could not be sent to a hospital or other public institution since it was known the slave-hunters were in waiting, and he was therefore necessarily dependant on private nursing. During all the time of his stay, no neighbor suspected his presence. When able to be removed, he was sent to William Still, in Philadelphia, and thence to Boston, where his injured limb was amputated, and an artificial leg provided for him by kind friends there. One day he surprised the Sunnyside family by his reappearance. This time it was as a consumptive whose days were numbered, the waste from his injuries having induced that disease. He was sent, with a number of other
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immigrants, to the milder climate of Jamaica, where he finally died.
As the war approached, the bitterness of Southern feeling and the hatred of their Northern allies began to express itself more freely even than in the days of mobs and burnings. "That nest of niggers and traitors was to be broken up." Those disposed to be malignant never knew just when there were any " niggers" there, who ought to be sent home to slavery ; and to do them justice, many of them were kind enough to those whom they supposed to be free, but who were in reality fugi- tives long resident at the North, but who had been cared for at first in one of those very " nests" of traitors.
When an invasion from the South was expected at one period of the war, the home of every abolitionist, was on the list for destruction, and there were those who vaunted their purpose to point them out to an in- vading army. No harm came to any, and their days passed on, saddened by anxiety for friends and rela- tives in the Union Army, or busily employed for their aid and comfort.
When the duties which called him to the field were over, a soldier returned to his wife at the Lewis home. For months he battled with a fever whose seeds were planted in the South, but finally he was prostrated. Then in feeble health, each morning Elizabeth R. Lewis visited the room where he was nursed by his faithful wife. He recovered, but Elizabeth contracted the same fever, and in a very short time her life on earth was ended. This was the true breaking up of the Sunny- side Home. It was never again what it had been. The three had trebled the power of each, but the charmed
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unity was broken. In a few years Mariann followed her sister, and now only one of the three is left, and the home is possessed by strangers.
That one, Graceanna Lewis, now lives in Philadel- phia, is a member of the Academy of Natural Sciences, and a lecturer upon ornithology and kindred subjects. Edward D. Cope, the distinguished scientist of Phila- delphia, recently said of her: "She is the only woman in Pennsylvania that has done any original work in natural science.'
SUNNYSIDE.
[The following tribute to the home influence of the Lewis family is considered worthy of a place in this work .- EDITORS.]
Who that has shared the hospitality of that home can fail to remember the genuine courtesy, the refinement and spiritual grace that reigned there? It was the home, not only of its own proper inmates, but rich and poor found there a welcome-the fortunate and culti- vated seeking its congenial atmosphere and the poor receiving its bounty. There the fugitive from bond- age found a safe harbor or was helped onward to at- tain to his uncontested freedom in Canada.
Happy the children that were brought under the in- fluence of this home! They are men and women now, yet in the tangled skein of circumstances out of which their lives have been woven, will be found one shining thread leading back to Sunnyside, taking its hue per- haps from some golden precept learned there, or, better still, from the example of noble lives.
For the benefit of the children of the neighborhood, a little library association was formed at Sunnyside.
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One evening of each week was devoted by the sisters to reading aloud to the assembled children whose wrapt attention bore evidence of the interest kindled. Here a first delightful acquaintance was made with Mary Howitt, Miss Edgeworth, Miss Sedgwick, Lydia Maria Child, and other excellent writers for children. Not un- frequently the wrongs of the slave were impressed upon our young minds by the reading of some touching story of bondage. One evening I remember so well when the Life of Frederick Douglass was read, and we cried till our little hearts were ready to break !
Among those whose presence and influence were felt at Sunnyside was Mary Townsend, daughter of Charles and Priscilla Townsend, of Philadelphia, who once spent sixteen months with the Lewis family. She was the au- thor of "Life in the Insect World," a sister of John K. Townsend, the well-known naturalist, and was the lovely invalid to whom Grace Greenwood addressed one of her finest poems which she sent with a picture of St. Catha- rine, borne by the angels. Mary Townsend exercised a wonderful influence upon the children by whom she was surrounded at Sunnyside. They regarded her as the impersonation of all that was pure and lovely, and, in childlike faith, adored her as their saint. Her chamber in Philadelphia, where she lived with her parents, was the place toward which the footsteps of many turned who looked up to her with a faith as sincere and de- voted as that of those children. Mature life and business cares only deepened their sense of the ministry of one so elevated and ennobled by patiently and cheerfully borne suffering-one whose soul bloomed into extraor- dinary beauty under its discipline.
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DR. EDWIN FUSSELL.
(Born Sixth month 14th, 1813 .- Died Third month 10th, 1882.)
Dr. Edwin Fussell, son of William and Jane Fus- sell and nephew of Dr. Bartholomew Fussell, was a member of the Society of Friends, an earnest advocate for the abolition of slavery, and an able lecturer upon that subject. He personally aided fugitives in their es- cape from bondage, and contributed his means for that purpose.
While not seeking to be aggressive through a fond- ness for aggression, he was fearless in his encounters with the opponents of justice and of human progress.
After graduating in 1835 at the University of Penn- sylvania, and practicing one year in Chester county, he removed to Indiana. His anti-slavery labors continued there as here. After remaining seven years he returned.
He was a warm advocate of temperance and of the liberal education and suffrage of women, in behalf of which causes he gave much heart-felt and efficient labor. He was one of the founders of the Woman's Medical College of Philadelphia, and in connection with Dr. Ellwood Harvey, of Chester, Pa., almost alone for some time kept the institution on its feet. He was professor in two departments successively for a number of years. It was with him purely a labor of love, no salary commensurate with the duties of his position being at- tached to it.
The following letter from Dr. Fussel describes certain phases of the anti-slavery work so well that it is given entire :
MEDIA, 2d Mo. 26th, 1880.
DEAR FRIEND: I will endeavor to give a few of the
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facts in relation to the operations of the Underground Railroad in Chester county, so far as they fell within my knowledge. Although I am a Chester county man by birth, I only lived in that county for a few years of the time when the Underground Railroad was in full operation, but knew of its workings in the West and also in Philadelphia.
I do not think there were signs, grips, signals or passes, by which the fugitives were known, or by which they reached in safety the various friends of freedom and agents on the route of the Underground Railroad. They were generally too well marked by the unerring signs of slavery not to be distinguished at once by any one that should see them on their way or hear them speak three sentences. The trains on this remarkable road nearly always ran in the night, and its success was owing to the darkness, the guidance of the North Star and to the earnest souls of the men and women who loved freedom, and who recognized the rights of every man to be free, and the duty of every one " to remem- ber those in bonds as bound with them."
Those were stirring times in Chester county as else- where. We were surrounded by enemies ; contumely and persecution were our portion; danger beset us at every step in the dark, yet there were few who bore the despised name of abolitionist that did not take up the work bravely, counting it for gain that they were able at any risk, danger, or sacrifice "to open the prison doors to them that are bound." My heart leaps at the recollection of those earnest souls who were the fearless workers in those days and nights of peril; guiding the stricken and hunted out of Egypt into the promised land.
The movements were almost always made in the night, and the fugitives were taken from one station to another by wagon and sometimes on foot ; they consisted of old men and young, women, children and nursing babes. Sometimes they came singly, sometimes by the dozen. In the middle of the night there came a low knock on
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the door, a window was raised softly-" Who is there ?" a low, well known voice in reply-" How many?" The matter is soon arranged. Hidden away in garrets, barn, cellar, or bedroom during the next day, (or some- times many days) and then on an auspicious night for- warded to the next station. Clothing is changed where possible, fetters removed when necessary; wounds are dressed, hungry bodies fed; wcary limbs are rested, fainting hearts strengthened and then up again and away for Canada. Some were brave and willing to take risks and, having found friends and a home, would remain, to be undisturbed and still live in Chester county, where they found shelter thirty-five years ago. Some were hunted and traced to be moved on again ; some, alas, to be overtaken and carried back from Chester county in chains!
One of the earliest cases that I saw was an old man, moving in pain and evidently very sore. It was at the house of Esther Lewis, my wife's mother. I took him into the house and helped him remove his clothing to his hips. His back from his neck to his thighs was gridironed with seams from a recent whipping with a raw-hide, the cruel instrument of torture cutting deep into the flesh with every blow. Pressure upon the back with the end of the finger almost anywhere would cause pus to flow in a stream. His back was also scarred all over with seams and protuberances, the results of former whippings of different dates, from which one could read the history of his life of suffering as plainly as we read the Earth's history by its convoluted strata, burnt out craters, and scars on mountains of upheaval. The of- fense for which this poor man had received this terrible whipping, was going to see his wife, who belonged to an- other master ; he was detected in the crime, suspended by his wrists to an apple tree limb, his feet tied to- gether, and the end of a rail placed between to keep his body steady, and then the fiendish raw-hide fell with brute force for a hundred times. This man secured his escape to freedom.
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Sometimes the slaves would escape with iron fetters upon them placed there to keep them from running away, but these were generally removed by "friends by the way" before they reached Chester county. I once had in my possession a neck ornament taken from a fu- gitive, an iron band an inch wide, and more than a quarter of an inch thick with three branches each nine inches long, turned up at the end. This trinket was riveted around the man's neck, and the prongs made it impossible for him to lie down except upon a block of wood or other hard substance. Ankle ornaments, made of heavy iron bands, riveted around the legs, were a common device, and often had prongs or chains and balls attached. These were so heavy as to wear into the liv- ing flesh, and yet, thus equipped, men set off on their journey to the North Star of freedom.
While living in Philadelphia, we had one day a visit from a young lady of our acquaintance. She was not accounted an abolitionist, was the daughter of wealthy parents living in one of the most fashionable mansions on Arch street. Her mother had a visit from a South- ern friend who entertained her hostess with an account of her misfortune in the loss of a favorite slave who had run away from his kind mistress. She dilated upon the the slaves' virtues, his great value and her great loss, but she was consoled that all in this world is not evil, for she had just heard of his whereabouts in West Chester and expected to capture him in a few days. The exact place in West Chester and with whom he lived was detailed and the time and plan of his recovery were stated by this confiding lady. The heart of the young girl was moved; she knew no one in West Chester, but she knew my wife and me-and that we were abo- litionists and Chester county people. She went to her own room as soon as she could leave the parlor, wrote down the names of persons and places, and hastened to our house, her face all aglow with excitement as she told her story. We did not know any of the persons named in West Chester, but we knew Simon Bernard
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who lived there then, and we knew he was true as tem pered steel. A letter went to him by the next mail; all was found as described. The slave-catchers made their appearance the next day, but " the bird had flown;" it was off to freedom on the Underground Railroad and the disappointed Southern lady thought this was but a poor world after all!
One noteworthy peculiarity of these fugitive parties was that the babies never cried. Was it that slave' mothers had no time to attend to infantile wants and the children found that it did not " pay" to cry, or did the timid mothers teach their little ones to tremble and be still in horrible fear as do the mother partridges im- press their young with dread of the hawk as soon as they are out of the shell?
This is a large subject, and a thousandth part of its miseries and heart-breaks can never be written, but, thanks to the Father of the poor, the horror is dead, the bloodhound is no longer on the track, the Under- ground Railroad is no more.
EDWIN FUSSELL.
REBECCA L. FUSSELL.
Rebecca Lewis, second daughter of John and Esther Lewis, of West Vincent, Chester county, married in January of 1838 Dr. Edwin Fussell. In May of that year, just before Pennsylvania Hall in Philadelphia was burned, her husband and she moved to Pendleton, Indiana. In that State and in Ohio they met all the friends of the slave at the stirring meetings held from time to time during a residence of more than six years there. They were accustomed to go more than a hun- dred miles, over roads that would appal the traveler of to-day, to attend these meetings, taking with them a baby, as all others did in the West then.
In May of 1843, Dr. Edwin Fussell came to an an-
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niversary meeting in New York with a large company of Ohio abolitionists in a monster wagon, built by Abram Allen, and called " The Liberator." It was made for carrying fugitive slaves. It is believed that they called at the house of Daniel Gibbons in Lancas- ter county, and certain that they stayed at the house of Dr. Bartholomew Fussell, who then had a school in York, Pa.
At that anniversary meeting the Parent Society in New York appointed a hundred conventions to be held during the year. The lecturers, as far as remembered, were Frederick Douglass, William A. White, George Bradburn, Sidney Howard Gay, James Munroe and Charles Lennox Remond. The convention at Pendleton had the three first named as speakers. The inhabitants of the town were greatly incensed at the attention paid to a "nigger" (Frederick Douglass) and especially at his being an invited guest at the house of Dr. Fussell. The usual remedy for such insults (!) was resorted to. The meeting was broken up by a mob which threatened the life of the distinguished orator. With the quick inspiration of the mother, who felt that even these men frenzied as they were with anger, could not harm a baby, Rebecca Fussell lifted her infant* and held it be- tween Mr. Douglass and his assailants, thus saving him for a time. Afterwards, when separated from these tender protectors, Mr. Douglass was overtaken and mercilessly cut and bruised by the mob, who thought that they had killed him. He required a lengthened period of nursing us he lay prostrated at the house of a sister of Dr. Fussell, who resided near the scene of ac-
*That infant is now Dr. Linnaeus Fussell, of Media, Pa.
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tion. The other guests were sent for safety to the houses of other relatives, while the citizen of Pendle- ton to a man watched Dr. Fussell's house all night as the cry " Five dollars for Dr. Fussell !" had been start- ed when they thought they had killed Frederick Douglass. That mob broke up the Fussells' western home. In November of that year they came east in time for Dr. Fussell to attend the first decade of the formation of the Anti-Slavery Society.
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