A Woman's Life-Work — Labors and Experiences of Laura S. Haviland

Produced by Skip Doughty, Tom Allen, Juliet Sutherland,
Charles Franks and the Online Distributed Proofreading Team.
My two sons, and four daughters, and families;
also to the
Home and Foreign Missionary Society,
are these pages dedicated.
The Author
In presenting the following pages to the public, without the trace of an excellent scholar or eloquent orator, I fully realize my inability to compete with writers of the nineteenth century. With this incompetency in view, I have hesitated and delayed until three-score and thirteen years are closing over me. Yet as I am still spared to toil on a little longer in the great field so white to harvest, praying the Lord of the harvest to arm and send forth more laborers, because they are too few, I ask an indulgent public to allow my deep and abiding sympathies for the oppressed and sorrowing of every nation, class, or color, to plead my excuse for sending forth simple, unvarnished facts and experiences, hoping they may increase an aspiration for the active doing, instead of saying what ought to be done, with excusing self for want of ability, when it is to be found in Him who is saying, My grace is sufficient for thee, for my strength is perfect in weakness.
Parentage—Early Impressions—Childhood Skepticism—Religious Experience—The Great Leveler—Marriage—Removal to Michigan—The Semi-Christian—The Despairing Backslider Restored—Proscription—Withdrawal from the Society of Friends—Founded Raisin Institute,
Dream—Bereavements—Early Widowhood—Trials—Dreamy—Victory by Faith—A Fugitive Slave Escapes—Marriage of two Older Children,
Baptist Deacon Convicted of the Sin of Slavery by his Slave—Willis Hamilton's Escape with his Slave-wife, Elsie, to Canada—Removal to Michigan—Whereabouts Discovered by Elsie's Master—Deeply Laid Scheme to Capture the Hamilton Family—Threats of Violence—Second Attempt and Defeat—Death of the two Slave-holders,
A Traveling Agent—Slave Claimant—John White—Threats—Visit to Jane White—Interview with William Allen—Escape of Slaves—In Suspense—Death of First-born—Comforting Dream—John White a Prisoner—His Release and Subsequent History,