[60] No doubt an investigator could find a number of former slaves, rich in reminiscences of Underground days, still living in the villages and towns of the Niagara Peninsula, though they would not be very numerous, for, as Aunt Betsy says, "the old heads are 'bout all gone now." Between Fort Erie and Ridgeway lives Daniel Woods, a former slave, who came by the Underground. Harriet Black, a sister-in-law of Mrs. Robinson, still living near Ridgeway, was also a "passenger." Probably others live at St. Catharines, Niagara and other points of former negro settlement, who could tell thrilling tales of their escape from the South. There are many survivors on the Canada side of the Niagara, of another class; men or women who were born in slavery but were "freed by the bayonet," and came North with no fear of the slave-catchers. Of this class at Fort Erie are Melford Harris and Thomas Banks. Mr. Banks was sold from Virginia to go "down the river"; got his freedom at Natchez, joined the 102d Michigan Infantry, and fought for the Union until the end of the war. His case is probably typical of many, but does not belong to the records of the Underground Railroad.
[61] H. Clay to Lewis L. Hodges; original letter in possession of the Buffalo Historical Society.
[62] Anonymous reminiscences published in the Buffalo Courier, about 1887.
[63] Apparently the greatest travel, at least over these particular routes, was during 1840-41. It was a justifiable boast of the "conductors" that a "passenger" was never lost. In a journal of notes, which was annually kept for many years by one of the zealous anti-slavery men of that day, I find the following entry in 1841: "Nov. 1.—The week has been cold; some hard freezing and snow; now warm; assisted six fugitives from oppression, from this land of equal rights to the despotic government of Great Britain, where they can enjoy their liberty. Last night put them on board a steamboat and paid their passage to Buffalo."
[64] When I knew Frank Henry, he was light-house keeper at Erie. He died in October, 1889, and his funeral was a memorable one. After the body had been viewed by his friends, while it lay in state in the parlor of his old home in Wesleyville, the casket was lifted to the shoulders of the pall-bearers, who carried it through the streets of the little village to the church, all the friends, which included all the villagers and many from the city and the country round about, following in procession on foot. The little church could not hold the assemblage, but the overflow waited until the service was over, content, if near enough the windows or the open door, to hear but a portion of the eulogies his beloved pastor pronounced. Then they all proceeded to the graveyard behind the historic church and laid him away. He was a man of an exceptionally frank and lovable character. Prof. Wilbur H. Siebert mentions him in his history, "The Underground Railroad from Slavery to Freedom"; but nowhere else, I believe, is as much recorded of the work which he did for the refugee slaves as in the incidents told in the following pages; and these, we may be assured, are but examples of the service in which he was engaged for a good many years.
[65] Afterwards long known as the Lowry Mansion, on Second Street, between French and Holland streets. It is still standing.
[66] Capt. D. P. Dobbins was for many years a distinguished resident of Buffalo. As vessel master, Government official, and especially as inventor of the Dobbins life-boat, he acquired a wide reputation; but little has been told of his Underground Railroad work. He died in 1892.
[67] I had the facts of this experience from Mr. Frank Henry, and first wrote them out and printed them in the Erie Gazette in 1880. (Ah, Time, why hasten so!) In 1894 H. U. Johnson of Orwell, O., published a book entitled "From Dixie to Canada, Romances and Realities of the Underground Railroad," in which a chapter is devoted to Jack Watson, and this experience at the Wesleyville church is narrated, considerably embellished, but in parts with striking similarity to the version for which Frank Henry and I were responsible. Mr. Johnson gives no credit for his facts to any source.
[68] Such an one was the anti-slavery worker, Sallie Holley, who had formerly taken great pleasure in the sermons of Mr. Fillmore's pastor, the Rev. Dr. Hosmer of the Unitarian Church. When Mr. Fillmore returned to Buffalo and was seen again in his accustomed seat, Miss Holley refused to attend there. "I cannot consent," she wrote, "that my name shall stand on the books of a church that will countenance voting for any pro-slavery presidential candidate. Think of a woman-whipper and a baby-stealer being countenanced as a Christian!"—See "A Life for Liberty," edited by John White Chadwick, pp. 60, 69.
[69] See Seward's "Works," Vol. I., p. 65, et seq.