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

by Laura S. Haviland

"Lord, teach a little child to pray,
Thy grace to me impart," etc.

I met a colored man from Raleigh, North Carolina, who gave a few items of Andrew Johnson's early history, in regard to his apprenticeship in tailoring. If there was a dance within reach, black or white, it was all the same to "Andy,"—he was sure to be there. His boss, Mr. Selby, lectured him about his late hours, and to evade these lectures he often "turned in" with Handy Luckett, a steady old slave man, whose bed was in the loft of J. O. Rork's carriage house.

At a shoe-shop, I met John Blevins, a noble appearing John Brown sort of man whose sentence was forty years in the Virginia Penitentiary in Richmond. His crime was, aiding slaves to their God-given rights. He had served sixteen years when Richmond was taken. The Union soldiers opened the prison door, and John Blevins, with four hundred other prisoners, walked out free men. His intelligence speaks of better days. He is sixty years of age, and hard treatment had added ten years to his appearance. During the first few years of his prison life he could tell when a master had lost his slaves, as they would then place him in the dungeon, where he was kept for weeks at a time, to compel him to give the names of other abolitionists, but they never succeeded. He was at this time teaching a colored school. Out of school-hours, he worked in the shoe-shop, and was trying to make enough to purchase for himself a suit of clothes, when he designed returning to his home in Philadelphia. He had just heard from a family that he assisted to their liberty, some of whom had become quite wealthy, and were trying to find him.

He had written to them and was expecting to receive assistance. Whenever he went out on the streets he was annoyed by half-grown boys hooting after him, "Old John Brown, nigger thief." At the time he was arrested, they took all of his money, amounting to five hundred and fifty seven dollars.

I visited a Baptist Sabbath-school where three thousand members were enrolled. Over one thousand five hundred were present. They were addressed by Professor Johnson, who introduced and invited me to address the school. They very cautiously discussed the coming holidays, as they had never held one there on their own account. They decided to observe Thanksgiving, Christmas, and celebrate the Proclamation of Freedom on New Year's day. Their minister advised his people to be very careful in word and deed, so as not to give the least occasion for misconstruing their motives. Some of the white people said it ought not to be allowed. They feared an "uprising," but our soldiers said they should have the privilege.

I visited Howard Grove Hospital, under the charge of Miss Marcia Colton, matron. She was a missionary among the Choctaw Indians nine years, and was a noble, self-sacrificing woman. The surgeon of the hospital was D. R. Browery. I found a little boy of about eight years, whose mother he said was "done dead." He knew nothing of his father. I took him to Camp Lee Orphanage. Here and there I find kindred spirits, but none more devoted to the cause of Christ than sister Marcia Colton. She gave herself entirely to the advancement of his cause during nine years of labor among the poor, despised Indians. During the terrible conflicts of the war she unreservedly gave herself to the suffering and dying soldier, and she said that when, no longer called for in that field her life was just as cheerfully given to uplifting the lowly among the freed slaves of the South.

On visiting the State Penitentiary, the keeper hesitated about allowing me admittance. Said he: "I am afraid you'll give a bad report of us, as did Miss Dix, who gave us a bad name, and I thought of her as you entered my office. You look like her, and I am afraid of you. You know we don't have our prisons like yours of the North, like grand palaces, with flower-yards; and I reckon I had better not let you in." I told him I perceived they were rebuilding the part burned awhile ago, and would make due allowance for bad house-keeping.

"Well, if you'll do that, I reckon I'll have to risk you, for you'll see we are whitewashing the old cells and other parts of the prison, and then you must make allowance for its age. It was built in 1800, and is the first penitentiary in the world, and you Northerners have had all these sixty-five years to improve in, and then your gardens about your prisons are all so grand that I am a little afraid of your report. But, steward, you may take her through, and well see what she'll do for us."

I discovered a contrast, it is true. But, as in other places in the South, they seem a century behind the times. I found here, as in our State prisons, a majority of the convicts were left orphans in childhood. The number of inmates was at that time two hundred and twenty-four. I called on the general in command to inquire for Oliver Williams, whose wife requested me to see if I could find him. She was in Washington, D. C., and had not heard from him for a long while. I found he had been sentenced to three months imprisonment to hard labor, with ball and chain, but the time had now expired. The general referred me to Fortress Monroe, as the military prisoners had been removed to that prison. He advised me to call on Governor Pierpont, who gave the same reference, and gave me some interesting items concerning this State. He said that, but for slavery, Virginia would have been one of the richest States in the Union in mines. Colored men were then making a dollar a day in gathering gold dust without the facilities of enterprising men with capital. There were also silver, copper, nickel, and a fine quality of kaolin or porcelain clay. He exhibited a specimen of each metal, and two bowls made of the native kaolin, a very fine material. To show the absorbing interest in slave-dealing he gave the figures of income, as shown during the discussions in their State Convention in 1861. The Metropolitan Press reported that "the income from slaves for the last twenty years amounted to twenty millions of dollars annually, and from all other products eight million dollars annually." This Governor Pierpont believed to be a true estimate.

I called at Sarah E. Smiley's Teachers' Home. Here I found Rachel Snell, daughter of Richard Snell of Lockport, New York, my old childhood home. With this group of kindred spirits I spent a refreshing season during a hard rain.