After their arrival in Adrian the porter again offered the ten dollars, and Lawyer Perkins and others advised Harvey to take it and give it to Willis, as they would protect him from all harm. But when I came I told him not to touch it; and the porter, drawing near, heard my explanation of the letter, and the threatening remarks of the people, who declared that if slave-holders should attempt to take the Hamilton family or any other escaped slave from our city or county they would see trouble. He soon gave us the benefit of his absence, and we went home with thankful hearts that public sentiment had made a law too strong to allow avaricious and unprincipled men to cast our persecuted neighbors back into the seething cauldron of American slavery.
All that day our house was thronged with visitors, eager to hear the story which was agitating the whole community, but about midnight I told my friends that rest was a necessity, for never in my life was I so thoroughly exhausted from talking; but, as the next day wan-the Sabbath, I would in the evening meet all who chose to come in the Valley School-house (at that day the largest in the county) and tell them the whole story, and save repeating it so many times.
When the evening came we met a larger crowd than could find standing-room in the school-house, and report said there was a spy for the slave-holders under a window outside.
I related the whole story, omitting nothing, and was followed by Elijah Brownell, one of our ablest anti-slavery lecturers, with a few spirited remarks. He suggested that a collection should be taken up to defray our expenses to Toledo and return, and fourteen dollars was soon placed in my hands.
From a friend of our letter-carrier, the porter of the Toledo Hotel, we learned that the plans of the slave-holders accorded with those given James Martin in the sick-room. After getting the Hamilton family in their clutches they intended to gag and bind—them, and, traveling nights, convey them from one point to another until they reached Kentucky. This was precisely on the plan of our underground railroad, but happily for the cause of freedom, in this case at least, not as successful.
The citizens of Adrian appointed a meeting at the court-house, and sent for me to again tell the story of the slaveholder who had so deeply laid his plans to capture, not only his fugitive slave Elsie and her four children, but also her husband, who was a free man. Other meetings were called to take measures for securing the safety of the hunted family from the iron grasp of the oppressor, whose arm is ever strong and powerful in the cause of evil; and so great was public excitement that the chivalrous sons of the South found our Northern climate too warm for their constitutions, and betook themselves to the milder climate of Tennessee with as great speed as their hunted slave, with her husband, hastened away from there fifteen years before.
It may be asked how the Chesters discovered that Hamilton and his wife were in Michigan. We learned afterward that John P. Chester was the postmaster at Jonesborough, and receiving a letter at his office directed to John Bayliss, he suspected it to be from friends of his former slaves, and opened it. His suspicions being confirmed, he detained the letter, and both corresponded and came North in the assumed character of Bayliss. His schemes miscarried, as we have above narrated, and Bayliss probably never knew of the desperate game played in his name.
About two weeks after the departure of this noble trio I received a threatening letter from John P. Chester, to which I replied; and this was followed by a correspondence with his son, Thomas K. Chester (the sick deacon). From these letters we shall give a few extracts.
In a letter received under the date of December 3; 1846, John P. Chester writes: "I presume you do not want something for nothing; and inasmuch as you have my property in your possession, and are so great a philanthropist, you Hill feel bound to remunerate me for that property…. If there is any law of the land to compel you to pay for them I intend to have it."
In my reply, December 20, 1846, I wrote: