In a rage and with an oath, he replied, "I know, sir, your complicity in keeping slave-holders out of their property, and can prove it." He threw his hat on the floor and gave a stamp, as if to strengthen his oath.
The judge simply ordered him out of his office, instead of committing him to prison for contempt of court; and with his companion he went back to his Tennessee home, again defeated.
Thomas K. Chester wrote and had published scurrilous articles in Tennessee, and in a number of other Southern States. They were vigorously circulated until the following Congress, in which the grave charge was brought against the judge, "of being allied with Mrs. Haviland, of the interior of the State of Michigan, a rabid abolitionist, in keeping slaveholders out of their slave property." A vigorous effort was made by Southern members to impeach him, while his friends were petitioning Congress to raise his salary, Judge Wilkins was sent for to answer to these false charges. Although they failed to impeach him, yet on account of these charges the addition to his salary was lost.
When these false accusations were brought into Congress, and the judge was informed of the necessity of his presence to answer thereto, he inquired of Henry Bibb and others where I was. They informed him that I was absent from home. On my return from Cincinnati with a few underground railroad passengers, I learned of the trouble Judge Wilkins met, and I called on him. He told me of the pile of Southern papers he had received, with scurrilous articles, designed to prejudice Southern members of Congress against him. Said he, "Although they failed in the impeachment, they said they would come against me with double force next Congress, and should effect their object." Said the judge, "I want your address, for if they do repeat their effort, with the explanation you have now given, I think I can save another journey to Washington. The judge was never again called upon to defend himself on this subject, as their effort was not repeated; neither did their oft-repeated threat to imprison me disturb us."
DEATH OF THE CHESTERS
In the third year of the Rebellion, while in Memphis, Tennessee, on a mission to the perishing, I found myself in the city where my Tennessee correspondents lived a few years previous to their deaths. From a minister who had long been a resident of that city, and had also lived near Jonesboro, where they resided during the correspondence, I learned the following facts: A few years prior to the war John P. Chester removed with his family to Memphis, where he became a patroller. His son Thomas transacted business as a lawyer. I was shown his residence, and the office where John P. Chester was shot through the heart by a mulatto man, whose free papers he demanded, doubting their validity. Said the man, "I am as free as you are; and to live a slave I never shall." He then drew a six-shooter from its hiding-place and shot him through the heart. He fell, exclaiming, "O God, I'm a dead man." The man threw down the fatal weapon, saying to the bystanders, "Here I am, gentlemen, shoot me, or hang me, just as you please, but to live a slave to any man I never shall." He was taken by the indignant crowd, and hung on the limb of a tree near by, pierced with many bullets. I can not describe the feeling that crept over me, as I gazed upon the pavement where John P. Chester met his fate, and which I had walked over in going to officers' head-quarters from the steamer. Oh! what a life, to close with such a tragedy!
Thomas K. Chester being a few rods distant ran to assist his dying father, but his life was gone ere he reached him. A few months later he was brought from a boat sick with yellow fever, and died in one week from the attack in terrible paroxysms and ravings, frequently requiring six men to hold him on his bed. He was ill the same length of time that they falsely represented a few years before in the Toledo hotel. Said the narrator, "Thomas K. Chester's death was the most awful I ever witnessed. He cursed and swore to his last breath, saying he saw his father standing by his bed, with damned spirits waiting to take him away to eternal burnings."
After a long walk one day, I called at the former residence of the Chester family, and was seated in the front parlor. It is hard to imagine my feelings as I sat in the room where those two men had lain in death's cold embrace—men who had flourished toward my face the six-shooter. It was by this kind of deadly weapon the life of one was taken; and as nearly as words can describe the feigned sickness, the last week of the life of the other was spent. No wonder the blood seemed to curdle in my veins in contemplating the lives of these men, and their end. It is beyond the power of pen to describe the panorama that passed before me in these moments. The proprietor of the Toledo hotel lost custom by his complicity in their efforts to retake their alleged slave property. A few months after the hotel was burned to ashes.