By four o'clock P.M., the hour of his leaving, the tide of excitement
was fast rising, and one of the students offered to go and inform John
White of the danger we suspected, and advise him to take refuge in
Canada until these Kentuckians should leave our State.
We surmised that the five slave-holders he reported in Toledo were his own company, which was soon found to be true. One of my horses was brought into requisition at once for the dispatch-bearer; but he had not been on his journey an hour before we learned that our Ohio teacher inquired of a boy on the road if there had been a mulatto man by the name of White attending school at Raisin Institute the past Winter.
"Yes, sir."
"Where is he now?"
"He hired for the season to Mr. Watkins, near Brooklyn, in Jackson
County."
This report brought another offer to become dispatch-bearer to the hunted man. The following day found John White in Canada.
Two days after George W. Brazier, who claimed John White as his property, and the man who had lost the woman and five children, with their two witnesses, and their lawyer, J. L. Smith, who recently made me an all-day visit, entered the lowest type of a saloon in the town near by, and inquired for two of the most besotted and wickedest men in town. Being directed according to their novel inquiry, the men were found and hired, making their number seven, to capture John White. The field in which he had been at work was surrounded by the seven men at equal distances. But, as they neared the supposed object of their pursuit, lo! a poor white man was there instead of the prize they were so sure of capturing. They repaired to the house of Mr. Watkins, and inquired of him for the whereabouts of John White. The frank reply was:
"I suppose he is in Canada, as I took him, with his trunk, to the depot, yesterday, for that country."
At this Brazier poured forth a volley of oaths about me, and said he knew I had been there.
"Hold on, sir, you are laboring under a mistake. We have none of us seen her; and I want you to understand that there are others, myself included, who are ready to do as much to save a self-freed slave from being taken back to Southern bondage as Mrs. Haviland. Mr. White is highly esteemed wherever he is known; and we would not see him go back from whence he came without making great effort to prevent it."