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

by Laura S. Haviland

This evening a very remarkable fugitive slave came from Tennessee. He had been five weeks on the way, in which time he had slept but one night, having traveled at night and buried himself in hay and straw in barns in the day-time to keep from perishing with cold, and to avoid detection. He says six years ago his wife and child were sold from him, which caused him days and nights of bitter tears. He then firmly resolved to make an attempt to gain his freedom by flight. He was captured in Illinois after a severe struggle. He showed us four pistol-ball holes in the arm he was most dexterously using in his own defense, and two large scars which he said were gashes made at the same time with a Bowie-knife, which enabled his enemies to capture him. After they secured him in jail he was advertised in papers, which his master saw, and came and took him back, and caused him to be whipped on the bare back until the flesh was so badly torn that he was compelled to lie on his stomach four weeks. During this time he was not able to turn himself. After recovering his master put him in the iron works, of which he was proprietor. "If I hadn't been one of his engineers he would have sold me instead of giving me that awful whipping that he thought conquered me; but he was mightily mistaken; for it only imbedded in my heart a more bitter hate than ever. I appeared contented and performed my work well. After a few months, he said one day, 'I've made you a good boy, Jim, and now I'll let you go to the big city with me.' I was very obedient, but he little knew of my determination to leave him as soon as I could make sure work of it. That is the reason I would not make friends with white people till I found Michigan, for we have heard that people in this State are friendly to us, and that it is next to Canada."

As this man was above mediocrity as to intelligence, his two days stay with us had a salutary influence over our school. He could not be prevailed upon to rest longer, as he could not be easy until he reached Victoria's dominions. His clothes were made comfortable, and I called on a few friends for a little pocket change, and sent by him a little note to the next station, where he was aided on to Canada.

Our Spring term opened with fair prospects. A number of our students who were suspended last term returned to us, they said, to redeem themselves, and they were as good as their word.

During our long vacation I attended an anti-slavery convention in Cincinnati, where I met a white slave man from Little Rock, Arkansas, who left his home in the night and by morning took public conveyance as any other white man would. On reaching Cincinnati he found friends of the slave to whom he revealed his condition. Levi Coffin advised him to go with me to Michigan. As he was in greater haste than I was, he proposed to go on at once. Consequently I wrote a letter of introduction to my friends, requesting them to furnish him with work. In two weeks I returned and found my young friend, Charles McClain, (for that was the name I gave him in Cincinnati) at work with a friend, who said it was a pity that I had introduced him as a fugitive slave, for they would not have believed it if the statement had not come from me.

He came to our school and improved very much upon what he had picked up from the white children who were going to school, and by the aid of a colored minister who could read and write, and by that means could read in the second reader and write a little. He was often seen in tears, and was very anxious to have his sister with him, who was as white as himself and, like him, had straight auburn hair, blue eyes, and perfect Caucasian features, without a vestige of African descent that could be detected. A deep sympathy was enlisted in his behalf. He was very anxious to convey intelligence to that sister of the ease with which he effected his escape, and that she too could free herself as easily. A number of the friends offered to aid, and one friend placed thirty dollars in my hands to bring about this result. I wrote to a colored minister in Little Rock, who replied, with a graphic account of their rejoicing at his success, and of his sister Ann's anxiety to come to him, but that she had no means. Charles wrote to her that he would send means with instructions. As I had for many years had a great desire to see more of the system of slavery in its own territory, as so many people of the North were insisting upon our exaggerations, and that we were judging the majority of slave-holders by the few unprincipled men we had seen, I concluded to become the bearer of this message.

With a well-defined plan of the streets and houses I left my home, in confidence that the God of Daniel would return me unharmed. After a little visit with my dear friends, Levi and Catharine Coffin, in Cincinnati, I resumed my journey. I felt a little disappointed at the leaving of a through boat an hour earlier than reported. Levi said, "Perhaps thou'lt find it's all for the best," and so it was. For the second day after leaving Cincinnati the vessel was burned and sunk, with great loss of property, and many of the passengers were seriously injured, and some fatally. As I soon after passed the wreck of partially burned furniture floating near the shore, and some hauled out lying on the bank, I was thankful for the disappointment.

At Napoleon I left the boat for another to go up the Arkansas river, and waited at the best hotel in the place, kept by the widow Reeves. She was probably a fair specimen of Southern women. The appearance of the people made me feel as if I was out of these United States. There was quite a company waiting to go up or down the river. Among them were six or eight young people—Colonel Thompson with his son and daughter, whom he was taking home from their school in Helena, Arkansas, and a young Dr. Jackson, who was very talkative and filled to over-flowing with affectation. With a twirl of his little cane, and half-bent bow, in a simpering manner he addressed the four young ladies sitting on the sofa before him:

"How did you rest last night, ladies?"

"Quite well, I thank you."

"Indeed, I am very happy to hear it, for I did not. I was dreaming all night of shooting and stabbing, and I had an awful time. I suppose it was owing to the awful time we had when I was here last over a nigger fight, or rather a fight over a nigger. It seems he had started to run away and they overtook him here, and he fought like a tiger. He had armed himself with a six-shooter, and I tell you he made the bullets fly lively, and they shot him before they could catch him. He shot one man dead and wounded two or three others, and I was called upon to extract a ball from the shoulder of one man."