QUAMINO BUCCAN,
A PIOUS METHODIST.
Quamino was born in the vicinity of New Brunswick, New Jersey, in 1762, and was a slave. In his ninth year he was hired for a term of years to a person named Schenk, who employed him as a house-servant, and who soon after removing to Poughkeepsie, New York, took the lad with him. The unsettled state of the country during the Revolutionary War, prevented communication with his old master, and Quamino had no hope of seeing his former friends; but in his eightieth year he was informed that his master had sent for him. On his return to New Jersey his old associates had so grown that he felt like a stranger in his old home.
When nearing the age of manhood he was steady in attending religious meetings, walking several miles through all kinds of weather. His own account of his motive in going was that he "liked to have the name of being a good boy." But whatever his motive in going, the meetings were a blessing to him. One Sabbath evening on reaching home he went to the barn, where, after earnest exercise in prayer, he slept upon the straw. Very early in the morning he went into the field to work, first kneeling by the fence. Being in great distress, the gracious words of the Saviour deeply impressed him: "Let not your heart be troubled. Ye believe in God, believe also in Me." Yielding his whole heart and all his powers to Him who was calling for the sacrifice, he felt that he received the unspeakable gift.
He went to his work; "and oh," said he, "everything was glorious around me—everything seemed to be praising God."
The change which had come over the boy was conspicuous to all around him; he was quiet and diligent in attention to all his duties. From this time Quamino understood the nature of that peace "which passeth all understanding." On the Sabbath he would get the carriage ready, and when his master had started he would walk several miles across the fields to the Methodist meeting, but always left before the conclusion of the services, as, if not at home in time to take the horses when the family arrived, he was sure to be found fault with, if not punished.
At the age of twenty-six he married Sarah, a slave on a neighboring place. She was soon sold to a distance of five miles, and for some years they only met once a week. One Sabbath morning he went to see her, and found that she and her infant had been sold, leaving her little son, a boy nearly four years old. She now had a hard master; but, through the efforts of her husband, she was purchased by a neighbor, and, at length, by the removal of this purchaser, Quamino induced his second master (to whom he had been sold when about thirty years old) to buy her. Afterwards Dr. Griffith bought Quamino for $250, and Sarah for $150.