Identifier: undergroundrailr1872stil (find matches)
Title: The underground rail road : a record of facts, authentic narratives, letters, &c., narrating the hardships, hair-breadth escapes, and death struggles of the slaves in their efforts for freedom, as related by themselves and others or witnessed by the author : together with sketches of some of the largest stockholders and most liberal aiders and advisers of the road
Year: 1872 (1870s)
Authors: Still, William, 1821-1902 Smith, Louise A., former owner Eaton, J.W., former owner Cornish, E., former owner
Subjects: Underground railroad Fugitive slaves Antislavery movements
Publisher: Philadelphia : Porter & Coates
Contributing Library: Boston Public Library
Digitizing Sponsor: Boston Public Library

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John is nineteen years of age, mulatto, spare made, but not lacking in courage, mother wit or perseverance. He was born in Fauquier county, Va., and, after experiencing Slavery for a number of years there — being sold two or three times to the " highest bidder " — he Avas finally purchased by a cotton planter named Hezekiah Thompson, residing at Huntsville, Alabama. Immediately after the sale Hezekiah bundled his new "purchase" off to Alabama, where he succeeded in keeping him only about two years, for at the end of that time John determined to strike a blow for liberty. The in- centive to this step was the inhuman treatment he was subjected to. Cruel indeed did he find it there. His master was a young man, "fond of drinking and carousing, and always ready for.a fight or a knock-down." A short time before John left his master whipped him so severely with the "bull whip" that he could not use his arm for three or four days. Seeing but one way of escape (and that more perilous than the way William and Ellen Craft, or Henry Box Brown traveled), he resolved to try it. It was to get on the top of the car, instead of inside of it, and thus ride of nights, till nearly day- light, when, at a stopping-place on the road, he would slip off the car, and conceal himself in the woods until under cover of the next night he could manage to get on the top of another car. By this most hazardous mode of travel he reached Virginia.
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ttered, where he knew not. Since hewas five years of age, not one of them had he seen. If such suflferings and trials were not entitled to claim for the sufferer thehonor of a hero, where in all Christendom could one be found who couldprove a better title to that appellation ? It is needless to say that the Committee extended to him brotherly kind-ness, sympathized with him deeply, and sent him on his way rejoicing. Of his subsequent career the following extract from a letter written atLondon shows that he found no rest for the soles of his feet under the Starsand Stripes in New York: I hope that you will remember John Thompson, who passed through your hands, Ithink, in October, 1857, at the same time that Mr. Cooper, from Charleston, South Caro-lina, came on. I was engaged at New York, in the barber business, with a friend, andwas doing very well, when I was betrayed and obliged to sail for England very suddenly,my master being in the city to arrest me. (London, December 21st. 1860.)
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Jeremiah Colburn.—Jeremiah is a bright mulatto, of prepossessingappearance, reads and writes, and is quite intelligent. He fled from Charles-ton, where he had been owned by Mrs. E. Williamson, an old lady aboutseventy-five, a member of the Episcopal Church, and opposed to Freedom.As far as he was concerned, however, he said, she had treated him well;but, knowing that the old lady would not be long here, he judged it wasbest to look out in time. Consequently, he availed himself of an Under-ground Rail Road ticket, and bade adieu to that hot-bed of secession. South 108 THE UNDERGROUND RAIL ROAD, Carolina. Indeed, he was fair enough to pass for white, and actually camethe entire journey from Charleston to this city under the garb of a whitegentleman. With regard to gentlemanly bearing, however, he was all rightin this particular. Nevertheless, as he had been a slave all his days, hefound that it required no small amount of nerve to succeed in running thegauntlet with slave-holders and

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