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CHAPTER V
STUDY OF THE MAP OF THE
UNDERGROUND RAILROAD SYSTEM
Pg. 113
THERE are
many features of the Underground Railroad that can best
be understood by means of a geographical representation
of the system. Such a representation it has been
possible to make by piecing together the scraps of
information in regard to various routes and parts of
routes gathered from the reminiscences of a large number
of abolitionists. The more or less limited area in
which each agent operated was the field within which he
was not only willing, but was usually anxious, to
confine his knowledge of underground activities.
Ignorance of one's accomplices beyond a few adjoining
stations was naturally felt to be a safeguard. The
local character of the information resulting from such
precautions places the investigator under the necessity
of patiently studying his materials for what may be
called the cumulative evidence in regard to the
geography of the system. It is because the
evidence gathered has been cumulative and corroborative
that a general map can be prepared. But a map thus
constructed cannot, of course, be considered complete,
for it cannot be supposed that after the lapse of a
generation representatives of all the important lines
and branches could be discovered. Nevertheless,
however much the map may fall short of showing the
system in its completeness, it will be found to help the
reader materially in his attempt to realize the extent
and importance of this movement.
The underground system, in accordance with the
statement of James Freeman Clarke,
is commonly understood to have extended from Kentucky
and Virginia across Ohio, and from Maryland through
Pennsylvania, New York and New Eng-
[Pg. 114]
land to Canada.1 But this description
is inadequate, for it fails to include the states west
of Ohio. Henry Wilson extends the
field westward by asserting that the “territory embraced
by the Middle States and all the Western States east of
the Mississippi . . . was dotted over with ‘stations,’ ”
and “covered with a network of imaginary routes, not
found . . . in the railway guides or on the railway
maps;”2 and in another place he quotes the
Rev. Asa Turner, a home missionary, who went to
Illinois in 1830, who says: “Lines were formed through
Iowa and Illinois, and passengers were carried from
station to station . . . till they reached the Canada
line.”3 The association of Kansas with
the two states just named as a channel for the escape of
runaways from the southwestern slave section, is made by
Mr. Richard J. Hinton.4 The
addition of one other state, New Jersey, is necessary to
complete the list of Northern states involved in the
Underground Railroad system.5 This
region, which forms nearly one quarter of the present
area of the Union, constituted the irregular zone of
free soil intervening between Southern slavery and
Canadian liberty.
The conditions that determined the number and
distribution of stations throughout this region are
clearly discernible even in the incomplete data with
which we are forced to be content. It is safe to
assert that in Ohio the conditions favorable to the
development of a large number of stations, and the
dissemination of these throughout the state, existed in
a measure and combination not reproduced in the case of
any other state. Ohio’s geographical boundary gave it a
long line of contact with slave territory. It
bordered Kentucky with about one hundred and sixty miles
of river frontage; and Virginia with perhaps two hundred
and twenty-five miles or more, and crossings were made
at almost any point. The character of the early
settlements of Ohio is a factor that must not be
overlooked. The northern and eastern parts of the
---------------
1 Anti-Slavery Days, p. 81; M. G. McDougall,
Fugitive Slaves, p. 61.
2 Rise and Fall of the Slave Power in America,
Vol. II, p. 66.
3 Ibid., p. 68.
4 Ibid., p. 68. 4 John Brown and His Men,
p. 173.
5 See pp. 123-125, this
chapter.
[Pg. 115] - NUMBER AND DISTRIBUTION
OF STATIONS.
state were dotted over with many little communities
where New England ideas prevailed; the southern and
southwestern parts came in time to be well sprinkled
with the homes of Quakers, Covenanters and anti-slavery
Southerners and some negroes; the central and
southeastern portions contained a number of Quaker
settlements. The remote position and sparse
settlement of the northwestern section of the state
probably explain the failure to find many traces of
routes in that region. Family ties, church
fellowship, an aggressive anti-slavery leadership, -
journalistic and political, - the leavening influence of
institutions like Oberlin College, Western Reserve
College and Geneva College, all contributed to propagate
a sentiment that was ready to support the fleeing slave;
and thus Ohio became netted over with a large number of
interlacing lines of escape for fugitive slaves.
The western portions of Pennsylvania and New York, and
the eastern portion of Indiana shared with Ohio these
favorable conditions, and one is not surprised to find
many stations in these regions. The same is true
of northern and west-central Illinois, where many
persons of New England descent settled. The few
lines known in southwestern Illinois were developed by a
few Covenanter communities. The geographical
position of the most southern portions of Illinois and
Indiana determined the character of the population
settling there, and thus rendered underground
enterprises in those regions more than ordinarily
dangerous. There may have been stations scattered
through those parts, but if so, one can scarcety hope
now to discover them. The great number of routes
in southeastern Pennsylvania, and the stream of slave
emigration flowing through New Jersey to New York are to
be attributed largely to the untiring activity of a host
of Quakers, assisted by some negroes. The
cooperation of some zealous station-keepers in the
neighboring slave territory seems to account partly for
the multitude of stations that appear upon the map
between the lower Susquehanna and Delaware rivers.
Whether there was any underground work done in the
central and northern parts of Pennsylvania is not known;
the indications are that there was not much; the
stations said to have existed at Milroy, Altoona, Work’s
Place and Smicksburg probably
[Pg. 116]
connected with lines running in a northwesterly
direction to Lake Erie. This is known to have been
true of the stations at Greensburg, Indiana, Clearfield
and intermediate points, which were linked in with
stations leading to Meadville and Erie. The
remoteness of New York and of the New England states
from the slaveholding section explains the comparatively
small number of stations found in those states.
Iowa, which bordered on slave territory, had only a
small number of stations, for it was a new region, not
long open to occupation; and only the southern part of
the state was in the direct line of travel, which here
was mostly eastward. There were a few places of
deportation in southeastern Wisconsin for fugitives that
had avoided Chicago, and followed the lake- shore or the
Illinois River farther northward. A rather narrow
strip of Michigan, adjoining Indiana and Ohio, was
dotted with stations.
There were friends of the discontented slave in the
South as well as in the North, although it cannot be
said, upon the basis of the small amount of evidence at
hand, that these were sufficient in number or so
situated as to maintain regular lines of escape
northward. Doubtless many acts of kindness to
slaves were performed by individual Southerners, but
those were not, in most of the cases, known as the acts
of persons cooperating to help the slave from point to
point until freedom and safety should be reached.
That there were regular helpers in the South engaged in
concerted action, Samuel J. May, a station-keeper
of wide information concerning the Road, freely asserts.
In 1869 he wrote, “There have always been scattered
throughout the slaveholding states individuals who have
abhorred slavery, and have pitied the victims of our
American despotism. These persons have known, or
have taken pains to find out, others at convenient
distances northward from their abodes who sympathized
with them in commiserating the slaves. These
sympathizers have known or heard of others of like mind
still farther north, who again have had acquaintances in
the free states that they knew would help the fugitive
on his way to liberty. Thus lines of friends at
longer or shorter distances were formed from many parts
of the South to the
[Pg. 117] - THE SOUTHERN BRANCHES
[Pg. 118]
[Pg. 119] - MAIN CHANNELS OF FLIGHT
OF SLAVES.
[Pg. 120]
[Pg. 121] - ROUTES OF EASTERN
PENNSYLVANIA
[Pg. 122]
[Pg. 123] - ROUTES OF WESTERN
PENSYLVANIA
boring counties of Virginia and Maryland. A
map drawn by Mr. Amos M. Jolliffe, of Uniontown,
shows that there were two courses leading northward from
his neighborhood, both of which terminated at Pittsburg.1
From this point fugitives seem to have been sent to
Cleveland by rail, or to have been directed to follow
the Alleghany or the Ohio and its tributaries north.
Investigation proves that friends were not lacking at
convenient points to help them along to the main
terminals for this region, namely, Erie and Buffalo, or
across the border of the state to the much-used routes
of the Western Reserve.2 East of the
Alleghany River significant traces of underground work
are found running in a northeasterly direction from
Greensburg through Indiana County to Clearfield,3
a distance of seventy-five miles, and from Cumberland,
Maryland, through Bedford and Pleasantville to Altoona,4
about the same distance. These fragmentary routes
may have had connections with some of the fragmentary
lines of western New York. From Clearfield an
important branch is known to have run northwest to
Shippenville and Franklin, and so to Erie, a place of
deportation on the lake of the same name.6
New Jersey was intimately associated with Philadelphia
and the adjoining section in the underground system, and
afforded at least three important outlets for runaways
from the territory west of the Delaware River. Our
knowledge of these outlets is derived solely from the
testimony of the Rev. Thomas Clement Oliver, who,
like his father, travelled the New Jersey routes many
times as a guide or conductor.6
Probably the most important of these routes was that
leading
---------------
1 Letter of Mr. Jolliffe, Nov. 17, 1896.
2 Letter of John F. Hogue, Greenville, Pa., Nov.
25, 1895 ; letter of S. P. Stewart, Clark, Mercer
Co., Pa., Dec. 26, 1895; letter of W. W. Walker,
Makanda, Jackson Co., Ill., March 14, 1896; note-book of
Joseph S. White, of New Castle, Pa., containing
“Some Reminiscences of Slavery Times.”
3 Letters of C. P. Rank, Cush Creek, Indiana
Co., Pa., Dec. 23, 1896, and Jan. 4, 1897; letter of
William Atcheson, DuBois, Pa., Jan. 11, 1897.
4 Letter of Wyett Perry, Bedford, Pa., Dec. 23,
1895; letter of John W. Rouse, Bedford, Pa., Nov.
25, 1895 ; letter of William M. Hall, Bedford,
Pa., Nov. 30, 1895.
5 Conversation with William Edwards, Amherstburg,
Ont., Aug. 3, 1895.
6 Conversation with Mr. Oliver, Windsor, Ont.,
Aug. 2, 1895.
[Pg. 124]
from Philadelphia to Jersey City and New York.
From Philadelphia the runaways were taken across the
Delaware River to Camden, where Mr. Oliver
lived, thence they were conveyed northeast following the
course of the river to Burlington, and thence in the
same direction to Bordentown. In Burlington,
sometimes called Station A, a short stop was made for
the purpose of changing horses after the rapid drive of
twenty miles from Philadelphia. The Bordentown
station was denominated Station B east. Here the
road took a more northerly direction to Princeton, where
horses were again changed and the journey continued to
New Brunswick. Just east of New Brunswick the
conductors sometimes met with opposition in attempting
to cross the Raritan River on their way to Jersey City.
To avoid such interruption the conductors arranged with
Cornelius Cornell, who lived on the
outskirts of New Brunswick, and, presumably, near the
river, to notify them when there were slave-catchers or
spies at the regular crossing. On receiving such
information they took a by-road leading to Perth Amboy,
whence their protégés
could be safely forwarded to New York City. When
the way was clear at the Raritan the company pursued its
course to Rahway; here another relay of horses was
obtained and the journey continued to Jersey City,
where, under the care of John Everett, a
Quaker, or his servants, they were taken to the
Forty-second Street railroad station, now known as the
Grand Central, provided with tickets, and placed on a
through train for Syracuse, New York. The second
route had its origin on the Delaware River forty miles
below Philadelphia, at or near Salem. This line,
like the others to be mentioned later, seems to have
been tributary to the Philadelphia route traced above.
Nevertheless, it had an independent course for sixty
miles before it connected with the more northern route
at Bordentown. This distance of sixty miles was
ordinarily travelled in three stages, the first ending
at Woodbury, twenty-five miles north of Salem, although
the trip by wagon is said to have added ten miles to the
estimated distance between the two places; the second
stage ended at Evesham Mount; and the third, at
Bordentown. The third route was called, from its
initial station, the Greenwich line.
[Pg. 125] - ROUTES OF NEW JERSEY
AND NEW YORK
This station is vividly described as having been made up
of a circle of Quaker residences enclosing a swampy
place that swarmed with blacks. One may surmise
that it made a model station. Slaves were
transported at night across the Delaware River from the
vicinity of Dover, in boats marked by a yellow light
hung below a blue one, and were met some distance out
from the Jersey shore by boats showing the same lights.
Landed at Greenwich, the fugitives were conducted north
twenty-five miles to Swedesboro, and thence about the
same distance to Evesham Mount. From this point
they were taken to Mount Holly, and so into the northern
or Philadelphia route. Still another branch of
this Philadelphia line is known. It constitutes
the fourth road, and is described by Mr. Robert
Purvis1 as an extension of a route
through Bucks County, Pennsylvania, that entered
Trenton, New Jersey, from Newtown, and ran directly to
New Brunswick and so on to New York.
Mr. Eber M. Pettit, for many years a conductor
of the Underground Railroad in western New York,2
asserts that the Road had four main lines across his
state, and scores of laterals,3 but he
nowhere attempts to identify these lines for the benefit
of those less well informed than himself.
Concerning what may be supposed to have been one of the
lines, he speaks as follows: “ The first
well-established line of the U. G. R. R. had its
southern terminus in Washington, D.C., and extended in a
pretty direct route to Albany, N.Y., thence radiating in
all directions to all the New England states, and to
many parts of this state. . . . The General
Superintendent resided in Albany. . . . He was once an
active member of one of the churches in Fredonia.
Mr. T., his agent in Washington City, was a very
active and efficient man; the Superintendent at Albany
was in daily communication by mail with him and other
subordinate agents at all points along the line.”4
Frederick Douglass, who was familiar with this
Albany route during the period of his residence in
Rochester, describes it as running through Phil-
---------------
1 Conversation with Mr. Purvis,
Philadelphia, Dec. 23, 1895.
2 Sketches in the History of the Underground
Railroad, 1879, Preface,
3 Ibid., p. xiv.
4 Ibid., p. 34.
[Pg. 126]
[Pg. 127] - ROUTES OF NEW YORK
[Pg. 128]
[Pg. 129] - ROUTES OF MASSACHUSETTS
[Pg. 130]
ramifications from the valley route,1 which
may have terminated among the hills in the western part
of the state, for all that one can now discover.
A line of Road originating at New Bedford in
southeastern Massachusetts is mentioned in connection
with the line up the Connecticut valley by the Hon.
M. M. Fisher, of Medway, Massachusetts, as one of
the more common routes.2 Mrs.
Elizabeth Buffum Chace says that slaves landing on
Cape Cod went to New Bedford, whence under the guidance
of some abolitionist they were conveyed to the home of
Nathaniel P. Borden at Fall River. Between
this station and the one kept by Mr. and Mrs.
Chace at Valley Falls, Robert Adams
acted as conductor; and from Valley Falls Mr. Chace
was in the habit of accompanying passengers a short
distance over the Providence and Worcester Railroad
until he had placed them in the care of some trusted
employee of that road to be transferred at Worcester to
the Vermont Railroad.3 The Rev.
Joshua Young was receiving agent at Burlington,
Vermont, and testifies that during his residence there
he and his friend and parishioner, L. H. Bigelow,
did “considerable business.”4 South of
Burlington there was a series of stations not connected
with the Vermont Central Railroad extension of the New
Bedford route. The names of these stations have
been obtained from Mr. Rowland E. Robinson,
whose father’s house was a refuge for fugitives at
Ferrisburg, Vermont, and from the Hon. Joseph
Poland, the editor of the first anti-slavery
newspaper in his state, who was himself an agent of the
Underground Road at Montpelier. The names are
those of nine towns, which form a line roughly parallel
to the west boundary of the state, namely, North
Ferrisburg, Ferrisburg, Vergennes, Middlebury, Brandon,
Rutland, Wallingford, Manchester and
---------------
1 The stations, as indicated on the map, are
named in letters from L. S. Abell and Charles
Parsons, Conway, Mass.; C. Barrus,
Springfield, Mass.; Judge D. W. Bond, Cambridge,
Mass.; and Arthur G. Hill, Boston, Mass.
See also article on “The Underground Railway,” by
Joseph Marsh, in the History of Florence,
Massachusetts, pp. 165-167.
2 Letter of Mr. Fisher, Oct. 23,
i893.
3 Anti-Slavery Reminiscences, pp. 27,
28.
4 Letter of Mr. Young, Groton, Mass.,
April 21, 1893.
PHOTO
CAVES IN SALEM TOWNSHIP, WASHINGTON COUNTY, OHIO
The cave on the left was a rendezvous for fugitives
PHOTO
HOUSE OF MRS. ELIZABETH BUFFUM CHACE,
A Station of the Underground Railroad, Valley Falls,
Rhode Island.
[Pg. 131] - ROUTES OF VERMONT
Bennington.1
They constituted what may be called the west Vermont
route, Bennington being at the southern extremity, where
escaped slaves were received from Troy, New York.2
The terminal at the northern end of this route was St.
Albans, whence runaways could be hastened across the
Canadian frontier. The valley of the lower Connecticut
seems to have yielded a sufficient supply of fugitive
slaves to sustain a vigorous line of Road in eastern
Vermont. It was over this line the travellers came
that were placed in hiding in the office of Editor
Poland at Montpelier, having made their way
northward with the aid of friends at Brattleboro,
Chester, Woodstock, Randolph and intermediate points.
At Montpelier the single path divided into three
branches, one extending westward and uniting with the
west Vermont route at Burlington, another running
northward into the Queen’s dominions by way of
Morristown and other stations, and the third zigzagging
to New Port, where a pass through the mountains admitted
the zealous pilgrims to the coveted possession of their
own liberty.3
Having thus sketched in the Vermont lines of
Underground Railroad, it is necessary for us to return
to the consideration of the New Bedford route, which had
some accessory lines near its source. One of these
had stations at Newport and Providence, managed by
Quakers - Jethro and Anne Mitchell with
others in the former, and Daniel Mitchell
in the latter.4 Another was a short
line through Windham County, in the northeastern part of
Connecticut, to Uxbridge, where it joined the main line.5
The Rev. Samuel J. May, who was a resident of
Brooklyn, Connecticut, in the early thirties, had
fugitives addressed to his care at that time, and he
helped them on to Effingham L. Capron while he
lived in Uxbridge, and after-
---------------
1 Letter of
Mr. Robinson, Ferrisburg, Vt., Aug. 19,
1896; letter of Mr. Poland, Montpelier,
Vt., April 12, 1897.
2 Letter of Mr. Brainerd, St.
Albans, Vt., Oct. 21, 1895.
3 Letters of Mrs. Abijah Keith,
Chicago, Ill., March 28, and April 4,1897 ; letters of
Mr. Poland, April 7 and 12, 1897.
4 Letter of James S. Rogers, Chicago,
HI., April 17, 1897.
5 Letters of Joel Fox,
Willimantic, Conn., July 30, 1896, and Aug. 3, 1896.
[Pg. 132]
[Pg. 133] - ROUTES OF NEW HAMPSHIRE
AND MAINE
[Pg. 134]
[Pg. 135] - ROUTES IN THE WESTERN
STATES
[Pg. 136]
[Pg. 137] - MAPS OF LOCALITIES
EXAMINED
[Pg. 138]
[Pg. 139] - MAPS OF LOCALITIES
EXAMINED
[Pg. 140]
[Pg. 141] - MULTIPLE AND INTRICATE
TRAILS
[Pg. 142]
[Pg. 143] - ROUTES BY RAIL AND BY
WATER
[Pg. 144]
[Pg. 145] - PLACES OF DEPORTATION
[Pg. 146]
PHOTO
THE DETROIT RIVER, AT DETROIT, MICHIGAN, IN 1850,
The Favorite Place for Fugitives to Cross into Canada.
(From an engraving in possession of C. M. Burton, Esq.,
of Detroit)
PHOTO
HARBOR, ASHTABULA COUNTY, OHIO, IN 1860,
A Place of Deportation for Fugitives on Lake Erie.
(From a photograph in possession of J. D. Hulbert,
Esq., of Harbor, Ohio.)
[Pg. 147] - LINES OF BOAT SERVICE
TO CANADA
Hundreds, nay, thousands of fugitives found
crossing-places along the Detroit River, especially at
the city of Detroit. The numerous routes of
Indiana together with several of the chief routes of
western Ohio poured their passengers into Detroit,
thence to be transported by ferries and row-boats to the
tongue of land pressing its shore-line for thirty miles
from Lake Erie to Lake St. Clair upon the very borders
of Michigan. The movement of slaves to this region
was a fact of which Southerners early became apprised,
and their efforts to recover their servants as these
were about to enter the Canaan already within sight were
occasionally successful, although the majority of the
people of Detroit1 and of the surrounding
districts rejoiced to see the slave-catchers outwitted.
The places of deportation remaining to be mentioned are
four, along the southwestern shore of Lake Michigan,
namely, Milwaukee, Racine, South Port and Chicago.
Of these the last-named was, doubtless, the most
important, since through it chiefly were drained off the
fugitives that came from Missouri over the routes of
Iowa and Illinois. A single operator of Chicago,
Mr. Philo Carpenter, is said to have guided not
less than two hundred negroes to Canada-bound vessels.2
The lines of boat-service to the Canadian termini
require a few words of comment. The longest line
of travel on the lakes was that connecting the ports of
Wisconsin and Illinois with Detroit or Amherstburg,3
and was only approached in length by the route from
Chicago to Collingwood, Ontario.4 Five
hundred miles would be a minimum statement of the
distance refugees were carried by the boats of
abolitionist captains from these westernmost ports to
their havens of refuge. On Lake Erie the routes
were, of course, much shorter, and ran up and down the
lake, as well as across it. Important routes
joined Toledo, Sandusky and Cleveland to Amherstburg and
Detroit at one end of the lake, and Dunkirk, Ashtabula
Harbor, Painesville and Cleveland with Buffalo and
---------------
1 Silas Farmer, History of Detroit and
Michigan, p. 346.
2 Edward G. Mason, Early Chicago and Illinois,
p. 110.
3 See Chapter III, pp. 82, 83.
4 Letter of John G. Weiblen, Fairview, Erie Co.,
Pa., Nov. 26, 1895.
[Pg. 148]
Black Rock at the other end of the lake. Certain
boats running on these routes came to be known as
abolition boats, with ample accommodations for
underground passengers. Thus, we are told, such
passengers “depended on a vessel named the Arrow, which
for many years plied between Sandusky and Detroit, but
always touched first at Malden, Canada, where the
fugitives were landed.”1 Frequent use
was also made of scows, sail-boats and sharpies, with
which refugees could be “set across” the lake, and
landed at almost any point along the shore. Small
vessels, a part of whose “freight” had been received
from the Underground Railroad, were often despatched to
Port Burwell in the night from the warehouse of Hubbard
and Company, forwarding and commission merchants of
Ashtabula Harbor.2 Similar enterprises
were carried on at various other points along the lake.3
So far as known, Lake Ontario had only a few
comparatively insignificant routes: at the upper end of
the lake were two, one joining Rochester and St.
Catherines, the other, St. Catherines and Toronto; at
the lower end of the lake, Oswego, Port Ontario and Cape
Vincent seem to have been connected by lines with
Kingston.
It is impossible to tell how many cities, towns and
villages in Canada became terminals of the underground
system. Outside of the interlake region of Ontario
it is safe to name Kingston, Prescott, Montreal,
Stanstead and St. John, New Brunswick. Within that
region the terminals were numerous, being scattered from
the southern shore of Georgian Bay to Lake Erie, and
from the Detroit and Huron rivers to the
---------------
1 The Firelands Pioneer, July, 1888, p. 77.
2 Conversation with Nelson Watrous,
Harbor, O., Aug. 8,1892 ; conversation with J. D.
Hulbert, Harbor, O., Aug. 7, 1892.
3 The following incident given by Mr. Rush R. Sloane
will serve as an illustration: “In the summer of 1853,
four fugitives arrived at Sandusky. . . . Mr. John
Irvine . . . had arranged for a ‘sharpee,’ a small
sail-boat used by fishermen, with one George
Sweigels, to sail the boat to Canada with this
party, for which service Captain Sweigels
was to receive thirty-five dollars. One man
accompanied Captain Sweigels, and at eight
o’clock in the evening this party in this small boat
started to cross Lake Erie. The wind was
favorable, and before morning Point au Pelee Island was
reached, and the next day the four escaped fugitives
were in Canada.” The Firelands Pioneer,
July, 1888, pp. 49, 60.
[Pg. 149] - TERMINALS IN CANADA
Niagara. Owen Sound, Collingwood
and Oro were the northernmost resorts, so far as now
known. Toronto,
Queen's Bush, Wellesley, Gait and Hamilton occupied
territory south of these, and farther south still, in
the marginal strip fronting directly on Lake Erie, there
were not less than twenty more places of refuge.
The most important of these were naturally those
situated at either end of the strip, and along the
shore-line, namely, Windsor, Sandwich and Amherstburg.
New Canaan, Colchester and Kingsville, Gosfield and
Buxton, Port Stanley, Port Burwell and Port Royal, Long
Point, Fort Erie and St. Catherines. In the Valley
of the Thames also many refugees settled, especially at
Chatham, Dresden and Dawn, and at Sydenham, London and
Wilberforce. The names of two additional towns,
Sarnia on the Huron River and Brantford on the Grand,
complete the list of the known Canadian terminals.
This enumeration of centres cannot be supposed to be
exhaustive. A full record would take into account
the localities in the outlying country districts as well
as those adjoining or forming a part of the hamlets,
towns and cities of the whites, whither the blacks had
penetrated. The untrodden wilds of Canada, as well
as her populous places, seemed hospitable to a people
for whom the hardships of the new life were fully
compensated by the consciousness of their possession of
the rights of freemen, rights vouchsafed them by a
government that exemplified the proud boast of the poet
Cowper: -
"Slaves cannot breathe in
England; if their lungs
Receive our air, that moment they are free!
They touch our country and their shackles
fall." |
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