The Underground Railroad
pardon or relief, could be expected from the spirit and power that held
sway over Delaware at that time.
The case was one of great interest to Mr. McKim, as indeed to the entire
Executive Committee of the Pennsylvania Anti-slavery Society, who felt
constrained to do all they could to save the poor man from his
threatened fate, although they had not advised or encouraged him in the
act for which he was condemned and about to suffer. In viewing his
condition, but a faint ray of hope was entertained from one single
direction. It was this: to raise money privately and have a man at the
auction on the day of sale to purchase him.
John Hunn and Thomas Garrett were too well known as Abolitionists to
undertake this mission. A friend indeed, was desirable, but none other
would do than such an one as would not be suspected. Mr. McKim thought
that a man who might be taken for a negro trader would be the right kind
of a man to send on this errand. Garrett and Hunn being consulted
heartily acquiesced in this plan, and after much reflection and inquiry,
Isaac S. Flint, an uncompromising abolitionist, living in Wilmington,
Delaware, was elected to buy Burris at the sale, providing that he was
not run up to a figure exceeding the amount in hand.
Flint's abhorrence of Slavery combined with his fearlessness, cool
bearing, and perfect knowledge from what he had read of the usages of
traders at slave sales, without question admirably fitted him to play
the part of a trader for the time being.
When the hour arrived, the doomed man was placed on the auction-block.
Two traders from Baltimore were known to be present; how many others the
friends of Burris knew not. The usual opportunity was given to traders
and speculators to thoroughly examine the property on the block, and
most skillfully was Burris examined from the soles of his feet to the
crown of his head; legs, arms and body, being handled as horse-jockies
treat horses. Flint watched the ways of the traders and followed for
effect their example. The auctioneer began and soon had a bid of five
hundred dollars. A Baltimore trader was now in the lead, when Flint, if
we mistake not, bought off the trader for one hundred dollars. The bids
were thus suddenly checked, and Burris was knocked down to Isaac S.
Flint (a strange trader). Of course he had left his abolition name at
home and had adopted one suited to the occasion. When the crier's hammer
indicated the last bid, although Burris had borne up heroically
throughout the trying ordeal, he was not by any means aware of the fact
that he had fallen into the hands of friends, but, on the contrary,
evidently labored under the impression that his freedom was gone. But a
few moments were allowed to pass ere Flint had the bill of sale for his
property, and the joyful news was whispered in the ear of Burris that
all was right; that he had been bought with abolition gold to save him
from going south. Once more Burris found himself in Philadelphia with
his wife and children and friends, a stronger opponent than ever of
Slavery. Having thus escaped by the skin of his teeth, he never again
ventured South.
After remaining a year or two in Philadelphia, about the year 1852 he
went to California to seek more lucrative employment than he had
hitherto found. Becoming somewhat satisfactorily situated he sent for
his family, who joined him. In the meanwhile, his interest in the cause
of freedom did not falter; he always kept posted on the subject of the
Underground Rail Road and Anti-slavery questions; and after the war,
when appeals were made on behalf of contrabands who flocked into
Washington daily in a state of utter destitution, Burris was among the
first to present the matter to the colored churches of San Francisco,
with a view of raising means to aid in this good work, and as the
result, a handsome collection was taken up and forwarded to the proper
committee in Washington.
About three years ago, Samuel D. Burris died, in the city of San
Francisco, at about the age of sixty years. To the slave he had been a
true friend, and had labored faithfully for the improvement of his own
mind as well as the general elevation of his race.
MARIANN, GRACE ANNA, AND ELIZABETH R. LEWIS.
Near Kimberton, in Chester county, Pa., was the birth-place, and, till
within a few years, the home of three sisters, Mariann, Grace Anna and
Elizabeth R. Lewis, who were among the most faithful, devoted, and
quietly efficient workers in the Anti-slavery cause, including that
department of it which is the subject of this volume.
Birth-right members of the Society of Friends, they were born into more
than the traditional Anti-slavery faith and feeling of that Society. A
deep abhorrence of slavery, and an earnest will to put that feeling into
act, as opportunity should serve, were in the very life-blood which they
drew from father and mother both.
Left fatherless at an early age, they were taught by their mother to
remember that their father, on his visits to their maternal grandfather,
living then in Maryland, was wont, as he expressed it, to feel the black
shadow of slavery over his spirit, from the time he entered, till he
left, the State; and that, on his death-bed, he had regretted having let
ill-health prevent his meeting with, and joining one of the Anti-slavery
Societies of that day. Of the mother's share in the transmission of
their hereditary feeling, it is enough, to all acquainted with the
history of Anti-slavery work in Pennsylvania, to say that she was
sister, not by blood alone, but in heart and soul, to that early,
active, untiring abolitionist, Dr. Bartholomew Fussell.
It is easy to see that the children of such parents, growing up under
the influence of such a mother, needed no conversion, no sacrifices of
prejudice or hostile opinions, to make them Anti-slavery; but were
ready, simply as a matter of course, to work for the good cause whenever
any way appeared in which their work could serve it. What was called
"modern abolitionism," as distinguished from the less aggressive form of
opposition to slavery, which preceded the movement pioneered by
Garrison, they at once accepted, as soon as it was set before them,
through the agents of the American Anti-Slavery Society, in the campaign
in Pennsylvania, begun in 1836. Regarding it but as the next step
forward in the way they had already entered, they instinctively fell
into line with the new movement, assisted in forming a society auxiliary
to it, in their own neighborhood, and were constant to the end in
working for its advancement.
EARNEST IN THE CAUSE.
Auxiliary to the influences already mentioned, was a very early
recollection of seeing a colored man, Henry, bound with ropes and
carried off to slavery. Grace Anna, not more than four or five years old
at the time, declared that the man's face of agony is before her now;
nor is it likely that her sisters were impressed less deeply. Of natures
keenly sensitive, they hated slavery, from that hour, as only children
of such natures can; and--as yet too young and immature for that charity
to have been developed in them, which can see a brother even in the
evil-doer, and pity while condemning him,--they even more intensely
hated, while they feared, the actors in the outrage, and despised the
girl who had betrayed the victim. Ever after, any one of them could be
trusted to be faithful to the hunted fugitive, though an army of
kidnappers might surround her.
Another of their early recollections was of a white handkerchief which
was to be waved from a back window, as a signal of danger, to a colored
man at work in a wood near by. And, all the while, the feelings aroused
by such events were kept alive by little Anti-slavery poems, which they
were wont to learn by heart and recite in the evenings. Grace Anna, on
her first visit to Philadelphia, when nine years old, bought a copy of
one of these, entitled "Zambo's Story," pleased to recognize in it a
favorite of her still earlier childhood.
By means like these they were unconsciously preparing themselves for the
predestined tasks of their after-life; and if there were danger that
such a strain upon their sympathies, as they often underwent, might
prove unhealthful, it was fully counteracted by ball-playing, and all
kinds of active out-door amusements of childhood, so that it was never
known to result in harm.
As time passed on, their home, always open to fugitives, became an
important centre of Underground Rail Road operations for the region
extending from Wilmington, Del., into Adams county, Pa.; and they, grown
to womanhood, had glided into the management of its very considerable
business. They received passengers from Thomas Garrett, and sometimes
others, perhaps, of Wilmington, when it was thought unsafe to send them
thence directly through Philadelphia; from Wm. and Phebe Wright, in
Adams county, and from friends, more than we have room to name, in York,
Columbia, and the southern parts of Lancaster and Chester counties; the
several lines, from Adams county to Wilmington, converging upon the
house of John Vickers, of Lionville, whose wagon, laden apparently with
innocent-looking earthen ware from his pottery, sometimes conveyed,
unseen beneath the visible load, a precious burden of Southern chattels,
on their way to manhood.
[At a later period, the trains from Adams county generally took another
course, going to Harrisburg, and on to Canada, by way of the Susquehanna
Valley; though still, when pursuit that way was apprehended, the former
course was taken.]
These passengers, the Lewises forwarded in diverse ways; usually, in the
earlier times, by wagon or carriage, to Richard Moore, of Quakertown, in
Bucks county, about thirty miles distant; but later, when abolitionists
were more numerous, and easier stages could be safely made, either
directly to the writer, or to one or other of ten or twelve stations
which had become established at places less remote, in the counties of
Chester and Montgomery. During portions of the time, their married
sister Rebecca, and her husband, Edwin Fussell, and their uncle, Dr. B.
Fussell, and, after him, his brother William, lived on farms adjoining
theirs, and were their active helpers in this work.
The receiving and passing on of fugitives, was not all they had to do.
Often it was necessary to fit out whole families with clothing suitable
for the journey. In cases of emergency they would sometimes gather a
sewing-circle from such neighboring families as could be trusted; and,
with its help, accomplish rapidly the needed work. One instance is
remembered, of a woman, with her little boy, whom they put into girls'
attire; and, changing also the woman's dress, sent both, by cars, to
Canada, accompanied by a friend. In this kind of work, too, they had
generous aid from friends at neighboring stations. From Lawrenceville
and Limerick, and Pottstown and Pughtown, came contributions of
clothing; at one time a supply which filled compactly three three-bushel
bags, and of which a small remainder, still on hand when slavery was
abolished, was sent South to the freedmen.
The prudence, skill, and watchful care with which the business was
conducted, are well attested by the fact that, so far as can be
remembered, during all the many years of their connection with the
Underground Rail Road, not a plan miscarried, and not a slave that
reached their station was retaken; although among their neighbors there
were bitter adversaries of the Anti-slavery cause, eager to find
occasion for hostile acts against any abolitionist; and, at times,
especially vindictive against the noble sisters, because of their