A Woman's Life-Work — Labors and Experiences of Laura S. Haviland. Laura S. Haviland
Chester, in a choked voice, exclaimed: "I'll—I'll—I won't say much more to you—you're a woman—but that young man of yours; I'll give five hundred dollars if he'll go to Kentucky with me."
Just then the conductor appeared and cried out: "What are you doing here, you villainous scoundrels? We'll have you arrested in five minutes." At this they fled precipitately to the woods, and the last we saw of these tall and valiant representatives of the land of chivalry were their heels feat receding in the thicket.
Of course, this brave exhibition of rhetoric and valor called out innumerable questions from the passengers; and from there on to Adrian, though already terribly fatigued, we had to be continually framing replies and making explanations.
Among the people of Sylvania the news spread like wildfire, and it was reported that over forty men were at the depot with hand-spikes and iron bars, ready to tear up the track in case the Hamilton family had been found on the train bound for Toledo.
When we arrived at Adrian my oldest son, Harvey, and Willis were there to meet us; and when we told Willis that Elsie's old master and his son had but an hour previously pointed pistols at our heads and threatened our lives, he could hardly speak from astonishment. Harvey said my letter arrived before sunrise, but that no one believed I had any thing to do with it. However, as the porter swore he saw me write it, Professor Patchin and J. F. Dolbeare were sent for; but they also distrusted its validity and the truthfulness of the bearer.
Elsie had no faith in it at all. "If," said she, "the old man is so very sick, as he hasn't seen us for years, they could bring him any black man and woman, and call them Willis and Elsie, and he'd never know the difference; and as for that letter, Mrs. Haviland never saw it. I believe the slave-holders wrote it themselves. They thought, as she was a widow, she'd have a black dress, and you know she hasn't got one in the house. And where's the pink aprons and green striped dresses? And there's no south bed-room in this house. It's all humbug; and I sha'n't stir a step until I see Mrs. Haviland."
Said another: "These things look queer. There's no bureau in the west room."
The porter, seeing he could not get the family, offered Willis ten dollars if he would go to Palmyra with him, but he refused. He then offered it to my son Harvey if he would take Wills to Palmyra.
"No, sir; I shall take him nowhere but to Adrian, to meet mother," was
Harvey's reply.
After their arrival in Adrian the porter again offered the ten dollars, and Lawyer Perkins and others advised Harvey to take it and give it to Willis, as they would protect him from all harm. But when I came I told him not to touch it; and the porter, drawing near, heard my explanation of the letter, and the threatening remarks of the people, who declared that if slave-holders should attempt to take the Hamilton family or any other escaped slave from our city or county they would see trouble. He soon gave us the benefit of his absence, and we went home with thankful hearts that public sentiment had made a law too strong to allow avaricious and unprincipled men to cast our persecuted neighbors back into the seething cauldron of American slavery.
All that day our house was thronged with visitors, eager to hear the story which was agitating the whole community, but about midnight I told my friends that rest was a necessity, for never in my life was I so thoroughly exhausted from talking; but, as the next day wan-the Sabbath, I would in the evening meet all who chose to come in the Valley School-house (at that day the largest in the county) and tell them the whole story, and save repeating it so many times.
When the evening came we met a larger crowd than could find standing-room in the school-house, and report said there was a spy for the slave-holders under a window outside.
I related the whole story, omitting nothing, and was followed by Elijah Brownell, one of our ablest anti-slavery lecturers, with a few spirited remarks. He suggested that a collection should be taken up to defray our expenses to Toledo and return, and fourteen dollars was soon placed in my hands.
From a friend of our letter-carrier, the porter of the Toledo Hotel, we learned that the plans of the slave-holders accorded with those given James Martin in the sick-room. After getting the Hamilton family in their clutches they intended to gag and bind—them, and, traveling nights, convey them from one point to another until they reached Kentucky. This was precisely on the plan of our underground railroad, but happily for the cause of freedom, in this case at least, not as successful.
The citizens of Adrian appointed a meeting at the court-house, and sent for me to again tell the story of the slaveholder who had so deeply laid his plans to capture, not only his fugitive slave Elsie and her four children, but also her husband, who was a free man. Other meetings were called to take measures for securing the safety of the hunted family from the iron grasp of the oppressor, whose arm is ever strong and powerful in the cause of evil; and so great was public excitement that the chivalrous sons of the South found our Northern climate too warm for their constitutions, and betook themselves to the milder climate of Tennessee with as great speed as their hunted slave, with her husband, hastened away from there fifteen years before.
It may be asked how the Chesters discovered that Hamilton and his wife were in Michigan. We learned afterward that John P. Chester was the postmaster at Jonesborough, and receiving a letter at his office directed to John Bayliss, he suspected it to be from friends of his former slaves, and opened it. His suspicions being confirmed, he detained the letter, and both corresponded and came North in the assumed character of Bayliss. His schemes miscarried, as we have above narrated, and Bayliss probably never knew of the desperate game played in his name.
About two weeks after the departure of this noble trio I received a threatening letter from John P. Chester, to which I replied; and this was followed by a correspondence with his son, Thomas K. Chester (the sick deacon). From these letters we shall give a few extracts.
In a letter received under the date of December 3; 1846, John P. Chester writes: "I presume you do not want something for nothing; and inasmuch as you have my property in your possession, and are so great a philanthropist, you Hill feel bound to remunerate me for that property. … If there is any law of the land to compel you to pay for them I intend to have it."
In my reply, December 20, 1846, I wrote:
"First, convince me that you have property in my possession, and you shall have the utmost farthing. But if Willis Hamilton and family are property in my possession, then are Rev. John Patchin and wife, principals of Raisin Institute, and other neighbors, property in my possession, as I have dealing with each family, precisely in the same manner that I have with Willis Hamilton and family, and I do as truly recognize property in my other neighbors as in the Hamilton family. Prove my position fallacious, and not predicated on principles of eternal right, and they may be blown to the four winds of heaven. If carnal weapons can be brought to bear upon the spiritual you shall have the liberty to do it with the six-shooters you flourished toward my face in Sylvania, Ohio. …
"As for my being compelled to pay you for this alleged property, to this I have but little to say, as it is the least of all my troubles in this lower world. I will say, However, I stand ready to meet whatever you may think proper to do in the case. Should you think best to make us another call, I could not vouch for your safety. The circumstances connected with this case have been such that great excitement has prevailed. A. number of my neighbors have kept arms since our return from Toledo. I can say with the Psalmist, 'I am for peace, but they are for war.'
"At a public meeting called the next evening after our return from the Toledo trip, fourteen dollars was placed in my hands as a remuneration for the assistance I rendered in examining your very sick patient. I found the disease truly alarming, far beyond the reach of human aid, much deeper than bilious fever, although it might have assumed a typhoid grade. The blister that you were immediately to apply on the back of the patient could not extract that dark, deep plague-spot of slavery, too apparent to be misunderstood."
I received a long list of epithets in a letter, bearing date, Jonesboro, Tennessee, February 7, 1847, from Thomas K. Chester, the sick deacon:
"I have thought it my duty to answer your pack of balderdash, … that you presumed to reply to my father,