After giving me as much food as I could eat, she presented me with ten cents, all the money then at her disposal, accompanied with a note to a friend, a few miles further on the road.  Thanking this angel of mercy from an overflowing heart, I pushed on my way, and in three days arrived at Cleaveland, Ohio.

Being an entire stranger in this place, it was difficult for me to find where to stop.  I had no money, and the lake being frozen, I saw that I must remain until the opening of navigation, or go to Canada by way of Buffalo.  But believing myself to be somewhat out of danger, I secured an engagement at the Mansion House, as a table waiter, in payment for my board.  The proprietor, however, whose name was E.M.  Segur, in a short time, hired me for twelve dollars per month; on which terms I remained until spring, when I found good employment on board a lake steamboat.

I purchased some books, and at leisure moments perused them with considerable advantage to myself.  While at Cleaveland, I saw, for the first time, an anti-slavery newspaper.  It was the “Genius of Universal Emancipation” published by Benjamin Lundy, and though I had no home, I subscribed for the paper.  It was my great desire, being out of slavery myself, to do what I could for the emancipation of my brethren yet in chains, and while on Lake Erie, I found many opportunities of “helping their cause along.”

It is well known, that a great number of fugitives make their escape to Canada, by way of Cleaveland; and while on the lake, I always made arrangement to carry them on the boat to Buffalo or Detroit, and thus effect their escape to the “promised land.”  The friends of the slave, knowing that I would transport them without charge, never failed to have a delegation when the boat arrived at Cleaveland.  I have sometimes had four or five on board, at one time.

In the year 1842, I conveyed, from the first of May to the first of December, sixty-nine fugitives over Lake Erie to Canada.  In 1843, I visited Maiden, in Upper Canada, and counted seventeen, in that small village, who owed their escape to my humble efforts.

Soon after coming North, I subscribed for the Liberator, edited by that champion of freedom, William Lloyd Garrison.  I labored a season to promote the temperance cause among the colored people, but for the last three years, have been pleading for the victims of American slavery.

William Wells Brown.

Boston, Mass., June, 1847.