After having received many tokens of esteem and kindness from the friends of the slave in New York and Brooklyn, she was carefully forwarded on to Canada, to be educated at the “Buxton Settlement.”
An interesting letter, however, from the mother of Ann Maria, conveying the intelligence of her late great struggle and anxiety in laboring to free her last child from Slavery is too important to be omitted, and hence is inserted in connection with this narrative.
LETTER FROM THE MOTHER.
WASHINGTON, D.C., September 19th, 1857.
WM. STILL, ESQ., Philadelphia, Pa. SIR:—I have just sent for my son Augustus, in Alabama. I have sent eleven hundred dollars which pays for his body and some thirty dollars to pay his fare to Washington. I borrowed one hundred and eighty dollars to make out the eleven hundred dollars. I was not very successful in Syracuse. I collected only twelve dollars, and in Rochester only two dollars. I did not know that the season was so unpropitious. The wealthy had all gone to the springs. They must have returned by this time. I hope you will exert yourself and help me get a part of the money I owe, at least. I am obliged to pay it by the 12th of next month. I was unwell when I returned through Philadelphia, or I should have called. I had been from home five weeks.
My son Augustus is the last of the family in Slavery. I feel rejoiced that he is soon to be free and with me, and of course feel the greatest solicitude about raising the one hundred and eighty dollars I have borrowed of a kind friend, or who has borrowed it for me at bank. I hope and pray you will help me as far as possible. Tell Mr. Douglass to remember me, and if he can, to interest his friends for me.
You will recollect that five hundred dollars of our money was taken to buy the sister of Henry H. Garnett’s wife. Had I been able to command this I should not be necessitated to ask the favors and indulgences I do.
I am expecting daily the return
of Augustus, and may Heaven
grant him a safe deliverance
and smile propitiously upon you and
all kind friends who have
aided in his return to me.
Be pleased to remember me
to friends, and accept yourself the
blessing and prayers of your
dear friend,
EARRO WEEMS.
P.S. Direct your letter
to E.L. Stevens, in Duff Green’s Row,
Capitol Hill, Washington,
D.C.
E.W.
That William Penn who worked so faithfully for two years for the deliverance of Ann Maria may not appear to have been devoting all his time and sympathy towards this single object it seems expedient that two or three additional letters, proposing certain grand Underground Rail Road plans, should have a place here. For this purpose, therefore, the following letters are subjoined.