The Underground Railroad eBook

William Still
This eBook from the Gutenberg Project consists of approximately 1,446 pages of information about The Underground Railroad.

The Underground Railroad eBook

William Still
This eBook from the Gutenberg Project consists of approximately 1,446 pages of information about The Underground Railroad.

With her newly acquired reputation as a lecturer, from 1856 to 1859 she continued her labors in Pennsylvania, New Jersey, New York, Ohio, &c.  In the meantime she often came in contact with Underground Rail Road passengers, especially in Philadelphia.  None sympathized with them more sincerely or showed a greater willingness to render them material aid.  She contributed apparently with the same liberality as though they were her own near kin.  Even when at a distance, so deep was her interest in the success of the Road, she frequently made it her business to forward donations, and carefully inquire into the state of the treasury.  The Chairman of the Committee might publish a volume of interesting letters from her pen relating to the Underground Rail Road and kindred topics; but a few extracts must suffice.  We here copy from a letter dated at Rushsylvania, Ohio, Dec. 15th:  “I send you to-day two dollars for the Underground Rail Road.  It is only a part of what I subscribed at your meeting.  May God speed the flight of the slave as he speeds through our Republic to gain his liberty in a monarchical land.  I am still in the lecturing field, though not very strong physically....  Send me word what I can do for the fugitive.”

From Tiffin, Ohio, March 31st, touching the news of a rescue in Philadelphia, she thus wrote: 

“I see by the Cincinnati papers that you have had an attempted rescue and a failure.  That is sad!  Can you not give me the particulars? and if there is anything that I can do for them in money or words, call upon me.  This is a common cause; and if there is any burden to be borne in the Anti-Slavery-cause—­anything to be done to weaken our hateful chains or assert our manhood and womanhood, I have a right to do my share of the work.  The humblest and feeblest of us can do something; and though I may be deficient in many of the conventionalisms of city life, and be considered as a person of good impulses, but unfinished, yet if there is common rough work to be done, call on me.”

Mrs. Harper was not content to make speeches and receive plaudits, but was ever willing to do the rough work and to give material aid wherever needed.

From another letter dated Lewis Centre, Ohio, we copy the following characteristic extract: 

“Yesterday I sent you thirty dollars.  Take five of it for the rescuers (who were in prison), and the rest pay away on the books.  My offering is not large; but if you need more, send me word.  Also how comes on the Underground Rail Road?  Do you need anything for that?  You have probably heard of the shameful outrage of a colored man or boy named Wagner, who was kidnapped in Ohio and carried across the river and sold for a slave....  Ohio has become a kind of a negro hunting ground, a new Congo’s coast and Guinea’s shore.  A man was kidnapped almost under the shadow of our capital.  Oh, was it not dreadful?...  Oh, may the living God
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The Underground Railroad from Project Gutenberg. Public domain.