William Still - The Underground Railroad (Complete Collection)

Your well wisher,

ISAAC FORMAN.

Another letter from Isaac. He is very gloomy and his heart is almost breaking about his wife.

TORONTO, May 7,1854.

MR. W. STILL: — Dear Sir — I take this opportunity of writing you these few lines and hope when they reach you they will find you well. I would have written you before, but I was waiting to hear from my friend, Mr. Brown. I judge his business has been of importance as the occasion why he has not written before. Dear sir, nothing would have prevented me from writing, in a case of this kind, except death.

My soul is vexed, my troubles are inexpressible. I often feel as if I were willing to die. I must see my wife in short, if not, I will die. What would I not give no tongue can utter. Just to gaze on her sweet lips one moment I would be willing to die the next. I am determined to see her some time or other. The thought of being a slave again is miserable. I hope heaven will smile upon me again, before I am one again. I will leave Canada again shortly, but I don't name the place that I go, it may be in the bottom of the ocean. If I had known as much before I left, as I do now, I would never have left until I could have found means to have brought her with me. You have never suffered from being absent from a wife, as I have. I consider that to be nearly superior to death, and hope you will do all you can for me, and inquire from your friends if nothing can be done for me. Please write to me immediately on receipt of this, and say something that will cheer up my drooping spirits. You will oblige me by seeing Mr. Brown and ask him if he would oblige me by going to Richmond and see my wife, and see what arrangements he could make with her, and I would be willing to pay all his expenses there and back. Please to see both Mr. Bagnel and Mr. Minkins, and ask them if they have seen my wife. I am determined to see her, if I die the next moment. I can say I was once happy, but never will be again, until I see her; because what is freedom to me, when I know that my wife is in slavery? Those persons that you shipped a few weeks ago, remained at St. Catherine, instead of coming over to Toronto. I sent you two letters last week and I hope you will please attend to them. The post-office is shut, so I enclose the money to pay the post, and please write me in haste.

I remain evermore your obedient servant,

I. FORMAN.

Table of Contents

He was owned by S.J. Wilson, a merchant, living in Portsmouth, Va. Willis was of a very dark hue, thick set, thirty-two years of age, and possessed of a fair share of mind. The owner had been accustomed to hire Willis out for "one hundred dollars a year." Willis thought his lot "pretty hard," and his master rather increased this notion by his severity, and especially by "threatening" to sell him. He had enjoyed, as far as it was expected for a slave to do, "five months of married life," but he loved slavery no less on this account. In fact he had just begun to consider what it was to have a wife and children that he "could not own or protect," and who were claimed as another's property. Consequently he became quite restive under these reflections and his master's ill-usage, and concluded to "look out," without consulting either the master or the young wife.

This step looked exceedingly hard, but what else could the poor fellow do? Slavery existed expressly for the purpose of crushing souls and breaking tender hearts.

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William might be described as a good-looking mulatto, thirty-one years of age, and capable of thinking for himself. He made no grave complaints of ill-usage under his master, "Joseph Reynolds," who lived at Newton, Portsmouth, Va. However, his owner had occasionally "threatened to sell him." As this was too much for William's sensitive feelings, he took umbrage at it and made a hasty and hazardous move, which resulted in finding himself on the U.G.R.R. The most serious regret William had to report to the Committee was, that he was compelled to "leave" his "wife," Catharine, and his little daughter, Louisa, two years and one month, and an infant son seven months old. He evidently loved them very tenderly, but saw no way by which he could aid them, as long as he was daily liable to be put on the auction block and sold far South. This argument was regarded by the Committee as logical and unanswerable; consequently they readily endorsed his course, while they deeply sympathized with his poor wife and little ones. "Before escaping," he "dared not" even apprise his wife and child, whom he had to leave behind in the prison house.

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In November, 1853, in the twentieth year of his age, Camp was held to "service or labor" in the City of Richmond, Va., by Dr. K. Clark. Being uncommonly smart and quite good-looking at the same time, he was a saleable piece of merchandise. Without consulting his view of the matter or making the least intimation of any change, the master one day struck up a bargain with a trader for Joseph, and received Fourteen Hundred Dollars cash in consideration thereof. Mr. Robert Parrett, of Parson & King's Express office, happened to have a knowledge of what had transpired, and thinking pretty well of Joseph, confidentially put him in full possession of all the facts in the case. For reflection he hardly had five minutes. But he at once resolved to strike that day for freedom — not to go home that evening to be delivered into the hands of his new master. In putting into execution his bold resolve, he secreted himself, and so remained for three weeks. In the meantime his mother, who was a slave, resolved to escape also, but after one week's gloomy foreboding, she became "faint-hearted and gave the struggle over." But Joseph did not know what surrender meant. His sole thought was to procure a ticket on the U.G.R.R. for Canada, which by persistent effort he succeeded in doing. He hid himself in a steamer, and by this way reached Philadelphia, where he received every accommodation at the usual depot, was provided with a free ticket, and sent off rejoicing for Canada. The unfortunate mother was "detected and sold South."

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About the twenty-ninth of January, 1855, Sheridan arrived from the Old Dominion and a life of bondage, and was welcomed cordially by the Vigilance Committee. Miss Elizabeth Brown of Portsmouth, Va. claimed Sheridan as her property. He spoke rather kindly of her, and felt that he "had not been used very hard" as a general thing, although, he wisely added, "the best usage was bad enough." Sheridan had nearly reached his twenty-eighth year, was tall and well made, and possessed of a considerable share of intelligence.

Not a great while before making up his mind to escape, for some trifling offence he had been "stretched up with a rope by his hands," and "whipped unmercifully." In addition to this he had "got wind of the fact," that he was to be auctioneered off; soon these things brought serious reflections to Sheridan's mind, and among other questions, he began to ponder how he could get a ticket on the U.G.R.R., and get out of this "place of torment," to where he might have the benefit of his own labor. In this state of mind, about the fourteenth day of November, he took his first and daring step. He went not, however, to learned lawyers or able ministers of the Gospel in his distress and trouble, but wended his way "directly to the woods," where he felt that he would be safer with the wild animals and reptiles, in solitude, than with the barbarous civilization that existed in Portsmouth.