The Underground Railroad | Page 6

as to any
knowledge of his parents' whereabouts; how the intense love of liberty
and desire to get back to his mother had unceasingly absorbed his mind
through all these years of bondage; how, amid the most appalling
discouragements, prompted alone by his undying determination to be
free and be reunited with those from whom he had been sold away, he
contrived to buy himself; how, by extreme economy, from doing
over-work, he saved up five hundred dollars, the amount of money
required for his ransom, which, with his freedom, he, from necessity,
placed unreservedly in the confidential keeping of a Jew, named Joseph
Friedman, whom he had known for a long time and could venture to
trust,--how he had further toiled to save up money to defray his
expenses on an expedition in search of his mother and kindred; how,
when this end was accomplished, with an earnest purpose he took his
carpet-bag in his hand, and his heart throbbing for his old home and
people, he turned his mind very privately towards Philadelphia, where
he hoped, by having notices read in the colored churches to the effect
that "forty-one or forty-two years before two little boys[A] were
kidnapped and carried South"--that the memory of some of the older
members might recall the circumstances, and in this way he would be
aided in his ardent efforts to become restored to them.
[Footnote A: Sons of Levin and Sidney--the last names of his parents
he was too young to remember.]
And, furthermore, Seth Concklin had read how, on arriving in
Philadelphia, after traveling sixteen hundred miles, that almost the first
man whom Peter Still sought advice from was his own unknown
brother (whom he had never seen or heard of), who made the discovery
that he was the long-lost boy, whose history and fate had been
enveloped in sadness so long, and for whom his mother had shed so
many tears and offered so many prayers, during the long years of their

separation; and, finally, how this self-ransomed and restored captive,
notwithstanding his great success, was destined to suffer the keenest
pangs of sorrow for his wife and children, whom he had left in
Alabama bondage.
Seth Concklin was naturally too singularly sympathetic and humane
not to feel now for Peter, and especially for his wife and children left in
bonds as bound with them. Hence, as Seth was a man who seemed
wholly insensible to fear, and to know no other law of humanity and
right, than whenever the claims of the suffering and the wronged
appealed to him, to respond unreservedly, whether those thus injured
were amongst his nearest kin or the greatest strangers,--it mattered not
to what race or clime they might belong,--he, in the spirit of the good
Samaritan, owning all such as his neighbors, volunteered his services,
without pay or reward, to go and rescue the wife and three children of
Peter Still.
The magnitude of this offer can hardly be appreciated. It was literally
laying his life on the altar of freedom for the despised and oppressed
whom he had never seen, whose kins-folk even he was not acquainted
with. At this juncture even Peter was not prepared to accept this
proposal. He wanted to secure the freedom of his wife and children as
earnestly as he had ever desired to see his mother, yet he could not, at
first, hearken to the idea of having them rescued in the way suggested
by Concklin, fearing a failure.
To J.M. McKim and the writer, the bold scheme for the deliverance of
Peter's family was alone confided. It was never submitted to the
Vigilance Committee, for the reason, that it was not considered a
matter belonging thereto. On first reflection, the very idea of such an
undertaking seemed perfectly appalling. Frankly was he told of the
great dangers and difficulties to be encountered through hundreds of
miles of slave territory. Seth was told of those who, in attempting to aid
slaves to escape had fallen victims to the relentless Slave Power, and
had either lost their lives, or been incarcerated for long years in
penitentiaries, where no friendly aid could be afforded them; in short,
he was plainly told, that without a very great chance, the undertaking
would cost him his life. The occasion of this interview and
conversation, the seriousness of Concklin and the utter failure in
presenting the various obstacles to his plan, to create the slightest

apparent misgiving in his mind, or to produce the slightest sense of fear
or hesitancy, can never be effaced from the memory of the writer. The
plan was, however, allowed to rest for a time.
In the meanwhile, Peter's mind was continually vacillating between
Alabama, with his wife and children, and his new-found relatives in the
North. Said a