The Underground Railroad | Page 7

brother, "If you cannot get your family, what will you do?
Will you come North and live with your relatives?" "I would as soon go
out of the world, as not to go back and do all I can for them," was the
prompt reply of Peter.
The problem of buying them was seriously considered, but here
obstacles quite formidable lay in the way. Alabama laws utterly denied
the right of a slave to buy himself, much less his wife and children. The
right of slave masters to free their slaves, either by sale or emancipation,
was positively prohibited by law. With these reflections weighing upon
his mind, having stayed away from his wife as long as he could content
himself to do, he took his carpet-bag in his hand, and turned his face
toward Alabama, to embrace his family in the prison-house of bondage.
His approach home could only be made stealthily, not daring to breathe
to a living soul, save his own family, his nominal Jew master, and one
other friend--a slave--where he had been, the prize he had found, or
anything in relation to his travels. To his wife and children his return
was unspeakably joyous. The situation of his family concerned him
with tenfold more weight than ever before,
As the time drew near to make the offer to his wife's master to purchase
her with his children, his heart failed him through fear of awakening the
ire of slaveholders against him, as he knew that the law and public
sentiment were alike deadly opposed to the spirit of freedom in the
slave. Indeed, as innocent as a step in this direction might appear, in
those days a man would have stood about as good a chance for his life
in entering a lair of hungry hyenas, as a slave or free colored man
would, in talking about freedom.
He concluded, therefore, to say nothing about buying. The plan
proposed by Seth Concklin was told to Vina, his wife; also what he had
heard from his brother about the Underground Rail Road,--how, that
many who could not get their freedom in any other way, by being aided
a little, were daily escaping to Canada. Although the wife and children
had never tasted the pleasures of freedom for a single hour in their lives,

they hated slavery heartily, and being about to be far separated from
husband and father, they were ready to assent to any proposition that
looked like deliverance.
So Peter proposed to Vina, that she should give him certain small
articles, consisting of a cape, etc., which he would carry with him as
memorials, and, in case Concklin or any one else should ever come for
her from him, as an unmistakable sign that all was right, he would send
back, by whoever was to befriend them, the cape, so that she and the
children might not doubt but have faith in the man, when he gave her
the sign, (cape).
Again Peter returned to Philadelphia, and was now willing to accept the
offer of Concklin. Ere long, the opportunity of an interview was had,
and Peter gave Seth a very full description of the country and of his
family, and made known to him, that he had very carefully gone over
with his wife and children the matter of their freedom. This interview
interested Concklin most deeply. If his own wife and children had been
in bondage, scarcely could he have manifested greater sympathy for
them.
For the hazardous work before him he was at once prepared to make a
start. True he had two sisters in Philadelphia for whom he had always
cherished the warmest affection, but he conferred not with them on this
momentous mission. For full well did he know that it was not in human
nature for them to acquiesce in this perilous undertaking, though one of
these sisters, Mrs. Supplee, was a most faithful abolitionist.
Having once laid his hand to the plough he was not the man to look
back,--not even to bid his sisters good-bye, but he actually left them as
though he expected to be home to his dinner as usual. What had
become of him during those many weeks of his perilous labors in
Alabama to rescue this family was to none a greater mystery than to his
sisters. On leaving home he simply took two or three small articles in
the way of apparel with one hundred dollars to defray his expenses for
a time; this sum he considered ample to start with. Of course he had
very safely concealed about him Vina's cape and one or two other
articles which he was to use for his identification in meeting her and
the children on the plantation.
His first thought was, on reaching his