The Underground Railroad
Arrival from Washington, D.C., etc., 1857
GEORGE CARROLL, RANDOLPH BRANSON, JOHN CLAGART, AND WILLIAM ROYAN.
These four journeyed from “Egypt” together—but did not leave the same “kind protector.”
George was a full black, ordinary size, twenty-four years of age, and a convert to the doctrine that he had a right to himself. For years the idea of escape had been daily cherished. Five times he had proposed to buy himself, but failed to get the consent of his “master,” who was a merchant, C.C. Hirara, a man about sixty years of age, and a member of the Methodist Church. His property in slaves consisted of two men, two women, two girls and a boy.
Three of George’s brothers escaped to Canada many years prior to his leaving—there he hoped on his arrival to find them in the possession of good farms. $1,300 walked off in the person of George.
Randolph, physically, was a superior man. He was thirty-one years of age and of a dark chestnut color. Weary with bondage he came to the conclusion that he had served a master long enough “without privileges.” Against his master, Richard Reed, he had no hard things to say, however. He was not a “crabbed, cross man”—had but “little to say,” but “didn’t believe in freedom.”
Three of his brothers had been sold South. Left his father, two sisters and one brother. Randolph was worth probably $1,700.
John was a well-made yellow man, twenty-two years of age, who had counted the cost of slavery thoroughly, besides having experienced the effects of it. Accordingly he resolved to “be free or die,” “to kill or be killed, in trying to reach free land somewhere!”
Having “always been hired out amongst very hard white people,” he was “unhappy.” His owner, George Coleman, lived near Fairfax, Va., and was a member of the Methodist Church, but in his ways was “very sly,” and “deadly against anything like Freedom.” He held fifteen of his fellow-men in chains.
For John’s hire he received one hundred and fifty dollars a year. He was, therefore, ranked with first-class “stock,” valued at $1,500.
William was about thirty-five years of age, neat, and pleasing in his manners. He would be the first selected in a crowd by a gentleman or a lady, who might want a very neat-looking man to attend to household affairs. Though he considered Captain Cunningham, his master, a “tolerable fair man,” he was not content to be robbed of his liberty and earnings. As he felt that he “could take care of himself,” he decided to let the Captain have the same chance—and so he steered his course straight for Canada.