The Underground Railroad
Five Passengers, 1857.
ELIZA JANE JOHNSON, HARRIET STEWART, AND HER DAUGHTER MARY ELIZA, WILLIAM COLE, AND HANSON HALL.
Eliza Jane was a tall, dark, young woman, about twenty-three years of age, and had been held to service by a widow woman, named Sally Spiser, who was “anything but a good woman.” The place of her habitation was in Delaware, between Concord and Georgetown.
Eliza Jane’s excuse for leaving was this: She charged her mistress with trying to work her to death, and with unkind treatment generally. When times became so hard that she could not stand her old mistress “Sally” any longer, she “took out.”
Harriet did not come in company with Eliza Jane, but by accident they met at the station in Philadelphia. Harriet and daughter came from Washington, D.C.
Harriet had treasured up a heavy account against a white man known by the name of William A. Linton, whom she described as a large, red-faced man, who had in former years largely invested in slave property, but latterly he had been in the habit of selling off, until only seven remained, and among them she and her child were numbered; therefore, she regarded him as one who had robbed her of her rights, and daily threatened her with sale.
Harriet was a very likely-looking woman, twenty-nine years of age, medium size, and of a brown color, and far from being a stupid person. Her daughter also was a smart, and interesting little girl of eight years of age, and seemed much pleased to be getting out of the reach of slave-holders. The mother and daughter, however, had not won their freedom thus far, without great suffering, from the long and fatiguing distance which they were obliged to walk. Sometimes the hardness of the road made them feel as though they would be compelled to give up the journey, whether or not; but they added to their faith, patience, and thus finally succeeded.
Heavy rewards were offered through advertisements in the Baltimore Sun, but they availed naught. The Vigilance Committee received them safely, fully cared for them, and safely sent them through to the land of refuge. Harriet’s daring undertaking obliged her to leave her husband, John Stewart, behind; also one sister, a slave in Georgetown. One brother had been sold South. Her mother she had laid away in a slave’s grave: but her father she hoped to find in Canada, he having escaped thither when she was a small girl; at least it was supposed that he had gone there.