Sketches in the History of the Underground Railroad/Chapter VII
CHAPTER VII.
The fugitive slave, named Jerry, had been discovered by a detective employed by his master, a month or two previous to the Anti-Slavery Convention, which had been announced for the first of August, I think, though I am not certain as to the exact time, and the agent of the claimant had been several weeks making arrangements to carry out the programme that was announced in Congress, and published and repeated by the press all over the South. “That hot-bed of Abolitionism had got to be humbled; Syracuse was to be taught that there was a State known as ‘Old Virginia,’ ‘The Old Dominion,’ ‘Mother of Presidents,’” though even Virginia rejoiced in being able to shirk the responsibility of having brought into the world the accidental tenant of the White House, whom the chivalry were employing to do their dirty work.
I met Jo early in the morning on the day of the convention. He said that many of the fugitives had left for Canada, having heard rumors that one or more of them were to be arrested on that day, but, said Jo, “I have a pleasant home here, my children are going to school, and I have all the work I can do. Besides all that,” said he, “there are not men enough in Virginia to carry me out of this city. If there is to be any excitement of that sort here, I’m bound to have a hand in it, and I shall stay and help fight it out.”
The vague rumors that were afloat were not sufficient to put Jerry and his friends upon their guard. The only persons who knew what was going on were such as sympathized with the slaveholder, for animals of the “genus copperhead,” had already become sufficiently numerous to consume a vast amount of bad whiskey. A marshal was brought from Rochester to make the arrest, for no citizen of Syracuse could be found who dared to “face the music.” Jerry, all unconscious of danger, was busily employed, hammering away at a barrel in a cooper shop, when about twelve o’clock he was seized, and, after a brave fight, was ironed hand and foot, thrown upon a cart that the marshal had pressed into his service, and started for the office of the Commissioners.
The Convention had organized in Market Hall, and commenced business, when a man came in and interrupted the proceedings by saying, in an excited manner, “Mr. President, an officer from Rochester has arrested a fugitive, and is now carrying him off; they are now on the canal bridge.” In a moment the Convention was broken up, men, women, and children rushed into the street, and ran toward the bridge, but before the crowd arrived the marshal had got Jerry into the Commissioners’ office.
The city was in an uproar; no such excitement had ever been witnessed in Syracuse before. Thousands of people from the country and adjacent towns were there to attend the Convention. The fugitives and free colored men surrounded the building, and they were surrounded on all sides by a dense mass of people. Some of the best lawyers in the State were present, and ' volunteered their services to defend Jerry, while one lawyer sold his services to the slave catchers. The Commissioners’ office was on the second floor of a large brick building, one side of which fronted on the canal. The outside door was fastened with heavy bars, and the inner door securely locked to keep out the crowd, and it was with difficulty that Jerry’s friends and counsel got into the room where the trial was to be held.
The trial was protracted and delayed until the court and counsel were tired out and hungry, and adjourned for supper, leaving the prisoner in charge of the marshal and his deputies. The officer took pains to make the crowd understand that he was armed, and would shoot down any man who should attempt to rescue the prisoner. Meanwhile, Jo had organized a party, and had everything ready to storm the stronghold of the slave power in Syracuse. Although it was time to light the lamps in the streets, the crowd had not diminished nor the excitement abated. The court and counsel had but just reached the hotel when Jo gave the signal to his men, and in an instant a stick of timber twenty feet long was mounted on the shoulders of as many stout negroes as could stand under it; at the word “Jo,” with a shout and run, the battering ram was thrown upon the door, and carried all before it. Then Jo, at the head of his men, with a crow-bar in his hands, ran up stairs and attacked the inner door. The marshal was a brave man for so great a rascal,—none but rascals of a high grade would accept Fillmore’s commission under the fugitive slave law—and when the door gave way under the furious blows of Jo’s crow-bar, he fired at him, but Jo was too quick for him. The ball went into the floor, and the marshal’s arm hung limp at his side, shattered by the crow-bar. The men rushed in and seized the deputies but the marshal jumped through an open window, and fell thirteen feet to the tow-path of the canal; he managed to get away in the shadow of the building, and found his way to a surgeon’s office.
Jerry was found lying on the floor, bloody, almost naked, and bound in chains. He had proved himself a hero by fighting the whole United States in the persons of the President’s special Commissioners. He was provided with clothes and money, and the poor fellow never saw the city of Syracuse again by daylight. The next time we heard from him he was making barrels in Canada.
J. W. Loguen, (colored,) and several others, were equally active with Jo Norton in the Jerry rescue, but Jo was enthusiastic, brave and unselfish, strong, and nimble as a cat, and no one doubted his ability to lead in such an affray. The natural kindness of his disposition would lead him to prefer breaking the marshal’s arm to save his own life, rather than to break his head. Rev. J. W. Loguen, and several others, were arrested and taken to Albany, where they were tried for rescuing the slave, but the jury failed to agree upon a verdict. They were then sent for trial to Canandaigua, with the same result, and the prosecution was finally abandoned. For more than a year the Jerry rescue trials kept the State in great excitement, but no verdict was obtained against any one The Fugitive Slave Law was brought into contempt, and Northern dough-faces were taught a salutary lesson.
Joe could not be made to believe that it was possible to carry him out of Syracuse as a fugitive, but he might be taken to Albany or elsewhere to be tried for the part he had taken in behalf of Jerry, and away from his friends he would be liable to be arrested and carried back to slavery, for Col. H. had long known where he was. Therefore he concluded to sell his property and go to Canada. He settled in Toronto, where he was spected as a citizen, and took a great interest in the education of his family, and in promoting the best interests of fugitives who were constantly arriving there.
The operations of the Underground Railroad were not suspended nor in the least disturbed by the efforts of the President to enforce the fugitive slave law in Syracuse, in illustration of which fact I quote from a Syracuse paper soon after, the following card:
“TO THE FRIENDS OF THE FUGITIVES FROM SLAVERY.”
“The members of the Fugitive Aid Society find it no longer convenient nor necessary to keep up their organization. The labor of sheltering those who flee from tyranny, providing for their immediate wants, and helping them to find safe homes in this country and in Canada, must needs devolve, as it always has devolved, upon a very few individuals. Hitherto, since 1850, it has been done, for the most part, by Rev. J. W. Loguen. He, having been a slave and a fugitive himself, knows best how to provide for that class of sufferers, and to guard against imposition. Mr. Loguen has agreed to devote himself wholly to this humane work, and to depend for the support of himself and family, as well as the maintenance of this depot on the Underground Railroad, upon what the benevolent and friendly may give.
We, therefore, hereby request that all fugitives from slavery, coming this way, may be directed to him; and that all clothing or provisions contributed may be sent to his house, or such places as he may designate. Mr. Loguen will make semi-annual reports of his receipts of money, clothes or provisions, and of the number of fugitives taken care of and provided for by him, and he will submit his accounts at any time to the inspection of any persons who are interested in the success of the Underground Railroad.
Samuel J. May,
James Fuller,
Joseph A. Allen,
Lucius J. Comsbee,
William E. Abbott,
Hosea B. Knight.
That notice only affected the line through Syracuse.
I have made the quotation from a paper now before me,
that the readers of these brief sketches may understand
that the U. G. R. R., about which so much has been said
and so little was known, was no myth, and that its operations
became more public and more successful after
than they were before the passage of the fugitive slave
law.