Sketches in the History of the Underground Railroad/Chapter XVIII
CHAPTER XVIII.
During an experience of many years in the transactions of the U. G. R. R., no incident is remembered as more sad than the voluntary exile of William Holmes and his wife, Margaret, at about seventy years of age. They arrived at our station late in the evening of a very cold day, and although well protected with blankets and Buffalo robes, they suffered terribly on the route to our station at Versailles from Fredonia, from which station they started at 3 p.m. The snow was deep and much drifted, and it was one of the coldest days of the season. They had seldom seen snow more than a day at a time, and to cross a river on a bridge of ice was an idea that they could not comprehend until they found themselves rising the east bank of the Cattaraugus Creek (the crossing was on the ice, there being no bridge at that time), on the way to friend Andrew’s station.
As soon after their arrival as they were fed and comfortably warmed, they went to bed. An hour before daylight they heard a boy making a fire, and Margaret was up and at work before the room was warm. When the family came into the sitting room they found her sweeping, and she insisted upon helping about the work as long as she could find anything to do. She was of medium height, and remarkably well formed for one of her age, and evidently bad never been overworked; she was tidily dressed, and her gray hair was nearly concealed under a turban, tastefully arranged. Her voice was low and soft, and her language such as you would hear in good families in the slave States, including their peculiar phrases and provincialisms, such as “a heap,” “a right smart chance,” etc., etc. Holmes was a large man. His hair was almost white; his features had none of the peculiarities of the negro, and the complexion of both of them was so nearly white that but for the kink of their hair, few people would suppose they could have been slaves. Margaret was smart and lively as a girl, but William was nearly crippled by rheumatism. Margaret was anxious to assist about ironing, and remarked that she “did not know who would take care of her mistress’ nice things now; she had always done it, and she had dressed her ever since she was a child,” A sadness came like a cloud on her pleasant face when she spoke of it, but when reminded that in one more day she would be where there was no more slavery, the expression of her countenance was like the sun shining on a beautiful landscape after a summer shower.
Her mistress had been kind to her, punishing her gently for any mistakes or neglect of duty by slapping her faee with the sole of her shoe, and sending her to bed without her supper if she cried about it. She knew that Margaret had the blood of her own family in her veins, and that she had been promised her freedom long ago, which promise had been often renewed; that her children had been torn from her and sold, an excuse for so doing being ever at hand, in their temper and complexion, for which reasons, no doubt, she had been lenient in her treatment of her faithful slaves.
William Holmes claimed to be a near relative to his master, whose name he bore, and who was a Senator in the Congress of the United States. He, too, had been promised his freedom, a boon that he had longed for every hour of a long life, until despairing of the fulfillment of the promise, he and his wife, in their old age, resolved to be free in this life and die in a free country, and they availed themselves of an opportunity to make their escape, the details of which they refused to divulge lest their friends might suffer. Their movements at the start were such as to direct attention towards Wilmington, N.C., and before the Senator had given up watching for their embarkation on a Boston ship at that port, they were far on their journey towards Ohio. They started during the Christmas holidays, and their old age and light complexion enabled them to travel without being suspected ; besides, I have supposed that some member of the Holmes family, knowing the promises that had been made them, and the injustice and cruelty with which they had been treated in having the promises of their freedom broken and their children sold ; knowing also their intense longing for liberty, conducted them through the long route to our station on the Ohio River, for they came that way and had a list of names of the U. G. R. R. agents, including several men of note in Ohio They were both professors of religion, and the spirit of forgiveness, humility and patience, exemplified in the conversation of Margaret, was evidence of true piety, and her gentle rebukes to William when his indignation got the control of his language, was evidence of her care for his spiritual welfare and Christian reputation.
They had so entirely eluded pursuit that all fear of capture had subsided, and they might have remained in safety in our neighborhood, yet their hatred of slavery was such that they wrould make no long tarry short of a place where slavery was a thing not possible, though they felt safe in spending a few hours with us. It was but six miles to the next station, where they would stay over night, therefore we availed ourselves of the opportunity to get what information we could from our guests.
William was intelligent, and could read and write, had spent many winters in Washington, from whence he would have escaped long ago but for his affection for Margaret and the aforesaid promise of emancipation. He had a calm and dignified manner in speaking on any subject except his own condition, parentage and degradation; on that subject he could not talk without becoming so excited that, notwithstanding his profession of piety, he would swear in a somewhat modified style; then Margaret would chide him in her pleasant way, saying, “Now don’t, Willie, it will only make you feel bad to talk so, and I’d a heap rather be in your place than his. Besides, maybe old massa will repent some time.” Then he would cool down, and undei her eye, talk without excitement a few minutes. Said he: “The man I called master was my half brother. My mother was a better woman than his, and I was the smartest boy of the two, but while he had a right smart chance at school, I was whipped if I asked the name of the letters that spell the name of the God that made us both of one blood. While he was sent to college, I had no teacher but old Pomp, but great pains were taken to teach me that the whole power of the nation was pledged to keep me in slavery. I might protest, threaten, feign sickness or run away, the struggle was against fearful odds, therefore the less we knew the less we would suffer. When we were boys,” said he, “I asked him one day when we were playing together, why I might not learn to read as well as he. ‘Because,’ said he, ‘slaves ought not to know too much, it would make them discontented; they know more now than the poor white trash,—I heard father say so ’—while I know,” said William, “that the ‘poor white trash’ naturally know as much as the rich white trash, give them both the same advantage in the world.” By this time he had become so excited that Margaret found it necessary to soothe him. A few kind, encouraging words from her acted like magic on William’s excitable temper, though his temper was the result of a keen sense of wrong, comparing his own condition with that of his half brother.
A friend who now resides in Fredonia was then living in Simcoe, Canada West, and saw William and Margaret a few weeks after they left our station, on their way to the Wilberforce Colony, apparently happy in their new found freedom, and confident in their ability to take care of themselves.
No incident has come under my own observation in a long time that so forcibly reminded me of Holmes’ voice, excited manner, and eloquence in appealing to the patriotism and humanity of his audience, like one I witnessed in a car on the Lake Shore Road. Two men were conversing on the prospects of the parties in the present canvass. Sitting near them, I heard one of them, who resembled Holmes in his age, size and physical development, talking low and apparently little excited while the other, who seemed to have the advantage of education and experience in handling the subjects under discussion, persisted in trying to make the financial question, as stated and maintained by the Copperheads, the leading and paramount question to be settled by the present canvass. Whenever the old man tried to introduce the question of reconstruction on loyal principles, or free loyal suffrage, his antagonist would seem not to hear or to notice what he said, but in the noise and conf usion I could hear now and then the phrases, “bloated bondholders,” “greenbacks,” “taxes,” “national debt,” &c., &c. A crowd gathered around them, one of whom is a peddler, who is always on every train. From him you would hear “nigger voters,” “nigger equality,” ringing the changes on the “nigger” all the way up to marrying somebody’s wife or daughter.
The old gentleman held his own manfully, though I could not understand all that was said, until, finding himself beset on all sides by a pack of noisy Democrats, he stood up and taking the attitude that reminded me of the old man Holmes, in a voice not very loud, but so distinct that half the people in the car heard him, he said, “Gentlemen, this talk about financial ruin, repudiation of honest debts, contrivances to make our government odious and our people the cowardly, dishonest knaves the rebels claim they are, may all seem profitable and pleasant to you, but when you ask me to vote for the red-handed devils, or any who sympathize with them, that murdered, in malice aforethought, 50,000 prisoners, starved my own boy until there was not a pound of flesh on his bones, and then shot him on their ‘dead line’ when reaching across to get a little water, in the only place where water was to be had, water, for which he had been famished through a long day, I beg to be excused.”
“Then,” said he, “in order to belittle these vital issues? your Seymours and Pendletons are stretching out long lines of figures with the sign of dollars at the head to frighten the people into choosing rulers who make dollars their god, and loyalty a thing to be bought and sold,” and turning to the man who had been ringing changes on this financial question, he said, “Who are the men, which is the party that has heaped this burden of debt upon this nation? Let’s hear from you on that!” By this time the man had learned that equivocation wouldn’t go far in the controversy, and declined answering. “Well,” said the old man, “after bringing this burden of taxation into the house, you propose to disown your own offspring.”
Then turning toward the aforesaid peddler, who had stood their grinning during the old man’s talk, he said, “I think you made some remark about the Republican going down to the level of the negro. Now, sir, it may be of use for you to know that if you ever get on to that level, you will be going up instead of down, and I advise you to take it moderately, for it would make your head swim to go up all at once.”