The Journal of Negro History, Volume 4, 1919. Various
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had planned. He told his master that he found that Canada was no place for Negroes, and that it was too cold and that they could not earn any money there. He spoke of how the Negroes were cheated by the whites and subjected to other humiliations, which made him tired of his freedom. His master was very much pleased with the story, spoke pleasantly to him and permitted him to work among his slaves and those of his neighbors as a missionary to convince the blacks of the folly of escaping to Canada.
The slave resumed his usual labor, working during that fall and winter but planning at the same time a second flight. In the spring he succeeded in bringing together his wife and children and a few of his slave friends on the Indiana side of the Ohio River. He reached the first station of the Underground Railway with his party numbering fourteen and hurried them from point to point until they reached the home of Levi Coffin in Indiana. They were hotly pursued and had narrow escapes, but by wise management they made their way through Spartansburg, Greenville and Mercer County, Ohio, to Sandusky, from which they crossed over to Canada.77
B. F. Grant.78—I was born in the State of Pennsylvania, Little Britain Township, Lancaster County, Sunday morning, August 12, 1838. I am the son of the late Henry and Charlotte Grant.
My father was born a slave in the State of Maryland in Cecil County. He was freed at the age of nineteen, upon the death of his master. My mother was born of free parents in Harford County, Maryland. Both came in their youth to Pennsylvania, where they were married. Of that union there were born twelve children, eight boys and four girls. The subject of this sketch was the fifth son of the family.
In 1844 my father moved with his family from Lancaster to York County, across the Susquehanna River. I was then between five and six years old.
The first political event that I remember was the Presidential campaign of Henry Clay and James K. Polk in 1844. In the fall of that year each party had a pole raising at Peach Bottom, York County, Pennsylvania. Mother took us to see the pole raising and then the people were all shouting for Henry Clay, but soon after that I remember hearing them singing a song::
"Oh poor cooney Clay,
The white house was never made for you
And home you better stay."
Polk was elected, and soon after the inauguration of President Polk in 1845 the great controversy over the Mexican War and Negro slavery arose. The Negro question was the topic of the day, both in and out of Congress and among all classes. This continued until in 1846, when the war broke out between the United States and Mexico, and lasted two years.
When it was over the United States had the victory. Then the slaveholders of the South, with the copperheads of the North, tried to force their slaves or their slave influence into every State and territory of the United States. So great became the agitation and excitement that the poor slaves became restless and uneasy over their condition, and they commenced to run away by the thousands from the Southern States. They made for the free States and Canada. This gave rise to what was known as the Underground Railroad.
This brings me to consider what I call my boyhood days. Having passed my childhood, I now began to think, feel and consider that I was a human being as well as the white boys who surrounded me, living on farms just as I lived. Therefore I began to believe that I had the same God-given rights that they had, and was not born to be kicked around like a dog any more than they were.
About this time I began to attend the so-called public school. I well remember those school days, for they made a lasting impression upon my mind. If God had not had mercy on the poor little Negro who attended the public school of Pennsylvania in those days, I know not what would have become of me; for the poor white trash from the teacher down had no mercy upon him. They were upon him like vultures upon their prey, ready to devour him at any time for any cause.
I will mention only a few things which the little Negro had to endure, simply because he was a Negro. He was not permitted to drink from the same bucket or cup as the white children. He was compelled to sit back in the corner from the fire no matter how cold the weather might be. There he must wait until the white children had recited. If the cold became too intense to endure, he must ask permission of the teacher, stand by the fire a few minutes to warm and then return to the same cold corner. I have sat in an old log school house with no chinking between the logs until my heels were frost-bitten and cracked open. Sometimes we had a poor white trashy skunk that would sit in the school room and call us "niggers" or "darkeys." If the little Negro got his lesson at all, he got it; if not, it was all the same.
For seven long years, 1844 to 1851, my father lived about five miles from the Maryland line and about one mile from the Susquehanna River. That is where I saw some of the evils of the institution called slavery. Sometimes I wondered whether there was any God for the Negro.
My father was one of the members of the Underground Railroad. I well remember some of the members of that club which used to meet at our house. They were Robert Fisher, Lige Sarkey, Isaac Waters, Henry W. Grant, Isaac Fields, Thomas Clarke and others who used to meet and make their arrangements to convey the fugitives across the Susquehanna River. The night was never too dark or the storm never too severe for those brave, noble-hearted, courageous men to do their work. They did not fear death. Although they were uneducated men ignorant of the letter, they were directed by a Higher Power. The hand of God led them, and so they succeeded in carrying off hundreds, nay I might truthfully say thousands from the counties of Cecil, Harford and Baltimore. All lived to be old men.
After the Mexican War the Southern slaveholders and copperheads of the North got it into their heads to extend slavery throughout the borders of the United States. Robt. Toombs, one of the noted fire-eaters of the South, said he would call the roll of his slaves at the foot of Bunker Hill Monument. In 1848 came the crisis of the Presidential election. The Mexican War was over and the country had a vast amount of territory added to her southern borders. The cotton gin had been invented, and cotton had come into great demand. It was as good as gold. The Negro, therefore, was in great demand.
Presidential nominations were made. The Whigs nominated Gen. Taylor, and the Democrats nominated Lewis Cass. The Whig candidate was successful. While Gen. Taylor was a Southern man, he was somewhat opposed to the extension of slavery, and, therefore, not a favorite of the nullifiers of the South. He did not live long. Then they got their dupe, the Vice-President, Millard Fillmore, a northern man, but a red-hot copperhead who stood in with the South. I can well remember those times when all the fire-eating leaders of the South and the poor dirty trash of the North got their desire when that poor dupe of a President allowed the mischievous fugitive slave act to become a law of the land. This law was a curse to the nation, an outrage upon the poor Negro and suffering humanity. This bill gave the poor Negro no protection in the land of his birth, a country boasting of being the land of the brave and the home of the free. These terms, however, were nothing but bombast; they would just come and take a freeman and carry him into absolute slavery without judge or jury.
I can well remember the Christiana riot. I was not living far from there at that time. Those were the days that tried the poor Negro's soul, and were a disgrace to the white man. I was then about fifteen years old and we had to suffer everything but death, and sometimes that; for the slave hunters were like their bloodhounds, always upon the Negro's track. There were daily riots between the slaves and Negro hunters.
While quite young, and claiming to be a Christian, too, I was almost ready to say with Job, "Cursed was the night wherein I was born, and the night in which it was said, there is a man child conceived." My disgust at the treatment given my people made me resolve to leave the country and to go to Liberia, Africa, because the fugitive slave law was too obnoxious for me both in principle and practice. Because of the outbreak of the Civil War, however, I failed to carry out this plan.
Now I recall my third Presidential election. The candidates were Gen. Winfield Scott and Franklin Pierce. Pierce was the Democratic candidate and he overwhelmingly defeated Gen. Scott, which placed the Democrats in absolute power. All the fire-eaters of the South with the copperheads of the North held full sway, arrayed against the anti-slavery party of the North and East, and backed by the President, the Supreme Court and Congress. The world knows the condition of
Coffin,
This personal narrative was secured from B.F. Grant, of Washington, D. C., by Miss Mary L. Mason.