Bound for Canaan (76 page)

Elgin's crowning moment:
King, unpublished autobiography; Pease and Pease,
Black Utopia
, pp. 96–99; Ullman,
Look to the North Star
, pp. 90, 151–53.

But there was no second act to Edwin Larwill: Provincial Freeman
, May 6, 1854; Walton, “Blacks in Buxton and Chatham,” p. 109.

Gerrit Smith was also dreaming:
Harlow,
Gerrit Smith
, pp. 241–58; Frothingham,
Gerrit Smith
, pp. 99–111; Sernett,
North Star Country
, pp. 198–202; Stauffer,
Black Hearts of Men
, pp. 155–56;
Liberator
, March 20, 1846;
North Star
, January 7, 1848, February 18, 1848, February 25, 1848, and December 15, 1848;
Press-Republican
, June 27, 2002.

“
The tide of benefaction”:
Frothingham,
Gerrit Smith
, p. 98.

One of them, William G. Allen:
Sernett,
North Star Country
, p. 68.

Nothing was dearer to Smith's heart:
Ibid., pp. 169–70; Frothingham,
Gerrit Smith
, pp. 115, 120.

The mansion at Peterboro:
Frothingham,
Gerrit Smith
, pp. 140–42; Stanton,
Eighty Years and More
, pp. 51 ff; Ward and Burns,
Not for Ourselves Alone
, pp. 11–18;
North Star
, July 7, 1848.

a rail-thin man with a shock of graying hair:
Benjamin Quarles,
Allies for Freedom
(New York: Oxford University Press, 1974), p. 23; Otto Scott,
The Secret Six: John Brown and the Abolitionist Movement
(Murphys, Calif.: Uncommon Books, 1979), p. 19; Samuel Ringgold Ward,
Autobiography of a Fugitivie Negro
(Chicago: Johnson Publishing, 1970), p. 42; Caleb Calkins, handwritten deposition, John Brown folder, Gerrit Smith Collection, Bird Library, Syracuse University; Frothingham,
Gerrit Smith
, p. 235.

The stranger's abolitionist credentials:
Oates,
To Purge This Land with Blood
, pp. 8–17, 24.

Brown had taken a personal vow:
Ibid., pp. 41–42; Quarles,
Allies for Freedom,
pp. 18–19; Caccamo,
Hudson, Ohio and the Underground Railroad;
pamphlet,
John Brown Address by Frederick Douglass,
speech delivered at the fourteenth anniversary of Storer College in Harpers Ferry, W. Va., 1881, in
John Brown Pamphlets,
Vol. 5, Boyd B. Stutler Collection, West Virginia State Archives, Charleston, W. Va.
398 “I've seen him come in:
Merrill D. Peterson,
John Brown: The Legend Revisited
(Charlottesville: University of Virginia Press, 2002), p. 56.

He had never hesitated:
Oates,
To Purge This Land with Blood
, pp. 53, 63;
North Star
, February 11, 1848.

Only a handful of black families: North Star
, March 24, 1848, and March 30, 1849; Stauffer,
Black Hearts of Men
, p. 157; Sernett,
North Star Country
, pp. 201–2; Brendan Mills, National Park Service site manager, interview with the author, John Brown home, North Elba, N. Y., August 11, 2002.

Smith liked Brown's piety:
Stauffer,
Black Hearts of Men
, pp. 149, 169–70; Oates,
To Purge This Land with Blood
, p. 67; Peterson,
John Brown
, p. 51; John Brown, letter to Gerrit Smith, June 20, 1849, John Brown folder, Gerrit Smith Collection, Bird Library, Syracuse University.

Visitors occasionally stumbled:
Scott,
Secret Six
, p. 19; Quarles,
Allies for Freedom
, p. 24.

The problems that Loguen had identified:
Stauffer,
Black Hearts of Men
, p. 157;
Frederick Douglass' Paper
, April 15, 1853;
John Brown Address by Frederick Douglass.

C
HAPTER
18: T
HE
L
AST
T
RAIN

One of the saddest incidents:
The story of Margaret Garner is based on Coffin,
Reminiscences of Levi Coffin
, pp. 558–65; Steven Weisenberger,
Modern Medea: A Family Story of Slavery and Child-Murder from the Old South
(New York: Hill & Wang, 1998), pp. 49, 54–65, 71–75; Julius Yanuck, “The Garner Fugitive Slave Case,”
Mississippi Valley Historical Review
40 (1953): 47–66;
Ripley
(Ohio) Bee, February 9, 1856, February 23, 1856, and March 8, 1856; Carl Westmoreland, National Underground Railroad Freedom Center, interview with the author, March 1, 1999.

Coffin had moved:
Coffin,
Reminiscences
, pp. 265–74.

By the time the Civil War:
Ibid., p. 671.

But Margaret Garner's terrible odyssey:
Coffin,
Reminiscences
, p. 567;
Cincinnati Gazette
, March 11, 1856; Weisenberger,
Modern Medea
, pp. 220–25.

The surviving Garners:
Weisenberger,
Modern Medea
, pp. 277–78.

Now personal liberty laws:
McDougall,
Fugitive Slaves
, p. 67; Campbell,
Slave Catchers
, pp. 171–79, 184–85;
Provincial Freeman
, March 24, 1855.

Benoni S. Fuller, for example:
Morlock,
Was It Yesterday?
, p, 125.

In January 1854, another act of Congress:
Morison,
Oxford History
, vol. 2, 1972, pp. 354–60; Louis L. Gould,
Grand Old Party: A History of the Republicans
(New York: Random House, 2003), pp. 11–12; Ross Drake, “The Law That Ripped America in Two,”
Smithsonian Magazine
, May 2004, pp. 61–66; Oates,
To Purge This Land with Blood
, pp. 80, 85–86.

“[T]his Nebraska business”: Frederick Douglass' Paper
, March 7, 1854.

Free State settlers begged:
Gerrit Smith, speech to the Kansas Meeting, Albany, N. Y., April 6, 1854, Gerrit Smith Collection, Bird Library, Syracuse University; Oates,
To Purge This Land with Blood
, pp. 80, 83;
National Era
, July 10, 1856.

Among the thousands:
John Brown Jr., diary, January 1 to March 11, 1856, copy in possession of the WISH Centre, Chatham, Ontario; Martha J. Parker,
Angels of italic>Freedom
(private printing, Lawrence, Kans., 1999), p. 123; Gunja Sengupta,
For God and Mammon: Evangelicals and Entrepreneurs, Masters and Slaves in Territorial Kansas, 1854–1860
(Athens: University of Georgia Press, 1996), p. 65; Samuel F. Tappan, letter to Thomas Wentwoth Higginson, January 24, 1858, in
Freedom's Crucible: The Underground Railroad in Lawrence and Douglas County, Kansas, 1854–1865: A Reader
, Richard B. Sheridan, ed. (Lawrence: Division of Continuing Education, University of Kansas, 2000), p. 50; Steve Collins, historian, Kansas City Community College, interview with the author, Quindaro, KS, August 13, 2001.

“[W]hile the interest”:
Stan Cohen,
John Brown: “The Thundering Voice of Jehovah”
(Missoula, Mont.: Pictorial Histories Publishing Co., 1999), p. 21.

Their father, John Brown, had promised:
Oates,
To Purge This Land with Blood
, pp. 74–75.

There was actually (footnote):
Parker,
Angels of Freedom
, p. 123.

a new national political party:
Gould,
Grand Old Party
, pp. 14–21; Isaac Beck, letter to Wilbur H. Siebert, December 26, 1892, Siebert Collection, Ohio Historical Society, Columbus.
408 Thomas Garrett, the stationmaster:
McGowan,
Station Master on the Underground Railroad
, pp. 27, 121; Still,
Underground Railroad
, p. 659.

Reports from other parts of the country:
William Still, Journal C of Station 2 of the Underground Railroad, on microfilm, Historical Society of Pennsylvania, Philadelphia; William Still, Still's Underground Railroad Records, William Still, Philadelphia, 1886, Introduction;
Frederick Douglass' Paper
, September 8, 1854, January 26, 1855, and October 12, 1855; C. Peter Ripley, ed.,
Black Abolitionist Papers
, vol. 2, pp. 26–27; Wilbur H. Siebert, “The Underground Railroad in Massachusetts,”
New England Quarterly
9 (September 1936): 447–67; Record Book of the Boston Vigilance Committee, copy in Siebert Collection, Ohio Historical Society, Columbus.

Technology was also transforming:
Taylor,
Transportation Revolution
, pp. 84–87, 102–3; Cohn,
Life and Times of King Cotton
, p. 95; John Reed, interviewed by Wilbur H. Siebert, August 2, 1894, Siebert Collection, Ohio Historical Society, Columbus;
Still,
Underground Railroad,
pp. 761–66; Hopkins, “Black Eldorado on the Susquehannah”; William J. Switala,
Underground Railroad in Pennsylvania
(Mechanicsburg, Pa.: Stackpole Books, 2001), pp. 146–47; Charles C. Chapman,
History of Knox County, Illinois
(Chicago: Charles C. Chapman & Co., 1878), p. 211;
North Star
, May 5, 1848;
Frederick Douglass' Paper
, March 9, 1855.

Certain railroad companies:
Furnas,
Goodbye to Uncle Tom
, pp. 223–25;
Firelands Pioneer
, July 1888.

an open part of local life:
Allan Nevins,
Ordeal of the Union
, vol. 2:
The Emergence of Lincoln, Part I, Douglas, Buchanan, and Party Chaos, 1857–1859
(New York: Collier Books, 1992), p. 95;
Provincial Freeman
, July 8, 1854;
Frederick Douglass' Paper
, November 17, 1854, January 4, 1855, and December 14, 1855.

no one else but Jermain Loguen:
Hunter,
To Set the Captives Free
, pp. 162–63, 167;
Syracuse Daily Standard
, November 25, 1854;
National Era
, July 23, 1857; Judith Wellman, historian, interview with the author, October 6, 2002.

At home, Loguen and his wife:
Sernett,
North Star Country
, p. 178; Hunter,
To Set the Captives Free
, pp. 166–68.

“We had scarcely struck”: Frederick Douglass' Paper
, November 28, 1857.

He had spent several worried months:
Loguen,
Rev. J. W. Loguen
, pp. 433–43; Hunter,
To Set the Captives Free
, p. 134.

formally designated his home:
Hunter,
To Set the Captives Free
, p. 156;
Liberal Christian
, January 30, 1869;
Voice of the Fugitive
, September 9, 1852;
Frederick Douglass' Paper
, March 7, 1854.

“Who, then, in and about Syracuse”: Frederick Douglass' Paper
, June 8, 1855.

Loguen could not have carried: Syracuse Daily Standard
, June 12, 1854; Hunter,
To Set the Captives Free
, pp. 151–54, 161; Sernett,
North Star Country
, p. 179.

Reports of Loguen's activities:
Loguen,
Rev. J. W. Loguen
, pp. 451–55.

At fifty-five, John Brown was still:
The section on John Brown in Kansas is based on Nevins,
Ordeal of the Union
, vol. 2, pp. 133 ff; Oates,
To Purge This Land with Blood
, pp. 106–7, 127–55, 160–61, 171, 264; Quarles,
Allies for Freedom
, pp. 32–36; Scott,
Secret Six
, pp. 32–36, 41–49; Parker,
Angels of Freedom
, pp. 52–53, 58; John Brown, letter to Luther Humphrey, November 19, 1856, copy in possession of the WISH Centre, Chatham, Ontario.

“lean, strong, and sinewy”:
Douglass, “Life and Times,” pp. 716–17.

The national elections:
W. U. Hensel, “The Attitude of James Buchanan, a Citizen of Lancaster County, towards the Institution of Slavery in the United States,” paper presented to the Lancaster County Historical Society, May 5, 1911; Nevins,
Ordeal of the Union
, vol. 2, pp. 64–66; Philip Shriver Klein,
President James Buchanan
(Norwalk, Conn.: Easton Press, 1987), pp. 257–60; Bordewich, “Digging into a Historic Rivalry,” pp. 96–107; obituary of James Buchanan,
New York Times
, June 2, 1868.

“[E]verything of a practical nature”:
James Buchanan, inaugural address, March 4, 1857, viewed on-line at http://gi.grolier.com/presidents/ea/inaugs/1857buch; Nevins,
Ordeal of the Union
, vol. 2, pp. 60–63, 68 ff.

Like his predecessor:
James Buchanan, Second Annual Message, December 6, 1858, viewed on-line at http://www.pcntv.com/bu_msg58; N. A. Hunt, letter to Wilbur H. Siebert, February 15, 1896, Siebert Collection, Ohio Historical Society, Columbus; Richard B. Sheridan, ed.,
Freedom's Crucible: The Underground Railroad in Lawrence and Douglas County, Kansas, 1854–1865: A Reader
(Lawrence: Division of Continuing Education, University of Kansas, 2000), p. xviii; Sidney S. Herd and William E. Connelley, “Quantrill and the U.G.R.R. in Lawrence, Kansas Territory,” in
Freedom's Crucible: The Underground Railroad in Lawrence and Douglas County, Kansas, 1854–1865: A Reader
, Richard B. Sheridan, ed. (Lawrence: Division of Continuing Education, University of Kansas, 2000), pp. 14–15; Klein,
President James Buchanan
, pp. 248, 296–99; Oates,
To Purge This Land with Blood
, pp. 89, 100; A. T. Andreas,
History of the State of Kansas
(Chicago: A. T. Andreas, 1883); Parker,
Angles of Freedom
, p. 38.