Forbidden Fruit (24 page)

Jensen, Malcolm C.
America in Time.
Boston: Houghton Mifflin Company, 1977.

“John Jones’ Friend.”
The Daily Advertiser,
April 13, 1898. This obituary of John Smith was reprinted in
The Chemung Historical Journal,
Vol. 43, No. 4 (June 1998), Elmira, N. Y.

Ketter, Frank. “Slabtown Revisited.”
The Chemung Historical Journal,
Vol. 5, No. 4 (June 1960), Elmira, N.Y. In this article, Ketter describes the old
Slabtown neighborhood and the businesses and personalities that gave it character,
including Mr. and Mrs. Jeremiah George and Isaac Collins, on pages 710–11.

Klees, Emerson.
Underground Railroad Tales.
Rochester: Friends of the Finger Lakes Publishing, 1997, pp. 69–70. This account
of the Lear Green story claims that Lear’s “mother advised her to escape from slavery
before she undertook the responsibilities of marriage.”

McDonough, Jill. “Elmira’s Underground Route to Freedom.”
Chemung Historical Journal,
September 1974, Elmira, N.Y.

Merrill, Arch.
The Underground, Freedom’s Road, and Other Upstate Tales.
Rochester, N.Y.: American Book-–Stratford Press, 1963, pp. 119–25. This tells the
story of John W. Jones’s early years and his work in Elmira.

Mills, Barbara.
Got My Mind Set on Freedom.
Bowie, Md.: Heritage Books, Inc., 2002.

Owens, Hamilton.
Baltimore on the Chesapeake.
Garden City, N.Y.: Doubleday, Doran & Company, 1941. On pages 45 and 46, Owens has
this to say about the possibility that prostitutes were first called “hookers” in
Fells Point: “This area was for many years taken over largely by prostitutes. Those
who practice that profession are frequently called ‘hookers.’…Baltimore may or may
not be responsible for the spread of this appellation, but it is certain that in Baltimore
there is a good reason for it.” See also pp. 211–12 (the story of abolitionist Elisha
Tyson).

Palmer, Ron, professor emeritus of The Practice of International Affairs, George Washington
University, letter to author, September 10, 2002, about George DeBaptiste, Underground
Railroad leader. Palmer notes that “George Jr. became a master of barber shop repartee,
including later in Madison, Indiana, making a joke out of accusations that he was
involved in the Underground Railroad. He would say he certainly supported the UGRR
but he wasn’t smart enough to do all the things of which he was accused.”

Pfiffer, Jim. “Discrimination Kept Many Emancipated Blacks from Getting Educated and
Employed, No Matter What Abilities They Had.”
Star-Gazette,
February 23, 2003.

———. “In the Path of the Underground Railroad, The Twin Tiers Were a Safe Haven for
Some Escaped Slaves.”
Star-Gazette,
February 9, 2003.

Polgreen, Lydia. “As Upstate Bleeds, New York’s Budget Crisis Rubs Salt in Wound,”
The New York Times,
Sunday, May 18, 2003.

Rehbein, Leslie, and Kate E. Peterson, eds.
Beyond the White Marble Steps—A Look at Baltimore Neighborhoods.
Baltimore: Livelier Baltimore Committee of the Citizens Planning & Housing Association,
1979.

Rukert, Norman G.
The Fells Point Story.
Baltimore: Bodine & Associates, Inc., 1976.

Sernett, Milton C.
North Star County: Upstate New York and the Crusade for African American Freedom.
Syracuse: Syracuse University Press, 2002. This relates the story of Elmira’s chief
Underground Station master John W. Jones.

Shindle, Robert, project archivist, Steamship Historical Society of America, University
of Baltimore, Langsdale Library, Special Collections, letter to author, July 22, 2003,
about screw propellers that enabled large steamers to travel from Baltimore to Philadelphia.

“The Slave Riot in Elmira Recalled.” In the
Wellsboro Advocate,
August 20, 1888, writer unidentified, reprinted in the
Chemung Historical Journal,
Vol. 49, No. 2, December 2003, Elmira, N.Y.

Staples, Brent. “Slaves in the Family: One Generation’s Shame Is Another’s Revelation.”
The New York Times,
June 15, 2003. Staples points out that another Harriet Beecher Stowe sibling, Henry
Ward Beecher, helped pressure the Nautilus Insurance Company of New York, the predecessor
of New York Life, to quit issuing insurance policies on the lives of slaves in 1848.
Among the first 1,000 policies issued, 339 were “upon the lives of negro slaves in
Maryland and Virginia,” the company’s history notes.

Still, William.
The Underground Railroad.
Reprint. Chicago: Johnson Publishing Company, Inc., 1970; orig. pub. Washington,
D.C.: William Still, 1871. Still’s account of Lear Green’s escape appears on pages
289–92. On page 28, the story of William Peel Jones includes vivid details of traveling
in a box from Baltimore to Philadelphia on a steamer. See also pp. 632–34 (story of
seamstress boxed in straw); p. 28 (story of William Peel Jones); pp. 144–46 (story
of Abram Galloway and Richard Eder).

Trager, James.
The People’s Chronology: A Year-by-Year Record of Human Events from Prehistory to
the Present.
Revised and updated edition. New York: Henry Holt and Company, 1994.

Ullman, Victor.
Look to the North Star.
Orig. pub. Boston: Beacon Press, 1969. Reprint Toronto: Umbrella Press, 1994. “Underground
Railroad.” Official National Park Handbook. Washington, D.C.: Division of Publications,
National Park Service, U.S. Department of the Interior, p. 48.

Williams, Edward. “Waters of Despair, Waters of Hope: Exhibit Showcases Influence
of Blacks on the Chesapeake Bay.”
New Journal and Guide,
August 16, 2000. The exhibit, which ran from August 2000 to March 2001, included
an image of Lear Green. Jeanne Willoz-Egnor, education department, The Mariners’ Museum,
Newport News, Virginia, said the exhibit, which ended in 2001, featured an original
sailor’s chest and a replica, both believed to be similar to the one used by Lear
Green. The museum had another chest constructed for its exhibit and allowed people
to crawl inside. It was about 45 inches long and 22 inches deep.

Williams, Isaac D., and William Ferguson Goldie.
Sunshine and Shadow of Slave Life: Reminiscences Told by Isaac D. Williams to “Tege.”
East Saginaw, Mich.: Evening News Printing and Binding House, 1885; copyright 2002
by the Academic Affairs Library, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill.

Wingate, Dr. Isabel B.
Fairchild’s Dictionary of Textiles.
6th ed. New York: Fairchild Publications, 1984, p. 401, definition of mousseline
de laine fabric.

Wright, Abner C. “The Underground Railroad.”
Chemung Historical Journal,
August 1985, Elmira, N.Y.

African Americans, Voices of Triumph: Perseverance.
By the editors of Time-Life Books. Alexandria, Va.: Time-Life Books, 1993.

The American Anti-Slavery Almanac.
New York: The American Anti-Slavery Society, 1840.

Ballou, Adin.
History of the Hopedale Community.
Philadelphia: Porcupine Press, Inc., 1972. Mentions that Frederick Douglass lectured
there and that the utopian community allowed a fugitive slave named Rosetta Hall “to
reside at the Community house for an indefinite length of time and work for her board,
education, etc.…She was made welcome by our people, and treated with all due consideration
and kindness while she remained within our borders” (p. 143).

Blackett, R. J. M. “Fugitive Slaves in Britain: The Odyssey of William and Ellen Craft.”
American Studies,
Vol. 12, No. 1, pp. 41–62. Printed in Great Britain, 1978.

Blassingame, John W., ed.
Slave Testimony: Two Centuries of Letters, Speeches, Interviews and Autobiographies.
Baton Rouge: Louisiana State University Press, 1977.

Blockson, Charles L.
African Americans in Pennsylvania, Above Ground and Underground: An Illustrated Guide.
Harrisburg, Pa.: RB Books, 2001.

———. The Underground Railroad.
New York: Prentice Hall Press, 1987. This book quotes from the “Narrative of Lewis
Hayden,” which appears in Harriet Beecher Stowe’s “Key to
Uncle Tom’s Cabin.”
See also p. 229: “Even within the Underground Railroad bigotry was a problem. Fugitives
were frequently banned from entering the homes of conductors—burden of anti-slavery
work and fugitive aid was carried out by a relatively small contingent of citizens.”

Bowditch, Vincent Y.
Life and Correspondence of Henry Ingersoll Bowditch by His Son Vincent Y. Bowditch,
Vol. 1, orig. pub. Cambridge: Riverside Press, 1902.

Buckmaster, Henrietta.
Flight to Freedom: The Story of the Underground Railroad.
New York: Thomas Y. Crowell Company, 1958.

Butler, John C.
Historical Record of Macon and Central Georgia.
Macon, Ga.: J. S. Burke & Co., Printers and Binders, 1879.

Clarke, James Freeman.
Anti-Slavery Days: A Sketch of the Struggle Which Ended in the Abolition of Slavery
in the United States.
New York: James Freeman Clarke, 1883, p. 84. In this account Ellen is a nurse with
a South Carolina family, forced to leave her “little babe” behind while traveling
to the North with her mistress. The author asserts, “So the little babe was left behind
and died during its mother’s absence. When Ellen got home she made up her mind to
escape.”

Coggan, Blanche B. “The Underground Railroad…and Black-White Cooperation.”
Michigan Challenge,
published by the Michigan State Chamber of Commerce, June 1968. She talks about little-known
Michigan abolitionists such as Walter Duke in White Lake, Michigan, and W. Q. Atwood
in East Saginaw.

Collins, Robert. “Essay on the Management of Slaves.”
DeBow’s Review and Industrial Resources, Statistics, etc.
Devoted to Commerce, Vol. VII, January/February 1862, p. 154.

Commager, Henry Steele.
Theodore Parker.
Boston: Little, Brown and Company, 1936. On page 218, Commager notes that after passage
of the Fugitive Slave Act, “forty Blacks left Boston within a week.”

Copeland, Larry. “From a Whisper to a Shout: Museums Teach Black History.”
USA Today,
May 15, 2002. Copeland writes about Richard Rusk, a white rental property owner and
columnist in Oconee County, Georgia, who discovered two black couples had been lynched
in 1946 at a highway ridge near his home. They were shot hundreds of times along the
banks of the Apalachee River near Moore’s Ford Bridge, but for years nobody talked
about the killings. “Rusk learned Georgia was one of the leading states for lynchings:
542 from 1880 to 1930.”

Craft, William, and Ellen Craft.
Running a Thousand Miles for Freedom; or, the Escape of William and Ellen Craft from
Slavery.
London: William Tweedie, 1860.

Curtis, Nancy C.
Black Heritage Sites: The North.
New York: W. W. Norton, 1996.

Dannett, Sylvia G. L.
Profiles of Negro Womanhood,
Vol. 1,
1619–1900.
Yonkers, N.Y.: Educational Heritage, Inc., 1964. This contains an account of Ellen
and William Craft’s flight to freedom. See also pp. 135–36. Harriet Tubman was “invited
to visit some of Massachusetts’ leading literary lights, such as Ralph Waldo Emerson,
the Horace Manns and the Bronson Alcotts. She often went to the home of Mrs. Alcott’s
brother, the Reverend Mr. May, whose home was a station on the railroad.”

Decalo, Samuel.
Historical Dictionary of Dahomey (People’s Republic of Benin).
African Historical Dictionaries, No. 7. Metuchen, N.J.: The Scarecrow Press, Inc.,
1976.

Diggs, Mamie Sweeting, great-granddaughter of Daniel Hughes, Underground Railroad
agent and conductor, interview with author, in Loyalsock Township, just outside Williamsport,
Pennsylvania, July 1, 2003. Hughes was the father of 16 children, the husband of Annie
Rotch, and lived on an Indian reservation in what is now Muncy in Lycoming County.
His wife and children helped him. He lived on Freedom Road, originally known as Nigger
Hollow.

Douglass, Frederick. “Another Remarkable Escape.”
Frederick Douglass’ Paper,
Rochester, N.Y., February 25, 1853.

“An Escape from Slavery in America.”
Chambers’ Edinburgh Journal,
Saturday, March 15, 1851, published by W. & R. Chambers, Edinburgh.

Farrison, William Edward. “William Wells Brown.” In Franklin, John Hope, ed.,
Negro American Biographies and Autobiographies.
Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1969.

Federal Union,
“Fugitive Slave Law Again,” November 5, 1850, Vol. XXI, No. 22, Milledgeville, Ga.