62 ROYAL SOCIETY OF CANADA 
their escape.! She would soothe the crying babies with paregoric 
and carry them in baskets. When hard pressed she would make a 
detour southward to throw off pursuit. At one time an award of 
as much as $12,000 was offered for her arrest; yet, unafraid, she 
pursued her self-imposed task. She boldly waded through icy waters 
in mid-March, lay hidden in forest or FA and incurred incredible 
hardships. 
She brought off in a rude nude chaise her aged parents. 
unable themselves to walk, and several brothers and sisters. She was 
something of a mystic and felt conscious communion with the unseen. 
She had no fear of arrest for she ventured only where God sent her. 
She expressed her heroic faith and confidence in the words: “Jes 
so long as God wanted to use me he would take keer of me, an’ when 
he didn’t want me no longer, I was ready to go. I always tole him, 
I’m gwine to hole stiddy on to you, an’ you’ve got to see me trou.” Of 
her Thomas Garrett said: “I never met with any person, of any colour, 
who had more confidence in the voice of God, as spoken to her soul.” 
During the Civil War she was employed as an hospital nurse and 
scout. “She made many a raid,” says Governor Andrew, of Massa- 
chusetts, “inside the enemies’ lines, displaying remarkable courage, 
zeal and fidelity.” 
Old, infirm and poor she still lives in a humble home in Auburn, 
N.Y., which she transformed into a hospital where she cared for 
the helpless of her own race. 
It should be to every Canadian ground for patriotic pride that 
during all the years of struggle for the abolition of slavery the only 
refuge on this continent for the fugitives from bondage was beneath 
our red cross flag of freedom. The land of promise in the north 
exercised such a fascination for the slave that their owners endea- 
voured to discount its attractions by absurd stories concerning its 
vast distance, the wintry rigours of its climate, the sterility of its 
soil, its perils from savage beasts and more savage men. One fugi- 
tive declares he was assured that the Detroit River was over three 
thousand miles wide, and a ship starting out in the night would find 


1 These advertisements of runaway slaves are evidence of the cruelties 
with which they were sometimes treated. They describe the scars upon their 
bodies; the lacerations of whips; the branding with hot iron on the back, or 
hand, or cheek; the wounds of rifle shots; the scars by the teeth of blood- 
hounds with which they had been pursued, and of the fetters with which they 
were manacled; and sometimes they escaped with iron bands on neck or ankle. 
Sometimes one or two teeth were knocked out or a slit made in the ear as 
marks by which slaves could be readily identified. See Reports of Trial of 
John Anderson, a fugitive slave, at Toronto, 1860, us alleged crime of murder 
in Missouri. 
