64 ROYAL SOCIETY OF CANADA 
After the passage of the Fugitive Slave Law of 1850, Philadelphia 
and New York became important entrepôts for receiving and forward- 
ing fugitive slaves. These arrived both by rail and coastwise ves- 
sels and were sent by way of Albany, Syracuse and Rochester, or 
by Harrisburg and Elmira to Upper Canada. A few escaped by way 
of New England, but the chief routes were through Ohio and western 
Pennsylvania. Cleveland, Sandusky, Toledo, Detroit and other border 
towns became important stations of the Underground Railway. 
The abolitionists and the helpers of the slaves were not sustained 
by public sympathy or applause. They were under ban and social 
disabilities, the subjects of insult and injury. “ Niggerites,”’ and 
“amalgamationists” were among the epithets hurled at them, and 
“nigger-thief ” was the inappropriate designation given men who 
restored the negro to his ownership of himself. They were subject 
to suspicion, espionage and persecution; their cattle were injured; 
their persons were menaced; their houses in some cases were burned. 
Professor Siebert quotes the offers of as much as $2,500 for the abduc- 
tion or assassination of the Rev. John 8. Mahon, of Brown County, 
Ohio, for his offence in aiding the escape of slaves. The slave hunter 
took the law in his own hands. One such assaulted and injured 
for life a free citizen and was amerced in a fine of $10,000 for his 
crime. A Kentucky slave holder assumed Quaker garb to worm out 
the secrets of the Friends, but he could not quite adopt their phrase- 
ology, and was detected as a wolf in sheep's clothing. 
From the need of secrecy most of the travel was done by night, 
and also because many of the slaves had no other guide but the north 
star... Professor Siebert thus dramatically described the process at 
a station of the Underground Railway: “The faltering step, and the 
light, uncertain rapping of the fugitive at the door, was quickly 
recognized by the family within, and the stranger was admitted with 
a welcome at once sincere and subdued. There was a suppressed 
stir in the house while the fire was building and food preparing; and 
after the hunger and chill of the wayfarer had been dispelled, he 
was provided with a bed in some out-of-the-way part of the house, 

1 Readers of Lowell’s “‘ Biglow Papers” will remember how Birdofredum 
Sawin undertook to capture a slave “‘runnin’.” But Pomp captured him and 
made him work all spring. This is Birdofredum’s account of it: 
“He made me larn him readin’, tu, (although the critter saw 
How much it hut my morril sense to act agin the law), 
So’st he could read a Bible he’d gut; an’ axed ef I could pint 
The North Star out; but there I put his nose some out o’ jint, 
For I wheeled roun’ about sou’west, an’, lookin’ up a bit, 
Picked out a middlin’ shiny one an’ tole him thet wuz it.” 
