[WwWITHROW] THE UNDERGROUND RAILWAY 65 
or under the hay in the barn loft, according to the degree of danger. 
Often a household was awakened to find a company of five or more 
negroes at the door. The arrival of such a company was sometimes 
announced beforehand by special messenger.” 
Special passwords, signals and cryptic signs were employed; the 
imitated hoot of an owl or cry of a bird was used. A vein of 
humour ran through some of the secret messages, as in the following: 
“ By to-morrow evening’s mail you will receive two volumes of 
the ‘irrepressible conflict, bound in black. After perusal, please 
forward, and oblige.” 
“Uncle Tom says if the roads are not too bad you can look for 
those fleeces of wool by to-morrow. Send them on to test the market 
and price, no back charges.” 
Others, with more courage than prudence, boldly wrote without con- 
cealment, as the following quoted by Siebert: 
“I understand you are a friend to the poor and are willing to obey 
the heavenly mandate, ‘ Hide the outcasts, betray not him that wan- 
dereth.’ 
“Yours in behalf of the millions of poor, opprest and downtrodden 
in our land.” 
One good Quaker in Ohio had a large covered wagon for conveying 
fugitives, which he named “ The Liberator.” Others used pedler’s wag- 
ons with concealed recesses. Some fugitives were shipped as freight 
in boxes. One man, appropriately named Box Jones, was sent in a 
packing case from Baltimore to Philadelphia, and was seventeen hours 
on the way. A ruse of Levi Coffin’s was to forward twenty-eight negroes 
in broad day in a funeral-like procession. The routes often followed 
zigzag detours in order to throw off pursuit and secure safe hiding. 
The fugitives were concealed in barns, in hayricks, in cellars and 
sub-cellars, in the heart of a wood-pile, in the abutment of a bridge, in a 
smoke-house, in a rail pen covered with straw, in thick, dark woods, in a 
coal bank, in a cave, beneath a trap door. One good pastor hid the fugi- 
tives three days in the belfry of his church, another built a room with a 
secret panel. 
For disguises the men sometimes carried scythes or rakes as if 
seeking work. Light mulattoes sometimes were passed as white men; 
sometimes they were disguised by blacking the hands and face. Some- 
times theatrical outfits of wig and beard and clothing were employed. 
A mulatto girl was dressed in silks and ribbons and furnished with a 
white baby borrowed for the occasion. To her chagrin her master was 
on the train by which she travelled and watched the ferry for her at. 
Sec. IL., 1902. 5. 
