James Kedzie and John Hume were plain country farmers
residing in southwestern Ohio, neither very rich nor
very poor. They were natives of Scotland, and
stating that fact is almost equivalent to saying they
were Abolitionists. None of the Scotch of the
writer’s personal knowledge, at the period referred
to, were otherwise than strongly Anti-Slavery.
There are said to be exceptions to all rules, and there
was one in this instance. He was a kinsman of
the author, and a “braw” young Scotchman
who came over to this country with the expectation
of picking up a fortune in short order. Finding
the North too slow, he went South. There he met
a lady who owned a valuable plantation well stocked
with healthy negroes. He married the woman, and
became something of a local nabob, with the reputation
of great severity as a master. One day, with
his own hand, he inflicted a cruel flogging on a slave
who had the name of a “bad nigger.”
That night, when the master was playing chess with
a neighbor by candlelight on the ground floor of his
dwelling, all the windows being open, the negro crept
up with a loaded gun and shot him dead.
The sad affair was regretfully commented on by the
dead man’s relatives, who, I remember, referred
to his untimely ending as “his judgment,”
and as a punishment he had brought upon “himself.”
My uncle and father did not conceal their unpopular
views. They openly voted the Abolition ticket.
In eight years, beginning with their two ballots,
they raised the third party vote in their immediate
vicinity to eight, and they boasted of the progress
they had made.
They did not make public addresses, but they faithfully
listened to those made by others in support of the
cause. They attended all Abolition meetings that
were within reach. They took the National
Era. Not only that, but they got up clubs
for it. The first club I recollect my father’s
securing consisted of half a dozen subscribers, for
one half of which he paid. The next year’s
was double in size, and so was my father’s contribution.
There was no fund for the promotion of the Abolitionist
cause, for which they were called upon, to which they
did not cheerfully pay according to their means.
All Abolition lecturers and colporteurs were gratuitously
entertained, although their presence was sometimes
a cause of abuse, and even of danger. There were
other travelers who sometimes applied for help.
Their faces were of dusky hue, and their great whitish
eyes were like those of hunted beasts of the forest.
They went on their way strengthened and rejoicing—always
in the direction of the North Star.
The men are dead, but Slavery is dead also, partly
through their labors and sacrifices. Their unpretentious,
patient, earnest lives were not in vain. They
contributed to the final triumph of Freedom’s
holy cause.
