Of many cases of the kind that might be cited, perhaps
none is more strikingly illustrative than that of
Charles Turner Torrey, a New England man. He
was accused of helping a slave to escape from the city
of Baltimore, and being convicted on what was said
to be perjured testimony, was sent to the penitentiary
for a long term of years. The confinement was
fatal, a galloping consumption mercifully putting a
speedy end to his confinement. And then a remarkable
incident occurred. Torrey was a minister in good
standing of the Congregational denomination, and also
a member of the Park Avenue Church of Boston.
Arrangements were made for funeral exercises in that
church, but its managers, taking alarm at the threats
of certain pro-slavery men, withdrew their permission
and locked the sanctuary’s doors. Slavery
punished the dead as well as the living.
The case of Amos Dresser, a young Southerner, may
not improperly be mentioned here. He had gone
to a Northern school, and had become a convert to
Abolitionism. He went to Nashville, Tennessee,
to canvass for a book called the Cottage Bible
which would not ordinarily be supposed to be dangerous
to well regulated public institutions. While
peaceably attending to his business he was accused
of Anti-Slaveryism. He did not deny the charge
and was arrested, his trunk being broken open and
its contents searched and scattered. He was taken
before a vigilance committee and by it was condemned
to receive twenty lashes on his bare back, “well
laid on,” and then to be driven out of town.
The sentence was carried out, we are told, in the presence
of thousands of people of both sexes.
Of the many somewhat similar instances that might
here be referred to the writer will make room for
only one more.
A seafaring man of the name of Jonathan Walker undertook
to convey in a sloop of which he was the owner seven
colored fugitives to the Bahama Islands, where they
would be free. Owing to an accident to his boat,
he and his companions were captured. He was sentenced,
among other things, to have his hand branded with
the letters S.S., signifying “Slave Stealer.”
The incident just referred to inspired one of the
finest productions of Whittier’s pen. Singing
of that “bold plowman of the wave” he
proceeds:
“Why, that hand is highest
honor,
Than its traces
never yet
Upon old memorial hatchments
was
A prouder blazon
set;
And the unborn generations,
as they
Tread our rocky
strand,
Shall tell with pride the
story of
Their father’s
branded hand.”
