The Underground Railroad eBook

William Still
This eBook from the Gutenberg Project consists of approximately 1,446 pages of information about The Underground Railroad.

The Underground Railroad eBook

William Still
This eBook from the Gutenberg Project consists of approximately 1,446 pages of information about The Underground Railroad.

    JOHN AUGUSTA.

This document has somewhat of a military appearance about it.  It is short and to the point.  Friend Augusta was well known in Norristown as a first-rate hair-dresser and a prompt and trustworthy Underground Rail Road agent.  Of course a speedy answer was returned to his note, and he was instructed to bring the eleven passengers on to the Committee in Brotherly Love.

LETTER FROM MISS G. LEWIS ABOUT A PORTION OF THE SAME “MEMORABLE TWENTY-EIGHT.”

    SUNNYSIDE, Nov. 6th, 1857.

DEAR FRIEND:—­Eight more of the large company reached our place last night, direct from Ercildown.  The eight constitute one family of them, the husband and wife with four children under eight years of age, wish tickets for Elmira.  Three sons, nearly grown, will be forwarded to Phila., probably by the train which passes Phoenixville at seven o’clock of to-morrow evening the seventh.  It would be safest to meet them there.  We shall send them to Elijah with the request for them to be sent there.  And I presume they will be.  If they should not arrive you may suppose it did not suit Elijah to send them.
We will send the money for the tickets by C.C.  Burleigh, who will be in Phila. on second day morning.  If you please, you will forward the tickets by to-morrow’s mail as we do not have a mail again till third day.

    Yours hastily,

    Q. LEWIS.

    Please give directions for forwarding to Elmira and name the
    price of tickets.

At first Miss Lewis thought of forwarding only a part of her fugitive guests to the Committee in Philadelphia, but on further consideration, all were safely sent along in due time, and the Committee took great pains to have them made as comfortable as possible, as the cases of these mothers and children especially called forth the deepest sympathy.

In this connection it seems but fitting to allude to Captain Lee’s sufferings on account of his having brought away in a skiff, by sea, a party of four, alluded to in the beginning of this single month’s report.

Unfortunately he was suspected, arrested, tried, convicted, and torn from his wife and two little children, and sent to the Richmond Penitentiary for twenty-five years.  Before being sent away from Portsmouth, Va., where he was tried, for ten days in succession in the prison five lashes a day were laid heavily on his bare back.  The further sufferings of poor Lee and his heart-broken wife, and his little daughter and son, are too painful for minute recital.  In this city the friends of Freedom did all in their power to comfort Mrs. Lee, and administered aid to her and her children; but she broke down under her mournful fate, and went to that bourne from whence no traveler ever returns.

Captain Lee suffered untold misery in prison, until he, also, not a great while before the Union forces took possession of Richmond, sank beneath the severity of his treatment, and went likewise to the grave.  The two children for a long time were under the care of Mr. Wm. Ingram of Philadelphia, who voluntarily, from pure benevolence, proved himself to be a father and a friend to them.  To their poor mother also he had been a true friend.

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The Underground Railroad from Project Gutenberg. Public domain.