about ye months public before marriage, he seemed reasonable. I have, because I must have done, only R. Janny &c fell into the french hands wch I refer to Sacher as I do him to my Comrs. to encourage him, for I will have John rewarded well. 20 I bless ye Ld we are pretty well, all our Dr. loves to ffrds if named, the Govr. & Council & Comer of Ld and pub. ffds. in perticuler. The Hopewell I am not free to ensure, but hear nothing of her. Pray see wt thou canst do to detect Quarys acct. herin sent, by him given to ye Comers of ye Customs & Lords of the Admiralty; it is of great moment but wt ever is done, one or two witnesses viva voce, outway 100 affidavits. The Parl. & Judges rejectg. them. But the wise Comers. of T. & P. need none but can Judge exparte; for wch they are growing rediculous; however affidavits are better than nothing & goe a great way wth ym wn they can perswade ym selves to be indifferent, remember me to J. Bewly, tell him I never made use of ye cirtificat he signed; he is well esteemed at ye Custom house. 21 Pray let me have a clear acct of ye remainder of our & T. & Ls. debts about Gillams good to finish here, wch I cant for want of it. 22 Tell T. ffairman I dined tother day with his Bro. & Sist. in Southwark, where I did him some service; & his Bror. is hearty, & is for coming too. I must conclude for this time. I am. thy reale ffriend, WM. PENN. Let S. Carpenter Know how well I take his love, tho by reason of J. Gs being at ye Bath I have done nothing in it as yet also salute me to Is. Norris whose love & respect by his lettr. I was pleased with & acknowledge. W. & Jane Biles come now, she has a request to ye Comers. if reasonable favour her else keep tite to your rules. I cannot just now find G. H. paper, may perhaps ere ye ship goes. ffor my cos. ashton I am willing to be as kind as I can, & am sorry the Town Clashes with the Country; let the Gover be desired to mediate yt affaire, for ye land. It is asking me so much mony out of my pocket, nor will I let it goe for 4 or 500 acres, but to reduce his other pretentions, & give security for ye overplus of ye vallue, if any, and in case it ever was a part of ye Mannor of Springfield, I cant part with such a quantity, but more of this fr my son; only tell ed. ffarmer nobody else, if not he, shall have a foot of ye land he requires of me. vale. THE UNDERGROUND RAILROAD IN PENNSYLVANIA. BY EDWARD RAYMOND TURNER, Fugitive slaves escaping into Pennsylvania from their masters living farther south, were a source of trouble in the earliest colonial days. In 1702, William Faussitt, of Somerset County, Maryland, sued Joseph Booth, of Sussex County, now in Delaware, because of "one Nigroe man Stollen and Carried away" whom the defendant had harbored. Faussitt was awarded thirty pounds. Frequently, thereafter, the colonial newspapers contained advertisements for negro slaves who had escaped to the north, and offered rewards for their apprehension. "RUN away," says the Maryland Gazette of May 27, 1729, "from Samuel Peel's Quarter, call'd Turkey-Island in Anne-Arundel County, on Sunday the 27th of APRIL last, a Negroe Fellow call'd Limehouse, about Thirty Years old. He had on when he went away, a new felt Hat, a new grey Fear-nothing Coat, one new and one old Cotton Jacket, a new brown Osnabrig Shirt, a pair of newish light Fustian Breeches, and a pair of old Cotten Breeches, a pair of white Country made Yarn Stockings, a pair of good Negroe Shoes. Whoever will secure the above Negroe, so as to deliver him to his Overseer Nicholas Aldridge, at the said Quarter, or to the Subscriber at London-Town, shall be paid Twenty Shillings more than the Law allows, by me Samuel Peele." On both sides of the Maryland line the journals have many such notices. There is little doubt, that this fleeing from service was a cause of much trouble to masters of Delaware, Maryland, and Virginia, and it is probable that many of the negroes were never recovered. Nevertheless, during the colonial period, there was much less difficulty than there was later on, since the local authorities in Pennsylvania were willing to give as much assistance as they possibly could. During this time many people in Pennsylvania themselves owned slaves who ran away, and therefore the authorities made laws to provide for their apprehension and return. All suspicious and wandering negroes were taken up and lodged in the jails and advertised and held until the masters came to get them. A runaway might cause a Southern owner a great deal of trouble and loss, but the owner could usually get him again if he tried; at least the people of Pennsylvania interposed no obstacle. After 1780, and particularly after 1800, there was a great change. Gradually the people of Pennsylvania became hostile to slavery and unwilling to assist slaveowners in any way. As time went on many persons were glad to hinder the masters and help the fugitives as much as they could. There were many reasons for this. Because of economic conditions, and because of the early opposition of the Germans and the Friends, slavery had never assumed large proportions in Pennsylvania. Between 1730 and 1780 the Quakers set all their slaves free, while in the latter year the legislature approved the first abolition act ever passed in any of the states. Meanwhile the first and greatest of all the abolition societies had been founded in Philadelphia, and many people, particularly the Friends, desired to bring slavery to an end in Pennsylvania and elsewhere as soon as they could. Therefore, it was that when runaway negroes got across the line, they now received far more assistance than the pursuing masters. For some time this was not clearly realized in the South, and the Pennsylvania papers continued to have numerous advertisements about slaves who had escaped from Virginia and Maryland. The border newspapers have a great many of them. A Maryland owner offered $50 reward in the York Pennsylvania Herald of June 7, 1797, while a Virginian promised $30 in the Lancaster Intelligencer of October 16, 1799. A Maryland man advertised $400 for three runaways in the Harrisburg Chronicle of October 17, 1831; and as late as 1836, the Chambersburg Whig announced $100 from a resident of the District of Columbia. After this time such notices become exceedingly rare. In Pennsylvania sympathy for fugitives and hostility towards the slave-owners who claimed them, were first shown by individuals and private organizations; later on by the majority of the people of the state; and finally by the state itself. Early in the nineteenth century Sutcliff, the traveller, speaks of a tailor living in Philadelphia, who used to sit at his window as he worked. Whenever he saw a negro who looked like a runaway, he would go out to offer him assistance, and would help him to elude his pursuers and get to the interior parts of the state. At the same time the Pennsylvania Society for the Abolition of Slavery used to give legal assistance to negroes who were claimed as fugitives, and would try to have the courts set them free on the strength of some legal technicality. In 1819, the Journal of the Pennsylvania House of Representatives states that "Mr. Purdon presented a petition from sundry inhabitants of the city of Philadelphia that in consequence of the difficulty of recovering slaves who are runaways from the southern states, the number of blacks has increased to an alarming extent in the said city, and praying legislative interference." There now came to be many people, especially among the Friends, who would incur any risk in helping and concealing fugitives. These men were particularly active along the borders, and nowhere more so than in the southeastern part of the state. Columbia in Lancaster County was notorious because of the difficulty which Southerners encountered there in recovering runaway |