Willis Hamilton, an emancipated slave, the hero of this narrative, who fled to Canada with his slave wife, Elsie, to seek for her the protection of the British lion from the merciless talons of the freedom-shrieking American eagle, was emancipated three years previous to the date of this chapter, together with nineteen others (the reputed goods and chattels of John Bayliss, a Baptist deacon, near Jonesborough, Tennessee) . . .

Elsie, the wife of Willis Hamilton, belonged to a neighboring planter. She was sold to a drover for the Southern market, and was being torn from her husband and two little daughters. Willis, in his agony, went from house to house, imploring some one to buy her, so that she might remain near her family. Finally one Dr. John P. Chester, who was about opening a hotel, agreed to purchase Elsie for $800, if Willis would pay $300 in work in the house, and fare the same as the other servants in board and clothing. With these conditions Willis gladly complied; but after they had spent a few months in their new home Deacon Bayliss examined their article of agreement and found it to be illegal. He told Willis that Dr. Chester could sell Elsie at any time, and he could establish no claim to her, even had he paid the $300, which, at the wages he was receiving, would take him nearly nine years to earn, with the interest, and advised him to leave Dr. Chester and work for wages, as he had done since his manumission. This advice was immediately acted upon, Willis being permitted to spend his nights with his wife. Every thing passed off pleasantly for a few weeks, until one of the house-servants told Elsie that she overheard Master John sell both her and Willis to a slave-trader, who would the following night convey them to the river with a drove ready for New Orleans. Frantic as the poor woman was with terror and grief at this information, she managed to perform her duties as usual until supper-time; and when all were seated at the table she slipped out unobserved, ran through a corn-field into the woods, sending word to Willis by a fellow-servant to meet her at a certain log. The moment Willis received the message he hastened to her with flying feet; and here the wretched husband and wife, but a few days before so full of plans for a pleasant future, held their council in tears.

Willis, in his sudden fright and excitement, could only exclaim: "What shall we do? Where shall we go?" Elsie, cooler and more composed, suggested going to Deacon Bayliss for advice. This Willis quickly did, and soon returned, it having been arranged that he should bring Elsie there and secrete her in the attic until the excitement of the hunt was over. After this they assumed the names of Bill and Jane, a brother and sister who answered to their own description of color and size on Willis's free papers?the whole list of the twenty slaves emancipated by Deacon Bayliss being recorded on each paper.

After five weeks hiding at the southern terminus of the "Underground Railroad," they took up their line of march or Canada. In a Quaker settlement in Indiana they found friends to whom they revealed their true relationship, and here they spent a year with a Quaker family named Shugart. But the slight protection afforded by the laws of Indiana did not tend to give them a feeling of security, and so they started again for the promised land with their infant daughter Louisa. On this journey they were assisted on their way, and made easy and comfortable compared with their hasty flight from Tennessee, from whence they walked with swollen and blistered feet, and every nerve strung to its utmost tension from the fear of pursuit by their Southern persecutors.

As times were hard in Canada, Elsie consented to come to Michigan with her husband if be could find a Quaker neighborhood. In their search they found our house, and my husband, Charles Haviland, Jr., after learning their condition, leased Willis twenty acres of ground, mostly openings, for ten years, for the improvements he would make thereon. Here they lived for three years, when one day Elsie saw a strange man peering through the fence.

Her first thought was "a Southerner," and snatching her two Little ones she ran for our house, only a few rods distant. The man pursued her, and she called for help to a neighbor in sight, at which the skulking sneak took himself off to the woods. This incident so thoroughly aroused their fears that they took another farm, a few miles distant, for three years; then a farm near Ypsilanti for a few years; from whence they removed to Monroe, where they induced a friend to write to Willis's old friend and master, Deacon Bayliss, making inquiries after their two daughters, who were left behind in slavery. They received a prompt reply, purporting to come from Bayliss, informing them that their daughters were still living where they left them. He would see them, he said, by the time he received their next letter, which he hoped would be soon, that he might be the happy bearer of glad news to the children from their father and mother. He professed great joy at hearing from them, wished them to write all the particulars about themselves, but cautioned them to write to no one but him, and all would be safe. He requested them to inform him in what town they were living, as he noticed their letter was dated in one town, mailed in another, and he was directed to address them in a third. Their friend, however, strictly cautioned them not to reveal their definite whereabouts, but to answer all other queries. Willis wrote that as his farm lease had expired there, he would have to seek another farm, and did not know where he would be, but to address a letter as before and it would be forwarded to him.

Their next move was to return to their first Michigan home on my premises, a few months after the death of my husband, taking up their abode in the little log-house built for them a few years before, and working my land on shares. Another letter was soon received from their friend Deacon Bayliss, as they supposed, and they urged me to reply; but I firmly refused to write to any one in the land of the slaveholder, lest the message should fall into the hands of enemies, and advised them to leave their daughters in the hands of the Lord, who would yet provide a way of deliverance for them as he had for their parents. In their great anxiety, however, to hear from their children, from whom they had been separated so many years, their plea was strong and persistent: but I remained immovable to all their entreaties, and told them of a slave family, who, after living twenty years in Indiana, had but recently been captured and returned to hopeless bondage. Upon this they yielded to me for the time being, but in a few weeks came again with pleadings made eloquent by suffering. As they had felt the vice-like grip of the peculiar system on their own hearts and lives, they realized too keenly the fate that might any time overtake their daughters. But I still resisted all their entreaties, and in a few days after they applied to J. F. Dolbeare, one of the trustees of Raisin Institute, who, thinking there was no danger, wrote all they desired, telling the supposed Deacon Bayliss all their past life in the free States and all their plans for the future. This they kept from me for a time, but Elsie's heart refused to be quieted, and she finally told me about it, first telling her husband she believed it their duty . . . Willis said he had felt like telling me all the while, and both came to me with their story.

Willis Hamilton received a letter inclosing three dollars, purporting to be from John Bayliss, who had come up into Ohio on business, and was on his way to visit them when he was suddenly taken very ill, and was pronounced by the physicians in a critical condition—in fact, they gave him but little encouragement for recovery, and he desired Willis to come and visit him, and bring his wife and children, as he might want him for two weeks. He closed by saying:

"Whether I get better or die, I am resigned, and can say the Lord's will be done. I shall have every train watched until you come. God bless you

"Respectfully yours, JOHN BAYLISS"

Of course I was given this letter to read, and I suggested the utmost caution in obeying this request, for, as the old rat in the fable said, there might be "concealed mischief in this heap of meal" I called for the other two letters, and found they were written by the same hand Willis says: "Oh! I know the old boss too well, he's true as steel; he won't have anything to do with trap business. Besides, I've got my free papers, and I'm not afraid to go, but I wont take my wife and children" I proposed that Mr. Dolbeare or some neighbor go with him That pleased him, but Mr. Dolbeare could not go. As my son Daniel and I were going to Adrian, I proposed to get either Mr. Backus or Mr. Peters, both strong anti-slavery friends in the city, to accompany him to Toledo. As we were about starting, Joseph Gibbons, a neighbor, came with the suggestion that Willis remain at home, and James Martin, who was about his color and size, go in his stead; as Gibbons agreed with me in believing there was a deep laid plot. To this all parties agreed, and Willis gave me the letter and the three dollars towards the fare of whoever should go with James, who was an intelligent young colored man in our institution. Everything being in readiness we now started for Adrian, where we arrived just in time to jump on board the train . . .

Gibbons and Haviland were correct. It was Chester, not Deacon Bayliss, who had contacted the Hamiltons. After an exciting adventure, the Michigan group returned home safely.

Source: Laura A. Haviland, A Woman's Life-Work, Walden & Stowe, Cincinnati, 1882.

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Updated 08/31/2010