A Woman's Life-Work — Labors and Experiences of Laura S. HavilandHaviland, Laura S. (Laura Smith)
Religion
A Woman's Life-Work — Labors and Experiences of Laura S. Haviland
Haviland, Laura S. (Laura Smith)
Freed persons; Haviland, Laura S. (Laura Smith), 1808-1898; Underground Railroad
I visited Howard Grove Hospital, under the charge of Miss Marcia
Colton, matron. She was a missionary among the Choctaw Indians nine
years, and was a noble, self-sacrificing woman. The surgeon of the
hospital was D. R. Browery. I found a little boy of about eight years,
whose mother he said was "done dead." He knew nothing of his father. I
took him to Camp Lee Orphanage. Here and there I find kindred spirits,
but none more devoted to the cause of Christ than sister Marcia Colton.
She gave herself entirely to the advancement of his cause during nine
years of labor among the poor, despised Indians. During the terrible
conflicts of the war she unreservedly gave herself to the suffering and
dying soldier, and she said that when, no longer called for in that
field her life was just as cheerfully given to uplifting the lowly
among the freed slaves of the South.
On visiting the State Penitentiary, the keeper hesitated about allowing
me admittance. Said he: "I am afraid you'll give a bad report of us, as
did Miss Dix, who gave us a bad name, and I thought of her as you
entered my office. You look like her, and I am afraid of you. You know
we don't have our prisons like yours of the North, like grand palaces,
with flower-yards; and I reckon I had better not let you in." I told
him I perceived they were rebuilding the part burned awhile ago, and
would make due allowance for bad house-keeping.
"Well, if you'll do that, I reckon I'll have to risk you, for you'll
see we are whitewashing the old cells and other parts of the prison,
and then you must make allowance for its age. It was built in 1800, and
is the first penitentiary in the world, and you Northerners have had
all these sixty-five years to improve in, and then your gardens about
your prisons are all so grand that I am a little afraid of your report.
But, steward, you may take her through, and well see what she'll do for
us."
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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