A Woman's Life-Work — Labors and Experiences of Laura S. Haviland — John Shaqi
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
After five weeks hiding at the southern terminus of the "Underground
Railroad," they took up their line of march for 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 he 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.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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