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
Thomas K. Chester being a few rods distant ran to assist his dying
father, but his life was gone ere he reached him. A few months later he
was brought from a boat sick with yellow fever, and died in one week
from the attack in terrible paroxysms and ravings, frequently requiring
six men to hold him on his bed. He was ill the same length of time that
they falsely represented a few years before in the Toledo hotel. Said
the narrator, "Thomas K. Chester's death was the most awful I ever
witnessed. He cursed and swore to his last breath, saying he saw his
father standing by his bed, with damned spirits waiting to take him
away to eternal burnings."
After a long walk one day, I called at the former residence of the
Chester family, and was seated in the front parlor. It is hard to
imagine my feelings as I sat in the room where those two men had lain
in death's cold embrace--men who had flourished toward my face the
six-shooter. It was by this kind of deadly weapon the life of one was
taken; and as nearly as words can describe the feigned sickness, the
last week of the life of the other was spent. No wonder the blood
seemed to curdle in my veins in contemplating the lives of these men,
and their end. It is beyond the power of pen to describe the panorama
that passed before me in these moments. The proprietor of the Toledo
hotel lost custom by his complicity in their efforts to retake their
alleged slave property. A few months after the hotel was burned to
ashes.
CHAPTER IV.
AN OHIO SCHOOL-TEACHER.
In the Autumn of 1847 a gentleman of evident culture called for early
breakfast, though he had passed a public house about two miles distant.
I mistrusted my stranger caller to be a counterfeit; and told him, as I
had the care of an infant for a sick friend, he would find better fare
at the boarding hall a few rods away. But introducing himself as an
Ohio school-teacher, and accustomed to boarding around, he had not
enjoyed his favorite bread and milk for a long while, and if I would be
so kind as to allow him a bowl of bread and milk he would accept it as
a favor. He said he had heard of our excellent school, and wished to
visit it. He was also acting as agent of the _National Era_, published
at Cincinnati, in which he was much interested, and solicited my
subscription. I told him I knew it to be a valuable periodical, but, as
I was taking three, abolition papers he must excuse me.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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