The Bark Covered House: Or, Back In the Woods Again; Being a Graphic and Thrilling Description of Real Pioneer Life in the Wilderness of MichiganNowlin, William
History
The Bark Covered House: Or, Back In the Woods Again; Being a Graphic and Thrilling Description of Real Pioneer Life in the Wilderness of Michigan
Nowlin, William
Dearborn (Mich.); Frontier and pioneer life -- Michigan -- Dearborn
We drove up the river road. There was another road running back farther
from the river, into the country, which also led to the reservation. We
drove along a pretty good jog for a mile or two, and who should we meet
but the old man Campbell! He seemed very glad to see me, and came right
up to shake hands with me. He wondered how I came to be in Canada, and
inquired very particularly about the health of my family. I asked him
where Obadiah was, told him I wanted to see him. He pointed across the
road and said, that he came down with him and stopped there to get an ax
helve. Said he would run in and tell him, that I had come, and in a
minute out they came; Obadiah laughing and looking wonderfully pleased
to see me. Of course I had to appear friendly, although I didn't feel
very well pleased. I supposed that I would have to wear two faces that
day; but I was spared the disagreeable task. I told Campbell and
Obadiah, that I had come over to see them, that I had a little job on
hand which I wanted to have done and that if they would go to Detroit
with me I would tell them about it. They said they would go and I told
them to get into the carriage. They said they could walk, they were
afraid of soiling it; I told them to tumble in and I would take them to
Windsor in a few minutes.
While we were talking up came a colored man on horseback, his horse upon
the jump, breathing as if he had rode him fast. He spoke to Campbell and
took him one side and talked with him. Then Campbell stepped back to me
laughing and told me what the man said. He said: "Heaps of colored
people" thought I was a "Kentuckian;" they said, I looked like one and
that my team and carriage looked like a Kentucky rig. The man would not
believe but that I was one, and thought that I had come to get a colored
woman, who had been a slave in Kentucky; and he said, that there was a
great excitement among the colored people about it.
I learned something of the circumstance; that woman had been a slave in
Kentucky. Her master thought a great deal of her, treated her with much
kindness, in fact made quite a lady of her and gave her liberties and
privileges, which thousands of other slaves never enjoyed. But she made
up her mind, that she wouldn't be the property of any one; her life
should be her own. She ran away to Canada to gain her liberty. When she
arrived there, she didn't find every thing as pleasant as she had
expected and expressed a willingness to return to her master and slavery,
in the land of bondage. Through a secret agent, her master had learned
where she was. He made a bargain with the preacher, Campbell, to get her
back. He was to have quite a sum of money if he succeeded in persuading
her to return to her master.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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