In the melee the master was stabbed and the slave escaped into the woods. That night he saw his wife and family for the last time. The woman informed him that he had killed his master and that if he were caught he could expect to be burned alive or chopped to pieces. She urged him to flee to Canada, and if he arrived there safely, he was to write to her father who was free. This is the story as he told it to Mrs. Haviland and it was the letter to his father-in-law that he wished her to write. Mrs. Haviland shrewdly suspected that a letter from Canada addressed to a Negro related to Anderson would not likely reach its destination and would also give a clue to the fugitive's whereabouts. Accordingly she dated the letter from Adrian, Michigan, and asked that the reply be sent there. The answer, which came shortly after, said that Anderson's wife and four children were being brought to him. Mrs. Haviland replied to this letter but warned Anderson not to cross the Detroit River as she suspected a plot. In her message she asked the party to come to Adrian, Michigan, and inquire for Mrs. Laura Haviland, a widow, from whom information could be had regarding Anderson. A few days later a white man called, very clearly a southerner, and informed her that Anderson's family was in Detroit staying in the home of a Negro minister named Williams. The visitor seemed exceedingly anxious to find out where Anderson was and Mrs. Haviland finally told him that the man was in Chatham and advised that his family should be sent there. At this the visitor's face reddened rather noticeably. Mrs. Haviland lost no time in sending a message to Anderson advising him to leave Chatham. He got out none too soon for within a few days white men were in Chatham inquiring for him. They were told that he had gone to Sault Ste. Marie and they followed the trail there but without success. Finally they disappeared after leaving with Detroit people power of attorney to arrest Anderson, if he could ever be decoyed over the river or should be found there. Mrs. Haviland, in her memoirs, says that after this effort to capture Anderson as a murderer she wrote a letter to Lord Elgin, the Governor of the Canadas, setting forth the facts, and that she received this reply from him: "In case of a demand for William Anderson, he should require the case to be tried in their British courts; and if twelve freeholders should testify that he had been a man of integrity since his arrival in their dominion it should clear him."[2] There is a rather curious similarity between the latter part of this statement and the recent decision from Ottawa in the Bullock case, namely, that as the latter had conducted himself well since entering the country he should not be deported.