Numbers of these fugitives had escaped many years before, had married free partners, had acquired property, and had comfortable homes; these were broken up and their members scattered. Soon after the law went into force, the kidnappers made their appearance in Boston. The fact that men-stealers were prowling about the streets, through which, eighty years before, the enemies of liberty had been chased, caused no little sensation amongst all classes, and when it was understood that William Craft and his beautiful quadroon wife were the intended victims, the excitement increased fearfully. These two persons had escaped from Macon, in the State of Georgia, a year and a half before. The man was of unmixed negro, the woman, nearly white. Their mode of escape was novel. The wife, attired as a gentleman, attended by her husband as a slave, took the train for the North, and arrived in Philadelphia, after a journey of two days; part of which was made on steamboats. The writer was in the Quaker City at the time of their arrival, and was among the first to greet them. Many exciting incidents occurred during the passage to the land of freedom, which gave considerable notoriety to the particular case of the Crafts, and the slave-catchers were soon marked men. After many fruitless attempts to have the fugitives arrested, Hughs and his companions returned to the South; while Craft and his wife fled to England. Boston was not alone in her commotion; Daniel had been arrested at Buffalo, and taken before Henry K. Smith, a drunken commissioner, and remanded to his claimant; Hamlet was captured by the kidnappers in New York City, and Jerry was making his name famous by his arrest at Syracuse, in the same state. The telegrams announcing these events filled the hearts of the blacks with sad emotions, and told the slave-holders that the law could be executed. News soon came from Ohio, Illinois, Indiana, and other states, of the arrest and rendition of persons claimed as slaves, many of whom were proven to be free-born. Boston was not permitted to remain long ere she again witnessed the reappearance of the negro-catcher. A colored man named Shadrach was claimed as a slave; he was arrested, put in prison, and the kidnappers felt that for once they had a sure thing. Boston, however, was a strange place for a human being to be in a dungeon for wanting to be free; and Shadrach was spirited away to Canada, no one knew how. The men of Boston who traded largely with the South, felt that their city was in disgrace in not being able to execute the Fugitive Slave Bill, and many of them wished heartily for another opportunity. So, on the night of the third of April, 1851, Thomas Simms was arrested, and after a trial which became historical, was sent back into slavery, to the utter disgrace of all concerned in his return.