The risks and costs of a long trip were not too great for the enthusiastic abolitionist who felt that immediate rescue must be attempted. One remarkable incident illustrates the determination sometimes displayed in freeing a slave. Two brothers from Connecticut settled in the District of Columbia about the year 1848. They became gardeners, and employed among their hands a colored woman, who was hired out to them by her master. Soon after the passage of the Fugitive Slave Law (1850) she came weeping to her employers with the news that she was to be sold "down South." Stirred by her impending misfortune, one of the brothers had a large box made, within which he nailed the slave-woman and her young daughter. With the box in his market-wagon he set out on a long, arduous trip across Maryland and Pennsylvania into New York. After three weeks of travel he reached his journey's end at Warsaw. Here he delivered his charge to the care of friends, among whom they found a permanent home.[485] [485] Conversation with the daughter mentioned, now the wife of William Burghardt, Warsaw, N.Y., June, 1894. Article on the Underground Railroad in the _History of Warsaw, New York_. There were ardent abolitionists living almost within sight of slave territory that had no scruples about helping slaves across the line and passing them on to freedom. In 1836, Dr. David Nelson, a Virginian, who had freed his slaves and moved to Marion County, Missouri, and had there founded Marion College, was driven into Illinois on account of his anti-slavery views. He settled at Quincy, and soon established the Mission Institute, which was chiefly a school for the education of missionaries. Mr. N. A. Hunt, now eighty-five years old but apparently of clear mind, was a student in Mission Institute in its early years. He relates an incident showing the spirit existing in the school, a spirit that manifested itself a little later in the actions of Messrs Burr, Work and Thompson. His story is that Dr. Nelson came to him one day in the spring of 1839 or 1840, and asked him to go with another student across the Mississippi River and patrol the shore opposite Quincy. The students were to make signals at intervals by tapping stones together, and if their signals were answered they were to help such as needed help by conducting them to a place of safety, a station on the Underground Railroad, sixteen miles east of Quincy. The station could be easily recognized, for it was a red barn. The time chosen for crossing the river was always a Sunday night, a time known to be the best for the persons sometimes found waiting on the other side. This detailing of a watch from the school was regularly done, although with what results is not known.[486] [486] Letter from N. A. Hunt, of Riverside, Cal., Feb. 12, 1891.