In the conveyance of fugitives from station to station there existed all the variety of method one would expect to find. In the early days of the Underground Road the fugitives were generally men. It was scarcely thought necessary to send a guide with them unless some special reason for so doing existed. They were, therefore, commonly given such directions as they needed and left to their own devices. As the number of refugees increased, and women and children were more frequently seen upon the Road, and pursuit was more common, the practice of transporting fugitives on horseback, or by vehicle, was introduced. The steam railroad was a new means furnished to abolitionists by the progress of the times, and used by them with greater or less frequency as circumstances required, and when the safety of passengers would not be sacrificed. When fugitive travellers afoot or on horseback found themselves pursued, safety lay in flight, unless indeed the company was large enough, courageous enough, and sufficiently well armed to give battle. The safety of fugitives while travelling by conveyance lay mainly in their concealment, and many were the stratagems employed. Characteristic of the service of the Underground Railroad were the covered wagons, closed carriages and deep-bedded farm-wagons that hid the passengers. There are those living who remember special day-coaches of more peculiar construction. Abram Allen, a Quaker of Oakland, Clinton County, Ohio, had a large three-seated wagon, made for the purpose of carrying fugitives. He called it the Liberator. It was curtained all around, would hold eight or ten persons, and had a mechanism with a bell, invented by Mr. Allen, to record the number of miles travelled.[137] A citizen of Troy, Ohio, a bookbinder by trade, had a large wagon, built about with drawers in such a way as to leave a large hiding-place in the centre of the wagon-bed. As the bookbinder drove through the country he found opportunity to help many a fugitive on his way to Canada.[138] Horace Holt, of Rutland, Meigs County, Ohio, sold reeds to his neighbors in southern Ohio. He had a box-bed wagon with a lid that fastened with a padlock. In this he hauled his supply of reeds; it was well understood by a few that he also hauled fugitive slaves.[139] Joseph Sider, of southern Indiana, found his pedler wagon well adapted to the transportation of slaves from Kentucky plantations.[140] William Still gives instances of negroes being placed in boxes, and shipped as freight by boat, and also by rail, to friends in the North. William Box Peel Jones was boxed in Baltimore and sent to Philadelphia by way of the Ericsson line of steamers, being seventeen hours on the way.[141] Henry Box Brown had the same thrilling and perilous experience. His trip consumed twenty-four hours, during which time he was in the care of the Adams Express Company in transit from Richmond, Virginia, to Philadelphia.[142]