refugees by certain members of that church.[160] Gabe N. Johnson, a colored man of Ironton, on the Ohio River, sometimes hid fugitives in a coal-bank back of his house.[161] This list of illustrations could be almost indefinitely continued. A sufficient number has been given to show the ingenuity necessarily used to secure safety. [150] Letter of J. E. Platt, Guthrie, Ok., March 28, 1896. Mr. Platt is a son of Deacon Jirch Platt. [151] Letter of William H. Collins, Quincy, Ill., Jan. 13, 1896. [152] Conversation with J. Addison Giddings, Jefferson, O. [153] Letter of Lewis Ford, Boston, Mass. See also _Reminiscences of Fugitive Slave Law Days in Boston_, by Austin Bearse, 1880, p. 12. [154] Letter of John Weldon, Dwight, Ill., Jan. 10, 1896. [155] Letter of the Rev. J. E. Roy, Chicago, Ill., April 9, 1896. [156] W. G. Deshler and others, _Memorial on the Death of James M. Westwater_, pp. 14, 15. [157] Letter of E. H. Trueblood, Hitchcock, Ind. [158] Letter of E. F. Brown, Amesville, O. [159] _Cincinnati Commercial Gazette_, Feb. 11, 1894, article by W. Eldebe. [160] Letter of Professor George Churchill, Galesburg, Jan. 29, 1896. [161] Conversation with Gabe N. Johnson, Ironton, O., Sept. 30, 1894. In the transit from station to station some simple disguise was often assumed. Thomas Garrett, a Quaker of Wilmington, Delaware, kept a quantity of garden tools on hand for this purpose. He sometimes gave a man a scythe, rake, or some other implement to carry through town. Having reached a certain bridge on the way to the next station, the pretending laborer concealed his tool under it, as he had been directed, and journeyed on. Later the tool was taken back to Mr. Garrett's to be used for a similar purpose.[162] Valentine Nicholson, a station-keeper at Harveysburg, Warren County, Ohio, concealed the identity of a fugitive, a mulatto, who was known to be pursued, by blacking his face and hands with burnt cork.[163] Slight disguises like these were probably not used as often as more elaborate ones. The Rev. Calvin Fairbank, and John Fairfield, the Virginian, who abducted many slaves from the South, resorted frequently to this means of securing the safety of their followers. Mr. Fairbank tells us that he piloted slave-girls attired in the finery of ladies, men and boys tricked out as gentlemen and the servants of gentlemen; and that sometimes he found it necessary to require his followers to don the garments of the opposite sex.[164] In May, 1843, Mr. Fairbank went to Arkansas for the purpose of rescuing William Minnis from bondage. He found that the slave was a young man of light complexion and prepossessing appearance, and that he closely resembled a gentleman living in the vicinity of Little Rock. Minnis was, therefore, fitted out with the necessary wig, beard and moustache, and clothes like those of his model; he was quickly drilled in the deportment of his assumed rank,