In the New England states fugitives travelled, under the instruction of friends, by way of the Providence and Worcester Railroad from Valley Falls, Rhode Island, to Worcester, Massachusetts, where by arrangement they were transferred to the Vermont Road.[217] The Boston and Worcester Railroad between Newton and Worcester, Massachusetts, as also between Boston and Worcester, seems to have been used to some extent in this way.[218] The Grand Trunk, extending from Portland, Maine, through the northern parts of New Hampshire and Vermont into Canada, occasionally gave passes to fugitives, and would always take reduced fares for this class of passengers.[219] [217] Mrs. Elizabeth Buffum Chace, _Anti-Slavery Reminiscences_, pp. 28, 38. [218] Letter of William I. Bowditch, Boston, April 5, 1893. Mr. Bowditch says: "Generally I passed them (the fugitives) on to William Jackson, at Newton. His house being on the Worcester Railroad, he could easily forward any one." Captain Austin Bearse, _Reminiscences of Fugitive-Slave Law Days in Boston_, p. 37. [219] Letter of Brown Thurston, Portland, Me., Oct. 21, 1895. The advantages of escape by boat were early discerned by slaves living near the coast or along inland rivers. Vessels engaged in our coastwise trade became more or less involved in transporting fugitives from Southern ports to Northern soil. Small trading vessels, returning from their voyages to Norfolk and Portsmouth, Virginia, landed slaves on the New England coast.[220] In July, 1853, the brig _Florence_ (Captain Amos Hopkins, of Hallowell, Maine) from Wilmington, North Carolina, was required, while lying in Boston harbor, to surrender a fugitive found on board. In September, 1854, the schooner _Sally Ann_ (of Belfast, Maine), from the same Southern port, was induced to give up a slave known to be on board. In October of the same year the brig _Cameo_ (of Augusta, Maine) brought a stowaway from Jacksonville, Florida, into Boston harbor, and, as in the two preceding cases, the slave was rescued from the danger of return to the South through the activity and shrewdness of Captain Austin Bearse, the agent of the Vigilance Committee of Boston.[221] The son of a slaveholder living at Newberne, North Carolina, forwarded slaves from that point to the Vigilance Committee of Philadelphia on vessels engaged in the lumber trade.[222] In November, 1855, Captain Fountain brought twenty-one fugitives concealed on his vessel in a cargo of grain from Norfolk, Virginia, to Philadelphia.[223] [220] Mrs. Elizabeth Buffum Chace, _Anti-Slavery Reminiscences_, pp. 27, 30. [221] Austin Bearse, _Reminiscences of Fugitive-Slave Law Days in Boston_, 1880, pp. 34-39. [222] Smedley, _Underground Railroad_, letter of Robert Purvis, of Philadelphia, p. 335. [223] Still, _Underground Railroad Records_, pp. 165-172. For other cases, see pp. 211, 379-381, 437, 558, 559-565.