Howard acted with the friends of freedom on questions involving that issue, and in the Thirtieth Congress William Sprague, the second Whig Representative, was openly classified as a Free Soiler. In 1849 the Whigs and Free Soilers united to support Flavius J. Littlejohn for Governor, and the Whigs of Michigan as a whole were a body of intelligent and conscientious anti-slavery men, and made their political weight felt on the side of free institutions. Mr. Chandler was from his boyhood radical in his opposition to human bondage, and for a time hoped that the Whig party of the North could be used to effectually resist the conspiracy of the slave power against the territories. His anti-slavery activity preceded his appearance in politics. Detroit was an important terminus of the "Underground Railroad," that mysterious organization which so skilfully and quietly transported colored fugitives from the Ohio to Canadian soil, and Mr. Chandler, while still absorbed in business, was a frequent and liberal contributor to the fund for its operating expenses. He manifested an especial interest in the Crosswhite case, which, played a conspicuous part in the fugitive slave law agitation preceding the compromises of 1850. Adam Crosswhite was the mulatto son of a slave mother who was owned by his father, a white farmer in Bourbon county, Kentucky. While a boy he was given as a servant to his half-sister, a Miss Crosswhite, who married a slave-dealer named Stone. Her husband subsequently sold her brother for $200, and Crosswhite ultimately became the chattel of a Kentucky planter named Giltner living in Carroll county. When he had reached the age of forty-four and had become the father of four children, he learned that his master was planning to sell a portion of his family. The parental instinct drove this man to a step which he had not taken through any desire for personal freedom, and he determined upon flight. He succeeded in getting his entire family across the Ohio in a skiff, and into the hands of the "Underground Railway" managers in Indiana. There was a vigorous pursuit, and at Newport the fugitives were nearly captured, but Quaker shrewdness concealed and protected them, and after weeks of stirring adventure, during which the father and mother were compelled to separate, they reached Michigan, and became the occupants of a little cabin in the eastern part of the present city of Marshall. They were quiet and industrious citizens, and by thrift and unremitting labor commenced making payments on their homestead. In time the history of the fugitives became known to their neighbors, and finally some one with the genuine spirit of the slave-driver sent to Kentucky information concerning their hiding-place. In December, 1846, Francis Troutman came to Marshall, ostensibly as a young lawyer in search of business, but in fact as Giltner's representative in identifying his fugitive slaves and planning their recapture. He did his work well, through artifice and