luences which had so long crushed them in our
cities and villages. They promised to do so, provided I would
accompany them and teach school. I travelled through Canada, Michigan
and Indiana, looking for a suitable location, and finally settled
here, thinking this place contained more natural advantages than any
other unoccupied country within my knowledge. In 1835, I made the
first purchase for colored people in this county. In about three
years, they owned not far from 30,000 acres. I had travelled into
almost every neighborhood of colored people in the State, and laid
before them the benefits of a permanent home for themselves and of
education for their children. In my first journey through the state,
I established, by the assistance and cooperation of abolitionists, 25
schools for colored children. I collected of the colored people such
money as they had to spare, and entered land for them. Many, who had
no money, afterwards succeeded in raising some, and brought it to me.
With this I bought land for them.

"'I purchased for myself 190 acres of land, to establish a manual
labor school for colored boys. I had sustained a school on it, at my
own expense, till the 11th of November, 1842. Being in Philadelphia
the winter before, I became acquainted with the trustees of the late
Samuel Emlen, of New Jersey, a Friend. He left by his will $20,000,
for the "support and education in school learning and the mechanics
arts and agriculture, such colored boys, of African and Indian
descent, whose parents would give them up to the institute." We
united our means and they purchased my farm, and appointed me the
superintendent of the establishment, which they call the Emlen
Institute.'

"In 1846, Judge Leigh, of Virginia, purchased 3,200 acres of land in
this settlement, for the freed slaves of John Randolph, of Roanoke.
These arrived in the summer of 1846, to the number of about 400, but
were forcibly prevented from making a settlement by a portion of the
inhabitants of the county. Since then, acts of hostility have been
commenced against the people of this settlement, and threats of greater
held out, if they do not abandon their lands and homes."--Howe's
"Historical Collections of Ohio," pp. 355-356.

Coming to Shelby county the same historian did not