*

ARRIVAL FROM DELAWARE, 1857.

JOHN WRIGHT AND WIFE, ELIZABETH ANN, AND CHARLES CONNOR.

This party arrived from Sussex county. John was about thirty years of
age, ordinary size, full black and clear-headed. In physical appearance
he would have readily passed for a superior laborer. The keenness of his
eyes and quickness of his perception, however, would doubtless have
rendered him an object of suspicion in some parts of the South. The
truth was that the love of liberty was clearly indicated in his
expressive countenance. William S. Phillips, a farmer, had been
"sucking" John's blood, and keeping him poor and ignorant for the last
eight years at least; before that, Phillips' father had defrauded him of
his hire.

Under the father and son John had found plenty of hard work and bad
usage, severe and repeated floggings not excepted. Old master and
mistress and young master and mistress, including the entire family,
belonged to what was known as the "Farmer church," at Portsville.
Outwardly they were good Christians. "Occasionally," John said, "the old
man would have family prayers," and to use John's own words, "in company
he would try to moralize, but out of company was as great a rowdy as
ever was." In further describing his old master, he said that he was a
large man, with a red face and blunt nose, and was very quick and fiery
in his temper; would drink and swear--and even his wife, with all hands,
would have to run when he was "raised."

Of his young master he said: "He was quite a long-bodied, thin-faced
man, weighing over one hundred and fifty pounds. In temper just like his
father, though he did not drink--that is all the good quality that I can
recommend in him." John said also that his master, on one occasion, in a
most terribly angry mood, threatened that he would "wade up to his knees
in his (John's) blood." It so happened that John's blood was up pretty
high just at that time; he gave his master to understand that he would
rather go South (be sold) than submit to the scourging which was
imminent. John's pluck probably had the effect of allaying the master's
fire; at any rate the storm subsided after awhile, and until the day
that he took the Underground Rail Road car the servant managed to put up
with his master. As John's wife was on the eve of being sold he was
prompted to leave some time sooner than he otherwise would have done.

THE WIFE'S STATEMENT

She was thirty-two years