, or father, if
they are living, may possibly see these pages, and thereby be
made glad by learning of Richard's wisdom as a traveler, in the
terrible days of slave-hunting. Consequently here is what was
recorded of him, April 3d, 1857, at the Underground Rail Road
Station, just before a free ticket was tendered him for Canada.
"Richard is thirty-three years of age, small of stature, dark
color, smart and resolute. He was owned by Captain Tucker, of
the United States Navy, from whom he fled." He was "tired of
serving, and wanted to marry," was the cause of his escape. He
had no complaint of bad treatment to make against his owner;
indeed he said, that he had been "used well all his life."
Nevertheless, Richard felt that this Underground Rail Road was
the "greatest road he ever saw."
When the war broke out, Richard girded on his knapsack and went
to help Uncle Sam humble Richmond and break the yoke.
* * * * *
BARNABY GRIGBY, ALIAS JOHN BOYER, AND MARY ELIZABETH, HIS WIFE; FRANK
WANZER, ALIAS ROBERT SCOTT; EMILY FOSTER, ALIAS ANN WOOD.
(TWO OTHERS WHO STARTED WITH THEM WERE CAPTURED.)
All these persons journeyed together from Loudon Co., Va. on horseback
and in a carriage for more than one hundred miles. Availing themselves
of a holiday and their master's horses and carriage, they as
deliberately started for Canada, as though they had never been taught
that it was their duty, as servants, to "obey their masters." In this
particular showing a most utter disregard of the interest of their
"kind-hearted and indulgent owners." They left home on Monday, Christmas
Eve, 1855, under the leadership of Frank Wanzer, and arrived in Columbia
the following Wednesday at one o'clock. As willfully as they had thus
made their way along, they had not found it smooth sailing by any means.
The biting frost and snow rendered their travel anything but agreeable.
Nor did they escape the gnawings of hunger, traveling day and night. And
whilst these "articles" were in the very act of running away with
themselves and their kind master's best horses and carriage--when about
one hundred miles from home, in the neighborhood of Cheat river,
Maryland, they were attacked by "six white men, and a boy," who,
doubtless, supposing that their intentions were of a "wicked and
unlawful character" felt it to be their duty in kindness to their
ma
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