ord was made of either master or slave. Probably no incidents were
related of sufficient importance, still the Committee felt pleased to
receive one so young. Indeed, it always afforded the Committee especial
satisfaction to see children, young people, and females escaping from
the prison-house. Jacob was of a dark hue, a little below medium
stature.

ZECHARIAH MEAD, alias John Williams. This traveler had been in the house
of bondage in Maryland, doing service for Charles C. Owens, to whom he
belonged. According to Zechariah's statement, his mistress had been very
unfortunate with her slave property, having lost fifteen head out of
twenty in a similar manner to that by which she lost Zechariah. Thus she
had been considerably reduced in circumstances. But Zechariah had no
compassion on her whatever, but insisted that she was a hard mistress.
Doubtless Zechariah was prompted to flee by the "bad" example of others
who had succeeded in making good their escape, before he had made up his
mind to leave. He was not yet quite twenty-one, but was wide-awake, and
it appeared from his conversation, that he had done some close thinking
before he started for freedom. He left his father, mother, and three
brothers, all slaves except his father.

* * * * *

SLAVE-HOLDER IN MARYLAND WITH THREE COLORED WIVES.

JAMES GRIFFIN ALIAS THOMAS BROWN.

James was a tiller of the soil under the yoke of Joshua Hitch, who lived
on a farm about seventeen miles from Baltimore. James spoke rather
favorably of him; indeed, it was through a direct act of kindness on the
part of his master that he procured the opportunity to make good his
escape. It appeared from his story, that his master's affairs had become
particularly embarrassed, and the Sheriff was making frequent visits to
his house. This sign was interpreted to mean that James, if not others,
would have to be sold before long. The master was much puzzled to decide
which way to turn. He owned but three other adult slaves besides James,
and they were females. One of them was his chief housekeeper, and with
them all his social relations were of such a nature as to lead James and
others to think and say that they "were all his wives." Or to use
James's own language, "he had three slave women; two were sisters, and
he lived with them all as his wives; two of them he was very fond of,"
and desired to keep them from being sold if possible. The third, h