Y and ELIZA
WASHINGTON, Alexandria, Va.; HENRY CHAMBERS, JOHN CHAMBERS, SAMUEL FALL,
and THOMAS ANDERSON, Md.

Joseph Cornish was about forty years of age when he escaped. The heavy
bonds of Slavery made him miserable. He was a man of much natural
ability, quite dark, well-made, and said that he had been "worked very
hard." According to his statement, he had been an "acceptable preacher
in the African Methodist Church," and was also "respected by the
respectable white and colored people in his neighborhood." He would not
have escaped but for fear of being sold, as he had a wife and five
children to whom he was very much attached, but had to leave them
behind. Fortunately they were free.

Of his ministry and connection with the Church, he spoke with feelings
of apparent solemnity, evidently under the impression that the little
flock he left would be without a shepherd. Of his master, Captain Samuel
Le Count, of the U.S. Navy, he had not one good word to speak; at least
nothing of the kind is found on the Record Book; but, on the contrary,
he declared that "he was very hard on his servants, allowing them no
chance whatever to make a little ready money for themselves." So in
turning his face towards the Underground Rail Road, and his back against
slavery, he felt that he was doing God service.

The Committee regarded him as a remarkable man, and was much impressed
with his story, and felt it to be a privilege and a pleasure to aid him.

Lewis Francis was a man of medium size, twenty-seven years of age,
good-looking and intelligent. He stated that he belonged to Mrs.
Delinas, of Abingdon, Harford Co., Md., but that he had been hired out
from a boy to a barber in Baltimore. For his hire his mistress received
eight dollars per month.

To encourage Lewis, his kind-hearted mistress allowed him out of his own
wages the sum of two dollars and fifty cents per annum! His clothing he
got as best he could, but nothing did she allow him for that purpose.
Even with this arrangement she had been dissatisfied of late years, and
thought she was not getting enough out of Lewis; she, therefore, talked
strongly of selling him. This threat was very annoying to Lewis, so much
so, that he made up his mind that he would one day let her see, that so
far as he was concerned, it was easier to talk of selling than it would
be to carry out her threat.

With this growing desire for freedom he gained what little light he
could on the sub