f William and Ellen Craft, fugitives from the State
of Georgia. Summoned one day to a colored boarding house, I was
presented to a person dressed in immaculate black broadcloth and silk
beaver hat, whom I supposed to be a young white man. By his side stood a
young colored man with good features and rather commanding presence. The
first was introduced to me as Mrs. Craft and the other as her husband,
two escaped slaves. They had traveled through on car and boat, paying
and receiving first-class accommodations. Mrs. Craft, being fair,
assumed the habit of young master coming north as an invalid, and as she
had never learned to write, her arm was in a sling, thereby avoiding the
usual signing of register on boat or at hotel, while her servant-husband
was as obsequious in his attentions as the most humble of slaves. They
settled in Boston, living very happily, until the passage of the
fugitive slave law in 1850, when they were compelled to flee to England.

The civil war of 1861 and proclamation of freedom followed. In 1870,
arriving in Savannah, Georgia, seeking accommodation, I was directed to
a hotel, and surprised to find the host and hostess my whilom friends of
underground railroad fame. They had returned to their old home after
emancipation. The surprise was pleasant and recognition mutual.

One other, and I shall pass this feature of reminiscence. It was that of
William Brown, distinguished afterward as William Box Brown, the
intervening "Box" being a synonym of the manner of his escape. An agent
of the underground railroad at Richmond, Virginia, had placed him in a
box two feet wide and four feet long, ends hooped, with holes for air,
and bread and water, and sent him through the express company to
Philadelphia. On the arrival of the steamboat the box was roughly
tumbled off as so much dead freight on the wharf, but, unfortunately
for Brown, on the end, with his feet up and head down. After remaining
in such position for a time which seemed to him hours, he heard a man
say to another, "Let's turn that box down and sit on it." It was done,
and Brown found himself "right side up," if not "with care." I was
called to the anti-slavery office, where the box was taken. It had been
arranged that when he arrived at his destination, three slow and
distinct knocks should be given, to which he was to respond. Fear that
he was crippled or dead was depicted in the faces of Miller McKim,
William Still and a few others that stood