girl. The rumour stems from the fact that the appearance of the kids coincided with Elijah’s role in helping runaway slaves from the South.
Rush Mountain was a known ‘station’ on the Underground Railroad, which wasn’t a railroad at all, but an escape route. Lots of Vermonters, whether they were Quaker or not, were dedicated to freeing the slaves. Apparently, Elijah was dedicated to something more, because the babies were mixed race, judging by the only surviving photograph we have of them. Elijah’s wife, Clarissa, must have been a good sport about it, because she raised those babies as her own. I do wonder, even now, about their biological mother. Did she surrender the babies and keep running to Canada? Did she ever get to see them again?
I think the woman’s name was Jubetta Johnson. My grandpa pointed out a cryptic note in the fat family Bible we keep in a glass barrister case. On a certain page, in old-fashioned, spidery penmanship, someone wrote: Jubetta Johnson, arrived from parts unknown, and thence departed, 1861. And that’s the year the twins were born.
The house on Rush Mountain still has its secret staircase, located behind a movable bookcase in my childhood bedroom. During the Underground Railroad years it was used to access the root cellar, which in turn led to a tunnel that let out near a creek. According to the Switchback Historical Society, dozens of escaping slaves followed that creek into Canada – and freedom.
Having a secret staircase in the bedroom is enough to fire any kid’s imagination. The bookcase pushed against the wall has a hidden hinge, and if you trip the latch and move it just so, it pulls back just enough to slip behind with a flashlight. I didn’t mind the dank, fecund smell, or even the spiders running for cover, because it was the perfect hiding place. As a girl, I had an imaginary friend named Glory – an escaping slave in a homespun pinafore and high-button boots. She and her parents ran away from a cruel master in the Deep South to find freedom in Canada, but Glory stayed with me for quite a while. She told me about the red clay soil and palmetto trees, the okra and hominy cakes and red peas in a dish called Hoppin’ John, and black-eyed peas topped with spicy chow chow. Like me, Glory was overly preoccupied with food, and we perused library books about regional cuisine together. There was a time – right around the time of my parents’ divorce, I believe – when Glory was as real to me as my other best friend, a dog named Rocket.
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