The claimant must fill out an affidavit, setting forth minutely the grounds for claiming the fugitive, “the time of his or her escape, and where he or she then is, or is believed to be.”
2. The claimant must obtain a writ of habeas corpus or a writ to bring the alleged fugitive to court, where the fugitive would be tried by a jury of twelve men, none of whom would be an abolitionist.
3. The claimant must pay in advance all fees and expenses of the proceeding; and if the alleged fugitive were acquitted, the claimant must pay to him “all damages and costs” determined by court or jury.
4. If the alleged fugitive were found to be in fact the claimant’s legal property, then the claimant must remove him from the state with all due haste by “direct route to the place of residence of such claimant.”30
Not everyone in the state was pleased by this enactment. The influential Columbian Register of New Haven, for instance, inveighed against it:
If we put severe penalties upon those who attempt to enforce the laws of the Union, which secured to them their labor, they can put as severe or severer penalties on those who attempt to enforce within their limits the tariff laws, which secure to us our labor. Are the northern manufacturers ready for this? … Why then has the negro Act been selected in preference to the others, for this special legislation? But one answer can be given. The New England Anti-Slavery Society recently voted that southern slave holders are thieves and robbers.31
The law nevertheless reflected a growing concern for justice to the Negro who might or might not be a runaway slave; it demanded legal proof of his status, and it called for a fair trial of the accused fugitive before a jury. It thus helped to focus public attention on the victims of slavery.
By this time, the victims themselves had been escaping to and through Connecticut for four decades in a constantly increasing stream.
CHAPTER 3
FUGITIVES IN FLIGHT
AMONG the first runaways from the South to reach Connecticut was William Grimes. He came into the state on his own two feet, with little guidance from others, for at this early date—just after 1800—the Underground Railroad as even a quasi-organized entity was still years in the future. Yet he had started on his journey north to freedom with the complicity of some Yankee sailors and even a couple of men in positions of authority. According to the account of his life that he wrote in later years, it happened in this fashion:1
Grimes was a mulatto slave in Savannah when his owner decided to go to Bermuda, leaving the bondsman behind “to work for what he could get.” The brig Casket, out of Boston, lay in the harbor taking on a cargo of cotton for New York; Grimes saw a chance to make “a few dollars” by helping with the loading. While engaged in this work, he became friendly with some of the seamen. As they laid up the bales on deck, they left space between where a man might lie hidden. “Whether they then had any idea of my coming away with them or not, I cannot say,” wrote Grimes, “but this I can say safely, a place was left.” He slipped ashore in the evening with a colored seaman to buy some “bread and dried beef” for the journey; then he lay low among the cotton bales while the brig edged slowly out of the harbor. As it passed the lighthouse, “the sailors gave three hearty cheers” and Grimes realized he was on the way to being a free man.
The voyage itself was uneventful:
During my passage, I lay concealed as much as possible; some evenings, I would crawl out and go and lie down with the sailors on deck; the night being dark, the captain could not distinguish me from the hands, having a number on board of different complexions… . When there was something to be done some one would come on deck and call forward, “there, boys!” “Aye, aye, sir,” was the reply; then they would be immediately at their posts, I remaining on the floor not perceived by them.
There was a tense moment for Grimes, however, as the brig neared the quarantine station in New York Harbor. Standing in the forecastle, he felt hopeful as he saw the dark outline of the city becoming clearer through the sea mist. But when the captain approached and questioned him about his status aboard, he just stood there, wordless and tense. “Poor fellow, he stole aboard,” said the captain with a knowing stare. And he gave orders that Grimes was to be put ashore safely.
Another tense moment awaited him as, accompanied by a Negro sailor, he was herded toward a line of seamen who were being examined by a doctor on the wharf. Then, he confessed, “I felt as if my heart were in my mouth, or in other words, very much afraid that I should be compelled to give my name, together with an account of where I came from, and where I was going and in what manner I came there.” But his guide stepped up and spoke quietly to the doctor, who simply gave the order “Push off.” Grimes “rejoiced heartily,” thanking his companion a number of times before they parted.
Now he was on his own in a crowded, friendless city. New York was dangerous too for men in Grimes’ position, for among its colored population were some who “for a few dollars” would betray fugitives to Southern slave-catchers.2 Not knowing of this peril, he approached a colored girl and asked her to “walk with him a little ways, in order to see the town,” explaining that he was “a stranger there, and was afraid of being lost.” So they walked “for some time,” after which he found a lodging for the night.
Grimes did not feel comfortable in New York, however. Early the next morning he bought “a loaf of bread and a small piece of meat” and set out on foot toward the northeast, with no particular destination in mind. Trudging mile after mile over dirt roads, he crossed the Connecticut line at Greenwich. At first he fancied he was pursued by every “carriage or person” behind him; often he ducked off the road to lie down until those in the rear had passed. But soon he realized that his money would not carry him far, and he resolved to be more temperate, more prudent, and more courageous. Thus he persuaded a teamster to give him a ride for a short distance, and he bought some apples from a couple of boys he met on the road. At length, with just seventy-five cents in his pocket, he reached New Haven, where he paid for one night’s lodging in a boarding house “kept by a certain Mrs. W.”
Now he needed work, and he found it the very next day with Abel Lanson, who kept a livery stable. “He set me to work in a ledge of rocks,” wrote Grimes, “getting out stone for buildings. This I found to be the hardest work I had ever done, and began to repent that I had ever come away from Savannah to this hard cold country. After I had worked at this for about three months, I got employment taking care of a sick person, who called his name Carr, who had been a servant to Judge Clay, of Kentucky; he was then driving for Mr. Lanson,”
This job ended suddenly when Grimes was recognized by a friend of his master, who was apparently visiting in New Haven. The fugitive’s first thought was to “inform his friends”; his second, to leave town. He went to Southington, where he stayed a few weeks picking apples on Captain Potter’s farm; then back to New Haven; to Norwich, where he worked as a barber for Christopher Starr; to New London; and to Stonington, where he had been told that a barber might do well.
But Grimes found it difficult to make a living in eastern Connecticut, so he returned to New Haven. There he found work at Yale College, shaving, barbering, “waiting on the scholars in their rooms,” and doing odd jobs for other employers on the side. Six or eight months later he heard that a barber was needed at the Litchfield Law School—Tapping Reeve’s famous establishment—and there he went in the year 1808. He became a general servant to the students and was also active as a barber, earning fifty or sixty dollars per month. “For some time,” he said, “I made
