tavern there about two in the morning, they were given lodging for the night; then, to make their recovery more difficult, the Captain advised them to disperse and hide in different houses in the neighborhood.
James, at the outset, was passed to the home of an old woman nearby. “I stopped with her a few days, with instructions to keep still. You may wonder why I was sent to such a place; most likely it was thought that she had so little room that she would not be suspected of harboring a fugitive.” A man named Walter frequently stopped by “to see how his boy did”; he told James that, if anyone else came to the house, he “must get under the bed.” After several days of this hole-and-corner life, James was moved again, spirited from house to house through a chain of hiding places. “I was sent to Mr. Pease, well nigh Canaan, and kept rather dark. I was there for a time, and then I went to stay with a man by the name of Akins, and stayed with him a few days, and went to a man by the name of Foot, and was with him a few days.” Finally, he said, “I went to another man by the name of Akins, and was there some time.”
While James was being whisked about in this fashion, Thompson decided to sell him and Joseph on the spot; and to encourage the boys to appear on the scene, he allowed their parents to select the persons to whom they might be sold. Thus, when they came home in September of 1798, their new owners had been decided upon. Mr. Munger of Norfolk agreed to pay Thompson $100 for James, while Mr. Bingham of Salisbury undertook to pay the same for Joseph. Had there been a well-organized underground system in the community, this transaction might never have materialized. At any rate, James’ parents and sister were set free, while Joseph, it is supposed, remained a slave until he reached the age of twenty-five. James, on the other hand—after the death of Mr. Munger—became a freeman at twenty-one, married, and settled down in Norfolk for the balance of his fruitful life.17
The help that the Mars boys received from so many individuals bespeaks a widespread sympathy for the fugitive in the northwestern part of the state, as well as some embryonic sort of organization on a local scale. Even so prominent a citizen as Judge Tapping Reeve, the eminent jurist and Federalist leader, was involved to some extent. He acquired a reputation for helping runaways, and it is said that several of them sought him out at his famous law school in Litchfield “simply from hearing about him.”18
But there were still slaveowners in Connecticut; and others of them than Parson Thompson were minded to dispose of their chattels in the South. Some tried persuasion, telling their slaves of the soft climate that awaited them, in contrast to the severity of New England winters. Some were more blunt. On the Hanchet estate, near Suffield, a rumor spread that Master would take his Negroes South and sell them; and when Hanchet told them to pack their clothes and get ready to go to Maryland, “there was a great outburst of excitement and tears” among his eleven slaves. As might have been expected, the day set for departure found only the oldest and the youngest on the farm. The rest had taken flight. Hanchet was furious, and he “spent some weeks in a most energetic effort” to recover them. As a last resort, he hired two slave-hunters from Maryland to find them for him.
The fugitives meanwhile had split into several groups. One, consisting of Titus and Phill, took shelter in “a sort of cave in the side of a mountain.” Another group hid in an old dugout above Enfield Falls; here they were found by another colored slave named Ned, who provided them with food and kept them informed of developments. The two girls who made up the third group, Lize and Betty, wandered in the woods until they became thoroughly bewildered and finally separated.
Lize, somehow, struggled on through a notch “near the Rising Corners,” where next morning members of the Eldad Loomis family found her nearly exhausted. They comforted the weary girl and took her to their home. During the day they concealed her in an attic; in the evenings, they discreetly kept her out of view of any neighbors who might come visiting.
Betty, left alone, strayed farther north over the Massachusetts border, where she encountered the Indians of Agawam. These people had themselves been slaves; they immediately sensed Betty’s situation and made her feel at home. Subsequently, however, the Maryland slave-hunters picked up Betty’s tracks, and at length they reached the Indian village. One of them addressed the chief:
“Who were those colored girls that came here the other day?” “Who say colored gal come?” “But you know they did, and now if you will give them to us we will give you what you ask.” “How much that?” “Will ten dollars be enough?” “No!” “How much then?” “White man listen. Injun hunt. Injun fish. Injun fight, but no Injun hunt blachies. White man better go home.”
The slave-hunters were beaten, and they knew it; they went back to Suffield. Hanchet was beaten too; he set out for Maryland, leaving his quondam slaves to enjoy the freedom they had won by taking it.19
How many runaways made good their escape in the decades from 1790 to 1820 is not known, but flights were common enough. Such advertisements as the following were a frequent sight in many Connecticut newspapers of the period:
Run away from me the subscriber about the 28th of February last, a Negro Man named London, about 50 years of age, had on when he went away a strait bodied blue coat and leather breeches, as to his other cloathing I am not certain; he is a middling sized fellow, speake faint and slow, but tolerable good English, is a crafty subtle sly fellow, and has and can pretend sickness when well. Whoever will apprehend said Negro and bring him to me in Hartford, or secure him in any gaol in this or the neighbouring States and send me word so that I may have him again, shall have 50 dollars reward and all necessary charges paid. I also forewarn all persons from either harboring, secreting or employing said Negro, as they will answer the same at the peril of the law. (1790)
Ranaway, from the Subscriber [in Greenwich] on the ninth inst., a negro man named James, nearly 18 years of age and about 5 feet 10 in. high: took with him at the time a brown cloth coatee & pantaloons a light figured cotton vest and tow cloth frock and trousers. He is marked by a scar obliquely across the ridge of his nose and others on his feet, particularly a large one on his left foot just back of the small toe, occasioned by the cut of an axe, which causes it to be stiffened. All persons are hereby cautioned not to harbor said runaway: and whoever will give information of him so that he can be obtained by the subscriber (to whom he is bound until he is 21 years of age) shall be liberally rewarded. (1813)
One of the last notices of this sort appeared in the Connecticut Courant of August 5, 1823. In it Elijah Billings of Somers announced that a mulatto boy named William Lewis had run away from him. Billings apparently had little use for the lad, however, for the last words of the advertisement were: “Any person who will return said boy shall receive one cent reward and no charges paid.”20
Meanwhile, sentiment not merely in favor of runaway slaves but against the entire institution of slavery was becoming manifest among Connecticut’s citizens. In Glastonbury, Hancy Z. Smith and her five daughters originated the first antislavery petition in the United States, circulated it among their neighbors, and forwarded it to Congress with forty signatures. They held frequent antislavery meetings in their dooryard, where a large door mounted on a sturdy tree stump made a platform for the speaker. They lectured in the cause themselves and distributed abolitionist literature. As acknowledged independents, they had little to lose by their activities.21
Abolitionist sentiment was sufficiently widespread by 1790 to result in the formation of a Connecticut antislavery society in that year—its resounding title was “The Society for the Promotion of Freedom, and for the Relief of Persons Holden in Bondage.” Its president was Ezra Stiles, the theologian who had been president of Yale College since 1778; Judge Simeon Baldwin was secretary. Under vigorous leadership, the Society “speedily showed great activity.” On January 7, 1791, it sent off a petition to Congress, setting forth its position and demanding action. This document stated that, although the Society was of recent origin, its work had “become generally extensive through the State” and reflected the sentiments of
