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Thoreau, Civil Disobedience,
and the Underground Railroad continued
Henry Williams stays with
Thoreau
Here is Thoreau's full account of "Henry Williams's"
stay in Concord, just as he wrote it in his Journal after putting
Williams on the evening train. (Some words are misspelled.)
- Notice Thoreau was familiar with Shadrach Minkins (paragraph
1.)
- Thoreau did not usually confide his Underground Railroad
experiences even to his personal diary.
- For some reason - maybe because he knew that Williams had
made the train - he felt free to write about this refugee.
(Thoreau, A Year in Thoreau's Journal: 1851,
Penguin paperback 1993, p. 247. Part of journal entry for October
first, 1851. Thoreau was 34 years old.)
Oct 1st 51
5 P m just put a fugitive slave who has taken the name of Henry
Williams into the cars [the train] for Canada. He escaped
from Stafford County Virginia to Boston last October, has been
in Shadracks place at the Cornhill Coffee-house - had been corresponding
through an agent with his master who is his father about buying
-himself- his master asking $600 but he having been able to raise
only $500. - heard that there were writs out [arrest warrants]
for two Williamses fugitives - and was informed by his fellow
servants & employer that Augerhole Bums & others of the
[Boston] police had called for him when he was out. Accordingly
fled to Concord last night on foot - bringing a letter to our
family from Mr Lovejoy of Cambridge - & another which Garrison
had formerly given him on another occasion.
He lodged with us & waited in the house till funds
were collected with which to forward him. Intended to despatch
him at noon through to Burlington - but when I went to buy his
ticket saw one at the Depot [train station] who looked
& behaved so much like a Boston policeman, that I did not
venture that time.
An intelligent and very well behaved man -- a mullatto.
[...]
The slave said he could guide himself by many other stars
than the north star whose rising & setting he knew - They
steered for the north star even when it had got round and appeared
to them to be in the south. They frequently followed the telegraph
when there was no railroad. The slaves bring many superstitions
from Africa. The fugitives sometimes superstitiously carry a
turf [a piece of soil] in their hats thinking that their
success depends on it.
Back to Underground Railroad narrative
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