The Early Abolitionists of

Lancaster County,

In giving a history of the Abolitionmovement in Lancaster county,or else-where, the question seems first toarise, what is specially meant by theterm "Abolitionist." The indiscrimin-ate manner in which it was used sixtyyears ago against every person who inany manner sympathized with the anti-slavery movement leaves me some-what in doubt as to what phase of thesubject I am supposed to treat, Infact, I am reminded very much of aspeech I heard made by Thaddeus Ste-vens when yet a small boy. It was inthe Congressional campaign of 1858,when Mr. Stevens was a candidate forCongress from this district. The per-oration of his speech was substantiallyas follows. I quote from memory:

"But in answer to all this I hear onereply, namely, Stevens is an Abolition-ist. The indiscriminate manner withwhich the term is used, I am frank toconfess, leaves me somewhat in doubtas to what is meant by it. But thevenom and spleen with which it ishurled at some of us would indicate,at least, that it is a term of reproachand used only against monsters andoutlaws of society. If it is meant byan Abolitionist that I am one of thoseterrible, heinous-looking animals withcloven hoofs and horns, such as is de-scribed in. legend and fiction, and inMilton's "Paradise Lost," I am notvery handsome, to be sure, but I don'tthink I am one of those. If it is meantby the term Abolitionist that I am one

of those depraved degenerates andoutlaws of society who endangers hisneighbor's property by committingarson and robbery, etc., while makingno professional claims to righteous-ness, I am sure I am not one of those.If it is meant by the term that I amone of those sacrilegious and irrever-ent beings who would destroy society,substitute anarchy and annul all lawsof religion and virtue, I am not verypious to be sure, but I don't think Iam one of those. But if it is meantby an Abolitionist that I am one whois opposed to the institution of slaveryeverywhere, wherever it exists, allover the face of this earth, whether inthe United States of America, or inthe frozen regions of Russia and Si-beria, or in the Latin nations of SouthAmerica, under whatever guise andform, and whatever name it may bear,and who, if he had the power andright, would abolish it to-morrow inany and all of these nations. in anyform whatsoever that it may have as-sumed—if they mean by that an Aboli-tionist, then, fellow citizens, they havecalled me by my right name."

But to speak more definitely of thevarious phases of the anti-slaverymovement which existed in Lancastercounty as it began to crystallize afterthe passage of the Missouri Compro-mise of 1820, I think it might be fairlydivided into two general parts: First,The more strenuous and uncomprom-ising ones who afterward becameknown as Garrison Abolitionists, whowould admit of no compromise and as-serted that immediate and uncondi-tional freedom was the right of theslave, without regard to consequences;second, those of various opinions whoheld slavery to be a social, mural andpolitical evil, but held that its aboli-tion should be worked out by theStates themselves, and through the

powers of the General Government torestrain its further spread and intro-duction in the national territories. Thelatter class might again be properlysub-divided into two classes, namely:Those who would vote for no one butthe absolute avowed "Free Soil," or"Liberty," candidates, and those whostill believed in the efficacy of partyorganization and held on to and co-op-erated with the old Whig party untilit was entirely absorbed by the slavepower, becoming entirely subservientto its behests. Its national platformin 1852 showed practically no distinc-tion between its utterances and thoseof the Democratic party on the ques-tion of slavery; the result of whichwas, as known to all men, the tri-umphant election of Pierce in thatcampaign and the over-whelming de-feat of General Scott, the conqueror ofMexico, the candidate of the Whigparty.

An Early Trio,

Of the first class mentioned, in theformation of the American Anti-sla-very Society, which met in Philadel-phia in November, 1833, and signed theconstitution thereof, three were fromLancaster county: Lindley Coates andThomas Whitson, both of Sadsburytownship, and James Miller McKim, ayoung Presbyterian minister from Co-lumbia. Of these three men John G.Whittier has given the following briefpen portraits:

"That tall, gaunt, swarthy man,erect, eagle-faced, upon whose some-what martial figure the Quaker coatseemed a little out of place, was Lind-ley Coates.

"Thomas Whitson, father of theauthor of the Hicksite school ofFriends, fresh from his farm inLancaster county, dressed in plain-est homespun,his tall form surmounted

by a shock of unkempt hair, the oddobliquity of his vision contrastingstrongly with the clearness and direct-ness of his spiritual insight."The youngest man present was, Ibelieve, James Miller McKim, a Pres-byterian minister from Columbia,after-ward one of our most efficient work-ers."

Of these three men, Lindley Coatesafterwards became a member of theConstitutional Convention of 1837. Hewas one of three mem ers of that con-vention who voted against the inser-tion of the word "white" in the clausedefining the right of suffrage in Penn-sylvania. His two colleagues in thatnegative vote were Thaddeus Stevens,a delegate from Adams county, andThomas Earle, of Philadelphia, grand-father of the present George H. Earle,Jr., of financial reputation in that city,and father of Mrs. Phoebe Earle Gib-bons.

Mr. Coates, as a reward for his an-tagonism to the bands of kidnaperswho infested his neighborhood, about1850, had his barn reduced to ashes.

Thomas Whitson had presented tohim, in the fall of '51, on the occasionof the Christiana riot, when lawlessbandits terrorized the neighborhoodunder the guise of Deputy UnitedStates Marshals, the alternative of re-calling the assertion that he was auAbolitionist, or his brains blown out atthe point of a revolver. Friend Whit-son preferred the latter, and said fair-ly to his assailant with force, as di-rectly as his oblique vision wouldcarry the words to the eye of his as-sailant, that he would never deny thathe was an Abolitionist. Conscience,always more powerful than bayonets,triumphed in that case, as in all oth-ers, and the weapon of the would-beassassin dropped from its aim withtrigger unpulled. This story the late

Hon. Anthony E. Roberts, who wasUnited States Marshal on this occa-sion, related to the writer, which ser-ved as a confirmation of its accuracyas it was reported at the time.

James Miller McKim, the youngPresbyterian minister from Columbia,moved very shortly to Philadelphia,after signing that constitution. Hebecame an active agent of the anti-slavery movement in Philadelphia,forming anti-slavery societies through-out Southeastern Pennsylvania, andbecoming practically the Philadelphiaeditor of the "National Anti-SlaveryStandard." the organ which was pub-lished under the auspices of the Na-tional Society.

By a singular coincidence, the twofirst mentioned, Friends Coates andWhitson, were both members of theSadsbury Monthly Meeting of the So-ciety of Hicksite Quakers, and lie bur-ied in the same old graveyard, withinforty feet of each other.

Here let it be stated that at thattime, although Garrison had startedhis "Liberator," in 1831, two yearsprevious, bearing for its motto, "OurCountry is the World; Our Country-men all Mankind," it was not untilsome years afterward that he raisedhis standard of "No Union with Slave-holders," and declared that the Con-stitution of the United States was "acovenant with death and a league withhell."

Political Organization.

The declaration of principles of theAmerican Anti-slavery Society of thattime was rather confined to a strongmoral appeal to the Christian peoplethroughout the United States and theworld to bear their non-compromisingtestimony against slavery; that theirentire confidence was in the right-eousness of their cause, and the over-

ruling province of God; that theywould circulate, unsparingly and ex-tensively, anti-slavery tracts and peri-odicals; that they would endeavor toenlist the pulpit and the press in theirrighteous cause; that they would arousethe conscience of the church to itsduty on the great question and appealsimply to the Supreme Ruler of theuniverse for the rectitude of their in-tention, as their fathers had done inthat same city fifty-seven years be-fore.

In a few years, as the growth of theanti-slavery sentiment in Lancastercounty became more manifest, the ad-vocates and defenders of the institu-tion became also more violent and in-tense in their denunciation of Aboli-tionists.

In 1844 quite a respectable minorityvote was polled for James G. Birney,the "Free-soil" candidate for the Pres-idency. His supporters were ratherseverely censured here as elsewhereby the "Old Line Whigs" on the oneside for causing the defeat of HenryClay when their vote would have elect-ed him, and on the other by a smallfaction of Garrisonians, who had be-gun to indorse the full measure ofGarrison's platform, and abstainedfrom voting entirely, holding that, asthe Federal Constitution recognizedslavery, no man could participate inthe elections under it without becom-ing himself a party to the guilty con-tract and suffering defilement thereby.The same conditions existed largelyin 1848, when Martin Van Buren leda distinct "Free-soil" party movementas a candidate for the Presidency andcarried with him a slight sprinkling ofDemocratic followers, with the differ-ence, however, that General Taylor,the Whig candidate, was elected.

The church in Lancaster county, asthroughout the nation, was convulsed

more or less by the question thatwould never "down." This was owingnot only to the varying positionswhich its national assemblieshad taken, but also to the individualand local feelings and sentiments ofits various pastors and congregations.The Methodist Church as a bodythroughout the county might be saidto have leaned rather to the anti-sla-very side of the question, as doubtlessits members felt they could not con-sistently call themselves followers ofJohn Wesley and apologize for or de-fend "the institution;" but their sys-tem of frequent change of pastors leftno distinct personality in the countYopposing the institution vigorouslythat I now recall: The old ChestnutLevel Presbyterian Church in Dru-more had for its pastor for many yearsLindley C. Rutter, who proclaimedwith no uncertain sound his opposi-tion to slavery. He received the usualmaledictions and contempt of a largeportion of the community, even in-cluding some of his own congregation.At the Colerain Presbyterian Churchtie pastor of the church, along in thelatter forties or early fifties, had takenthe position that the General Assem-bly of the Presbyterian Church wasjustified in its declaration that theownership of slaves constituted nosufficient bar to Christian communionand fellowship in the Church. Fromthis position some of its members, ofstrong character and conviction, ledby James Martin and Abner Davis,Sr., withdrew from its membershipand erected a church of their own nearAndrews' Bridge, known as the freePresbyterian Church, where there wasmaintained a separate minister,and service held until afterthe ratification of the Thir-teenth amendment. Rev. W. F. P. No-ble, of Sadsbury township, a young

Presbyterian minister, a scholar, andafterwards the author of two veryreadable books on religious topics,withdrew for a considerable time fromthe ministry, feeling that his con-science would not allow him to be assubservient to the institution of sla-very as his congregation and the gen-eral church of the land expected himto be—especially after the weak posi-tion the church assumed in denouncingthe Lovejoy outrage, in which the vic-tim was killed by a pro-slavery mobin Alton, Ill., in 1837, for having op-posed slavery in a very mild and con-stitutional way in his paper.

Friends and Seceders.

"Father" William Easton, of Smyr-na, pastor of the old Octoraro UnitedPresbyterian Church, with all hisorthodoxy, must be credited as one ofthose who refused to bend the knee tothe behests of the slave power whenthe most of his congregation wereanything but enthusiastic in their op-position to it. However, I have verydistinct recollections of one stern oldCalvinist and Abolitionist, Mr. Benj.Carter, of Sadsbury, who belonged tothe United Presbyterian congregation.He went home from a "John Brownmeeting" at Smyrna in great disgust.It had been called on the day of theexecution of Brown, to utter a pro-test against what the assemblage con-sidered a crime against humanity.Carter found at that meeting only twomembers of his own church; the restof the audience was composed largelyof what he would have termed in allhonesty and sincerity heretics—"Hick-site" Quakers and infidels, two youngschool teachers of the neighborhoodand a few other leading Republicans,such as Elwood Griest and Samuel Slo•kom, etc. Mr. Carter's orthodoxy.

which as already intimated wouldhave passed muster with Calvin atany time, began seriously to debatewith himself whether some of thosedangerous Quakers who had dared somuch for the cause of liberty mightnot have a fair chance for entranceinto the Kingdom of Heaven; at leasthis views in the question became somodified that he afterwards married avery estimable Quaker lady for a sec-ond wife, and I never understood thathe regretted the contract.

The more unobtrusive and Germandenominations throughout the county,I believe, never in any way apologizedfor slavery as religious congregations,though they never became very pro-nounced in their opposition to it. Eventhe Friends, or Quakers, who boast,and truthfully, too, that they were thefirst distinct religious organization inAmerica to positively pronounce thedictum that no person interested inthe ownership of slave property couldbe admitted to membership in theirsociety, did not all of them, I am con-strained to say, spend sleepless nightsdevising measures to free the bond-man or to aid a fleeing fugitive in hisflight. I think it is not great error tostate that even the monthly meetingsof Sadsbury, Penn Hill and Eastlanddid not always give that spontaneouswelcome to Lucretia Mott which now

'appears upon the surface of a casualreading; especially I recall the factthat her own particular "meeting" inPhiladelphia made strenuous efforts atone time to have her disowned frommembership, the ostensible reason be-ing her religious tenets, while the realreason was her persistent anti-slaverydiscourses. So it would appear thatthe churches of Lancaster county,while endeavoring, no doubt, to followthe light as they saw it, cannot be

credited as a body with giving awhole-souled, vigorous support to theabolition or anti-slavery movement.

The Underground Railway.

Incident to the Abolition movementin Lancaster county might be men-tioned the "Underground Railroad," anorganization of which possibly therewas more spontaneous action than sys-tematic arrangement. Magnified it isnow, perhaps, into proportions thatnever existed, and with a history, per-haps, impossible for any one to writewith accuracy, for the simple reasonthat I doubt if any one knows it en-tirely. The common idea that it wascomposed of a set of people who as-sisted escaped fugitives in their fiightto Canada, or elsewhere, is doubtlesscorrect; likewise that it had its originand main spring in the sentiment ofstrong men of conscience, who openlyadmitted they never would obey thebehests of a law that commandedthem to return human beings to bond-age, and recognized no such things asproperty in man, and who consideredthey were performing their duty toconscience and to God when they aid-ed a fugitive to escape from his servi-tude. In that movement they, nodoubt,incidentally and at various timeswere encouraged and even assisted byhumane men of more conservativeviews,who would professedly say theywould obey such laws, but secretlywould aid the bondman in his flight tofreedom.

Mrs. Stowe's Democratic State Sen-ator of Ohio, in her great novel of"Uncle Tom's Cabin," who hurriedhome from the Legislature to tell hisconstituents that he had voted for thelaw providing more stringent meas-ures, for the rendition of fugitiveslaves who escaped from Kentucky,and then hitched up his carriage

at midnight to take a slave motherand her babe ten miles across thecountry in her fiight to Canada, wasprobably not an exceptional case. Butas even the extreme ultra-Abolitionistsdid not publish from the house topsevery philanthropic yet illegal act theyperformed in that direction, it is, Imight repeat, a little difficult to statemany things with great accuracy.

A general impression seems now toexist, founded, no doubt, on strong cir-cumstantial evidence, that there werethree or more marked or distinct chan-nels through which fugitive slavesfrom the border escaped into Pennsyl-vania, and were aided by that mys-terious agency, the "Underground Rail-road," to Canada. One might be saidto have had its course from the East-ern shore of Maryland and Delaware,coming up through southern Chestercounty, and incidentally, along the bor-der of Lancaster, and some have theidea that an old gentleman by thename of Thomas Garrett, in the city ofWilmington, had much to do with giv-ing them direction to their friends inPennsylvania.

Another channel seems to havecrossed the Susquehanna from thewestern shore of Maryland, at a pointas far south as Conowingo Ferry, nowbridge, and made entrance into theborders of Pennsylvania throughsouthern York and Lancaster coun-ties. Those who came by this coursefound succor and aid from the Smiths,of Drumore, the older generation ofthe Brosiuses, and John N. Russel,andin the valley east of Quarryville fromthe Bushongs, the Moores, the Jack-sons and others.

Another flow,which came from prob-ably a little further west, or throughthe main body of York, Adams andFranklin counties, found their outletinto Lancaster county at Columbia,

where some prominent citizens aresupposed to have been in the secrets;as, for instance, the Wrights, probablythe descendants of the Wrights afterwhom the town of Wrightsville takesits name, Steve Smith, a one-eyed col-ored man, who had made considerablemoney himself in the lumber business,and it is altogether possible that ourold friend 'Squire Samuel Evans, ofColumbia; the Summys, of Marietta,and some others, who afterwards be-came fairly prominent in Lancastercounty politics, knew more about suchmovement than they always wouldhave cared to tell.

One thing seems pretty well under-stood by this time, that this streamflowed from Columbia eastward to-ward the residence of one Daniel Gib-bons an old Friend who resided nearBird-in-Hand, the grandfather of ourpresent very brilliant literary lady,Mary Anna Gibbons Brubaker, resid-ing at the present time on the oldhomestead, from whom we may expectat the next meeting an elaboration ofthis stirring narrative. From this pointthe fugitives were generally given aname which they were told to assume,always adhere to and never divulgethe fact that they had been known byany other name.

Here perhaps I might digress farenough to tell a story of one old negro,Samuel Hopkins, who lived long inthis county, among the last survivorsof the Christiana riot, and not un-known to some of the people of theLancaster County Historical Society.Sammy was once asked by the lateHon. Marriott Brosius and the writerto tell us what his real name was, theargument being put to him: "Why,slavery has been abolished for thirtyyears, you are a free man, an old sol-dier of your country, and no man dare

harm a hair of your head—why don'tyou tell us where you were from, andwhat your name was?" The old darky,with a look of sobriety and serious-ness, stammered, hesitated for a mo-ment and seemed about to tell us,when he finally said: "Well, I'll justtell you, man, I did promise old DanielGibbons that I would never tell that toanybody as long as I lived, and somehow or other I had rather not." Weboth looked at him approvingly andgave him words of commendation forhis decision; and yet many personscould not help but feel that the fidel-ity with which he stuck to his trust inthat case was wonderfully in contrastwith many of his latter day promiseswhen he became a rural statesman ofEden township.

"The Kidnapers."

As the converse to the"UndergroundRailroad" might be mentioned brieflythe seemingly organized bands of kid-napers or slave-hunters who livedalong the border of Maryland andPennsylvania and followed the busi-ness of recapturing escaped fugitivesfrom Virginia and Maryland, or kid-naping by force and violence free ne-groes who had been born and rearedin Pennsylvania all their lives. Thispractice, which existed for fully twodecades before the outbreak of theCivil War, continued up to as late asthe winter of 1860, when a free negroby the name of Brown was stolenfrom his home one night not far fromMt. Vernon, in Salisbury township,near the Chester county line, and spir-ited through as far as Baltimore,wherehe was discovered barely in time toprevent his being sold at auction toplanters or traders in the cottonStates of the far South. One J. Wil-liams Thorne, a man of strong person-ality in that neighborhood and largely

instrumental in the rescuing of thecolored man, and in the conviction ofthe kidnaper, which was finally effect-ed in the Lancaster county Court—had his barn consigned to flamesthrough the hands of the kidnapersabout twelve months later, in the win-ter of 1861, when the States were al-ready passing secession ordinances.Strange as it may seem, to not onlythe younger generation of this day,but to others, When Mr. Thorne wentover to Parkesburg a few weeks later,to take a glimpse at Abraham Lincoln,as he passed through on his road toWashington to be inaugurated, andThorne made a little impromptu speechto the crowd there assembled, saying"that freedom was national, and sla-very is sectional," he was practicallyhooted down. The Brown incident isthe last one of kidnaping, however,that I recall before the firing on FortSumter, which seemed by commonunderstanding to close the business.

Those who are anxious for a closerinsight into the events of the slave-hunting era might possibly get someside-light by reading George AifredTownsend's novel, "Katy of Cotoch-tin," in which it is quite evident thata prominent national figure, ThaddeusStevens, is delineated on the one sideof the question in the character "OldMr. Quantrill," and a notorious bandof slave-catchers along the border ofthe Cumberland Valley, the Loganbrothers, are named outright withoutconcealment. Of these men one waspretty generally known to the peopleof this community, as he removed toLancaster shortly after the Civil War.where he lived until the time of hisdeath, and who, whatever change ofheart he may have had on the businessof catching and sending negroes toslavery for gain, I believe, was alwaysquite content with his record as being

the captor of Captain Cook, JohnBrown's chief lieutenant at Harper'sFerry.

The Christiana Riot.

The old "Gap gang,'' as it wasknown throughout this county, wasnot immediately responsible for con-veying the information to Gorsuch andDr.Price as to the whereabouts of theirslaves, the attempt to capture whomand take them back to slavery underthe prescribed form of the law as itthen existed brought about the localtragedy, the Christiana riot. It be-came at once of national significance,and its sixtieth anniversary quite fitlyis to be observed under the auspicesof this society next September.

The individual who did convey thatinformation, I believe, was never dis-tinctly connected with the Gap gang,and perhaps charity suggests that hisname should not be mentioned evenhere; possibly he was too great acoward for the leaders of those boldadventurers and desperadoes to evertake into their confidence. Suffice itto say that he went to Philadelphiasome time after the riot to reprimandJ. Miller McKim for publishing hisname in the Anti-Slavery Standard.To him Mr. McKim replied: "Then Iunderstand, sir, you have come hereto discipline me for publishing yourname in that capacity, and not to denythe charge?"It is needless to say thatpractically ended their interview, andperhaps it is a good place also for meto let the curtain fali, except that pos-sibly I may be allowed a word by wayof general recapitulation.

Now that we are living more than ahalf century from the time most ofthese scenes were being enacted, asthey were but the preparatory acts inthe great controversy which after-wards convulsed this nation, it might

not be amiss to pause for a brief mo-ment and consider the actual, naturaland logical causes. Large portions,perhaps, of the present generationmay have heard somewhat vaguely,and indistinctly, of Wm. B. Seward's"irrepressible conflict" speech. Letus intrude upon your patience longenough to give you the great pregnanttruths uttered in a few sentencesthereof:

"These antagonistic systems, Free-dom and Slavery, are continually corn-ing into closer contact, and collisionresults. Shall I tell you what this col-lision means? They who think thatit is accidental, unneccessary, thework of interested or fanatical agita-tors, and, therefore, ephemeral, mis-take the case altogether. It is an ir-repressible conflict between opposingand enduring forces, and it means thatthe United States must and will,sooneror later,become either entirely a slave-holding nation or entirely a free-labornation. Either the cotton and ricefields of South Carolina and the sugarplantations of Louisiana will ultimate-ly be tilled by free labor, and Charles-ton and New Orleans become martsfor legitimate merchandise alone, orthe rye fields and wheat fields of Mas-sachusetts and New York must againbe surrendered by their farmers toslave culture and to the productionof slaves, and Boston and New Yorkbecome once more markets for tradein the bodies and souls of men.

"It is the failure to apprehend thisgreat truth that induces so many un-successful attempts at compromise be-tween the slave and free States, and itis the existence of this great fact thatrenders all such pretended compro-mises when made vain and ephemeral.

Never did human insight forecastthe future more clearly or in moreclassical and well-chosen language-

not even Napoleon when he said that"Europe would ultimately either be allCossack or all Republic," nor Webster,when he said "there can be no suchthing as peaceable secession." Thesethings are stated simply to remindyoung teachers, writers and univer-sity extension lecturers that now,while living in the universal era ofgood feeling, when all sensible peoplehave joined hands across the bloodychasm and bear no malice norhatred to any one, it is well enoughstill not to pervert the truth or mis-lead the rising generation. I knowthat the question of the generai pow-ers of the Federal Government andof the rights specially reserved tothe States has always been a some-what perplexing and intricate ques-tion, upon which parties were veryearly formed, and that it is so to agreat extent to this day, but it seemsalmost impossible to believe thatthose questions alone would haveproduced convulsion or civil warwithout the existence of the Institu-tion of Slavery and the humane popu-lar impulse to exterminate it from thelife of a nation dedicated to the free-dom of men.

file:///Volumes/LCHS%3BLCHSFS01/OCR%20Journal%20Project/PDF%20Biblio%20Info/Pwebrecon.cgi.txt

Author: Whitson, Thomas.

Title: The early abolitionists of Lancaster County / by Thomas Whitson, Esq.

Primary Material: Book

Subject(s): Abolitionists--Pennsylvania--Lancaster County. Underground railroad--Pennsylvania--Lancaster County. Lancaster County (Pa.)--Biography.

Publisher: Lancaster, Pa. : Lancaster County Historical Society, 1911

Description: 69-85 p. ; 23 cm.

Series: Journal of the Lancaster County Historical Society ; v. 15, no. 3

Call Number: 974.9 L245 v.15Location: LCHSJL -- Journal Article (reading room)

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