Elizabeth Constock (1815-1891), the greatest part of whose Journal is concerned with the visiting of soldiers during the Civil War and work with the freedmen afterwards, recalls a few incidents connected with escaping slaves.

At one time a Friend who was working with his pitchfork in the cattle yard, quickly hid an exhausted slave in a pile of straw just as his pursuers came to the gate.. They demanded to know what had become of their "nigger."

A sudden deafness seemed to have seized the farmer. They came closer, shouting louder. The farmer looked up and, with his hand behind his ear, asked: "Lost a cow, did you say?"

"No, a nigger!"

"Did she have a white spot on her forehead, Alderney breed?"

"No, you old fool!" they shouted and tried to make him understand that they intended to search his house and buildings for their lost property.

At length the farmer replied that he did not think an honest man needed to be afraid of having his house searched, and when the pursuers finally left, having looked into every nook and cranny, including the clock case, the Friend remarked, "Pity you didn't take the word of an honest man. I told you he wasn't there."

Near the gate they saw one of the farmer's sons and asked if he had seen the Negro. The youth, like most Friends' children in those parts, was not disposed to help a slave catcher and replied that he had seen such a man going up a hill about a mile away an hour ago. This sent the pursuit on Its way.

The fugitive stayed quietly with the Friends for several weeks before going on to Canada by the underground railway.

--Howard H.Brinton, 1972.