They were slaves and worried that they would be sold by their masters and never see each other again.
by Tom Calarco
As many of you know, the Underground Railroad passed through Loveland on its way to the Butterworth farm about three miles north of here. I plan to tell you more about the Butterworths and the local Underground Railroad sometime in the coming New Year. Today, I want to tell you an Underground Railroad story that happened on Christmas.
William and Ellen were in love and wanted to marry. But they were slaves and worried that they would be sold by their masters and never see each other again. William who was 24 had already been on the auction block. He had seen his mother, father, and two of his brothers and sisters sold away. Ellen, who was 23 and could pass for white, had been parted from her mother since a child. They were determined not to let this happen to them.
[pull_quote_left]The year was 1848, and Christmas was approaching.[/pull_quote_left]The year was 1848, and Christmas was approaching. During the holiday season slaveholders released their slaves from work for several days. The nightly slave patrols also relaxed and slaves were given passes to go off the plantation to visit relatives. This was their chance, they thought. But they lived in Macon, Georgia, nearly 1,000 miles from the Mason Dixon Line, the borderline to freedom. They needed a plan. It was a crazy one, but they saw no other way.[pull_quote_right]They needed a plan. It was a crazy one, but they saw no other way.[/pull_quote_right]
Ellen Craft in her disguise though without the bandage on her face. (Illustration from: Running a Thousand Miles for Freedom by William Craft, 1860)
Ellen would pose as William’s master. She was so white no one who didn’t know would ever think that she was a slave. But she also had to pose as a man, because women never traveled alone with their male slaves. So, they had to put a bandage around her face to conceal her feminine appearance, and cut her hair. They also put her arm in a sling because her story was that she had serious health problems and was going to the North to seek treatment. Completing her disguise were a pair of green tinted glasses, a gentleman’s dress suit, a top hat, and a cane. Ellen, as Mr. William Johnson, definitely looked ill and also very preposterous.
They left the evening of December 21, both furnished with passes that neither could read, each going separately to the train in Macon. Of course, William had to sit in a less commodious section reserved for blacks and slaves, the “Negro car,” and this would continue in the various conveyances they took along their journey.
[pull_quote_left]Everything went without a hitch on their first train ride to the seaport of Savannah, though there were two close calls.[/pull_quote_left]Everything went without a hitch on their first train ride to the seaport of Savannah, though there were two close calls: William, while inside the Negro car waiting for the train to depart, spotted the cabinetmaker he worked for walking outside; and a man who actually knew Ellen sat in a seat near her and attempted to start a conversation. But William’s employer never saw him and Ellen’s acquaintance somehow was fooled by her disguise.
In Savannah, they took a steamer to Charleston, South Carolina, and from there, another steamer to the port of Wilmington, North Carolina. A stagecoach took them to the train to Richmond, which connected them to a boat up the Potomac River to DC. Then they took another train to Baltimore. Both had interactions along the way that could’ve betrayed theme and several times Ellen was forced to have brief conversations. Each time though she feigned illness and gained the sympathy of other passengers.
[pull_quote_left]Both had interactions along the way that could’ve betrayed theme and several times[/pull_quote_left]In Baltimore, however, they ran into a problem. Security was tight because of earlier attempts by abolitionists to help slaves to freedom. Consequently, the ticket master asked Ellen, aka Mr. Johnson, for proof that she owned William. She had none, and was speechless. By some stroke of Providence, the conductor of the train on which they had just gotten off, walked over and acknowledged her. With others in line becoming impatient and the ticketmaster seeing her pathetic appearance, he relented.
Now it was clear sailing but for a short interlude when they had to take a boat across the Susquehanna River at Havre du Grace, Maryland, and briefly lost track of each other. They were then only sixty miles from freedom.
Finally, after four days of travel, on Christmas day in 1848, the train speeding the couple to freedom pulled into Philadelphia. William wrote of that memorable occasion:
On leaving the station, my master—or rather my wife, as I may now say—who had from the commencement of the journey borne up in a manner that much surprised us both, grasped me by the hand, and said, “Thank God, William, we are safe!” then burst into tears, leant upon me, and wept like a child. The reaction was fearful. So when we reached the house, she was in reality so weak and faint that she could scarcely stand alone. However, I got her into the apartments that were pointed out, and there we knelt down, on this Sabbath, and Christmas-day,–a day that will ever be memorable to us.
Tom Calarco is a resident of Downtown Loveland and Co-author of Secret Lives of the Underground Railroad in NY City
