THE ADVERTISER-JOURNAL, THURSDAY, JUNE 11, 1914

TRIBUTE PAID HARRIET TUBMAN 

Emma Paddock Telford Says City Is Honored in Perpetuating Story of a Great Life.

Mayor Brister has received an eloquent tribute to the memory of Harriet Tubman from Mrs. Emma Paddock Telford, a former resident of this city. It relates to the memorial tablet to be unveiled on Friday evening at the Auditorium. The letter follows:

     “The City of Auburn, is accepting the unusual and artistic memorial commemorating the life work of one of the most noted of American women, honored in perpetuating the story of a great life, and the tremendous epoch in our national history with which she was so closely associated. She came to us first in the middle ‘50’s, a runaway slave herself, but already the ‘Moses’ or leader of her people whom she was taking by the ‘underground’ railway to Canada.

     “Auburn was one of the prominent stations on that route, for here were many strong anti-slavery folk, as well as Quaker abolitionists whom Lyman Abbott has recently described as making up inability, eloquence and dogmatism what they lacked in numbers.’ Many of these people were personal friends of Gerritt Smith, Wendell Phillips, Rev. Henry Highland Garnet, Governor Andrews of Massachusetts, William Lloyd Garrison, the Emersons, Alcotts, Whitneys, Beechers, Harriet Beecher Stowe and Mrs. Horace Mann, all of whom admired and respected Harriet and the work she was doing for her people. It was during this time that many Auburn homes were opened for the fugitive slaves, as older residents will recall. Here the fleeing blacks were fed, often made comfortable over night, then reinforced as to actual necessities, before starting on again to the Canadian frontier—their longed-for ‘land of freedom.’

   “Quick to recognize the friendly spirit of this place, and encouraged by the kindness of Gov. William H. Seward, his family and friends who not only found places and work for many of the refugees here, but paid car fare for fugitives to Suspension Bridge and Canada, Harriet decided by way of celebrating the Dred Scott decision in 1857 to bring her aged parents here for refuge. A little place on South Street was provided on easy terms for Harriet and here they were left, while she went on here they were left, until she went on her first trip to Boston to see about raising more money for her work. 

Service in Civil War. 

     “Here she met Captain John Brown who communicated his plans to her and asked her to aid him by obtaining recruits and money among her own people. This she did, and he always spoke of her with greatest respect, declaring that ‘General Tubman’ was a better officer than most whom he had seen, and could command an army as successfully as she had led her small parties of fugitives. This was soon proved.  With the breaking out of the Civil War, Harriet was called by Governor Andrews of Massachusetts to act as spy, scout and nurse, the only woman who filled such a role.  During the four years of the war, she drew for herself but twenty days’ rations, meanwhile nursing thousands of our soldiers, white as well as black, on battlefields and in hospitals. 

  “When the war was over, Harriet returned unobtrusively to her little home here, where her doors were kept open to the most friendless and helpless of her race. The aged, forsaken by kith and kin, the babe deserted, the demented, the blind, the epileptic, the paralyzed, all found not shelter alone, but welcome. 

Harriet Tubman’s Charity. 

     “At no one time did this little home shelter less than six or eight wrecks of humanity, entirely dependent upon Harriet for their support. An Auburn woman in whose home Harriet was always welcomed told me this little incident the other day. Going over to Harriet’s one morning, she said, I found her in great cheer.

     “How do you think de Lawd has answered my pray’r, dis yere mawnin,” She said.

     “De meal ches’ was empty las’ night, so I prayed all night, “Lawd, sen’ me dy bleassin’.  Thou knows what dy servan’ needs, sn’ me a blessin.” And den I started out to get de blessin’ acomin’, and what you think it was? A pore blin’ woman, bad off with consumption an’ her six children, one of ‘em jus’ a baby.’ 

     “And what did you do? I queried aghast at the magnitude of the blessing.

     “Oh, I did just what de Lawd meant me to do. I scrimmaged roun’ ‘mong de good people on Souf Stret, a’ got ‘em  somethin’ to eat an’ some clothes for dem children who was mos’ as naked as when dey was bawn.’

     “While Harriet never begged for herself, the cause of the needy at once sent her out with a basket on her arm to the kitchen of her friends, and this without a shadow of hesitancy.  She always took thankfully, but never effusively, whatever was given her.

     “I tell de Lawd what I needs,’ she used to say, ‘an’ he provides.’ 

Pension Granted by Congress. 

     “From here and there as her story was known there came small sums of money to be used in the furtherance of her last work’—the establishment of a permanent home for the friendless aged of her race. For years, considered ineligible for a pension at the hands of a paternal Government on account of her sex, it was not until a few years ago that through the efforts of Sereno Payne, chairman of the Ways and Means Committee of the House, she was granted by special act of Congress a pension of $20 a month in recognition of her ‘valuable services as nurse and scout during the War of the Rebellion.’

  “To help out this pittance, a small amount of money was raised through the sale of a little book which contained the story of her life written by Sarah H. Bradford and published through the liberality of Auburn friends. As needs arose, Harriet met them by indefatigable efforts on her own part and the kindness of people who knew her and her wonderful work.

  “Because of lack of funds, however, the permanent  incorporation of what Harriet wished to call the ‘John Brown Home,’ could not be achieved until 1903 when she deeded the 25 acres comprising her home to the A. M. E. Zion Church. In 1908 the home was formally opened under the name ‘Harriet Tubman Home,’ and the first inmates were received and made comfortable. Five years longer Harriet remained with us, guiding and counseling in the management of the Home that had received her name. Then she gently fell asleep, her last words being ‘Give my love to all the Churches. I go away to prepare a place for you that where I am you may be also.’

     “Her worn body, bowed and spent in nearly a century’s faithful intelligent, devoted service for others, not only of her own race but of our soldier boys, to which the late General McDougall bore witness, sleeps today on our green hillside. But the wonderful spirit that animated it, brave, invincible, like that of her old friend, John Brown, still ‘goes marching on,’ deathless in its influence and one of the ‘immortals.’