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AUBURN
CITIZEN, TUESDAY, MARCH 11, 1913 ________________________________________________________________________
HARRIET TUBMAN IS DEAD
“I GO TO
PREPARE
A PLACE FOR
YOU”
THE LAST
WORDS SHE UTTERED.
_________________
BORN IN SLAVERY NEARLY 100 YEARS AGO
________________
She Rendered Wonderful Service To The Cause Of The
Abolitionists
And Her “Underground Railroad” Had A
Record Of Never
Running A Train Off The Track or
Losing A Single
Passenger--Too Feeble To Withstand
Pneumonia—A
Sketch Of Her Career.
Harriet
Tubman Davis, Aunt Harriet, died last night of pneumonia at the
home she founded on South Street Road near here. Born lowly,
she lived a life of exalted self – sacrifice and her end closes
a career that has taken its place in American history. Her true
services to the black race were never known but her true worth
could never have been rewarded by human agency.
Harriet’s death was indeed the passing of a brave woman. There
was no regret but on the contrary she rejoiced in her final
hours. Conscious within a few hours of her final passing she
joined with those who came to pray for her and the final scene
in the long drama of her life was quite as thrilling as the many
that had gone before.
Yesterday afternoon when the trained nurse, Mrs. Martha
Ridgeway of Elmira, and Dr. G. B. Mack had decided that her
death was but the question of a few hours, Harriet asked for her
friends, Rev. Charles A. Smith and Rev. E. U. A. Brooks,
clergyman of the Zion A. M. E. Church. They with Eliza E.
Peterson, national superintendent for temperance work among
colored people of the W.C.T.U., who came here from Texarkana,
Tex., to see Harriet, and others, joined in a final service
which Harriet directed. She joined in the singing when her
cough did not prevent, and after receiving the sacrament she
sank back in bed ready to die.
LOVE TO ALL THE
CHURCHES
To
the clergyman she said “Give my love to all the churches” and
after a severe coughing spell she blurted out in a thick voice
this farewell passage which she had learned from Matthew: “I go
away to prepare a place for you, and where I am ye may be
also”. She soon afterward lapsed into a comatose condition and
death came at 8:30 o’clock last evening. Those present when she died included Rev. and Mrs. Smith
and Miss Ridgeway, the colored nurse.
Two
grandnieces of Harriet, Miss Alida Stewart and Miss Eva Stewart,
were in Washington attending the inaugural and had not returned
to Auburn.
Harriet ‘s nephew, William H. Stewart and his son, Charles
Stewart, were in attendance during the final hours.
Harriet’s age was unknown. Born a slave of slave parents her
lowly origin did not become a matter of sufficient moment to
demand chronicling until it was too late to obtain other than a
vague story of her childhood.
Today, more-than half a century after John Brown said” “I bring
you one of the bravest and best persons on this continent” when
he presented Harriet to Wendell Phillips, a glance over her
remarkable career shows that the hero of Harper’s Ferry might
well be quoted in selecting Harriet Tubman’s epitaph.
FIRST MARRIED
IN 1844
Harriet was first married to John Tubman, the marriage taking
place in 1844. She became separated from her husband at the
time of the Civil War when she was active in the violation of
the fugitive slave law. Her husband died during this period. A
number of years ago she married Nelson Davis of this city.
Harriet Tubman-Davis, or “Aunt Harriet” as she was familiarly
known to Auburnians, died in the modest institution she founded
here several years ago under the name of The Harriet Tubman Home
For Aged and Indigent Negroes. The building is located out on
South Street Road and the property on which it is located
adjoins a place that was given to Harriet by William H. Seward,
Lincoln’s Secretary of State. The place had been deeded to the
African Methodist Episcopal Church and among the leading colored
people who is interested in it is Bishop G.R. Harris, D.D. of
Salisbury, N.C., one of the most prominent Zion A.M.E.
clergymen. Booker T. Washington, on his visit here two years
ago, considered a visit to Harriet Tubman as the most important
duty he had here on that occasion. It had been Aunt Harriet’s
hope that her home in Auburn would receive support on a par with
that extended to
Hampton
and Tuskegee, but her hopes were not realized. Up to the last,
however, Harriet labored faithfully for her Home and spent much
of her time about town seeking local aid for her charges.
EXACT AGE NOT
ESTABLISHED
Her age has never been established, but it is known that she was
over 90 years and possibly was even more than 95 years. To a
reporter, who met her some time before she was finally compelled
to remain at the Home. She replied to the questions of her age:
Indeed I don’t know, Sir. “I am somewhere’s about 90 to 95. I
don’t know when I was born, but I am pretty near 95”. She was
in the office of the Superintendent of Charities F. J. Lattimore
at the time, and her mind was unusually clear.
MEDAL FROM
QUEEN VICTORIA
It
is no exaggeration to say that Harriet Tubman, as she is best
known, furnishes a career of self sacrifice that, in her
services to the Negro race, does not fall far short of the
brilliancy of Joan of Arc, Grace Darling or Florence
Nightingale. She has been honored by thousand and exalted
personages have been equally eager to pay homage with humble
folk that she labored for. She was a friend of William Lloyd
Garrison, Wendell Phillips, John Brown, Gerrit Smith, Seward,
Lincoln and others connected with the Anti-Slavery period. One
of the treasured possessions that she leaves behind is a small
medal given her by Queen Victoria.
HER UNDERGROUND
RAILWAY
Her
premier claim to recognition rests in the wonderful manner in
which she operated for 15 years the Underground Railway by which
she personally conducted 300 runaway slaves safely into Canadian
territory. Her shrewdness in doing this work was nothing short
of marvelous. She made no less than 19 trips down into the
Southland in her dangerous work, and this in the face of the
fact that her own eyes beheld in every railroad station and post
office the placards of the State of Maryland which offered
$12,000 reward for her body, dead or alive; while a reward of
$40,000 additional was offered by an association of Southern
planters whose slaves she was spiriting away to freedom.
Fortunately for Harriet she was unable to read so that her very
ignorance probably was her salvation, because she proceeded in
simple faith to carry out her plans without the strategy that
might have been observed had she known that her life was in
constant danger. Indeed her instinctive knowledge that danger
was near when such proved to be true, caused her friends, both
negro and white, to believe that she was divinely inspired. The
prices set on her head were high but nobody ever succeeded in
capturing Harriet, although she had many narrow escapes and one
occasion hid herself and six fugitives slaves in “potato holes”
dug in the fields, the runaways covering themselves completely
with dirt. The Eliza crossing–the ice episode of Uncle Tom’s
Cabin was not more thrilling than many of the escapes in which
Harriet figured.
In
later years Harriet’s wonderful career was recognized by several
friends and one, a daughter of one of the professors of Auburn
Theological Seminary, collected the facts that were then
available concerning Harriet Tubman and made the aged Negress
the heroine of the book: Harriet, The Moses of Her People.
HER WIT WAS
SHARP
Harriet’s sharp wits maintained their edge in later years. In a
visit to
Rochester just prior to the death of the late Susan B. Anthony
the latter presented Harriet as the “Conductor” of the
Underground Railway. Harriet promptly declared. “Yes, ladies I
wuz de conductor ob de Underground’ Railway an “ I kin say what
mos’ conductors can’t say—dat I nebber run my train off de track
an’ I nebber los’ a passenger”.
BORN IN SLAVERY
IN MARYLAND
Harriet was born in slavery, her parents being Benjamin Ross and
Harriet Green. Her birthplace was on an estate in Dorchester
County, Maryland, and the time has been fixed as in the decade
of 1815 – 1825. In later years her relatives became known under
the name of Stewart and have borne that name for over 60 years.
Harriet took her parents and brothers to Canada but came to
Auburn with her kinsmen when the Civil War settled for all times
the question of slavery. As a child Harriet was known as
“Araminta” but later was called “Harriet” and lived on a
plantation near Cambridge, Md. Those who tried to obtain a
definite date for her birth when her career was being studied 30
years ago decided that 1814 was the year, but Harriet herself
did not believe that she was so close to rounding a century when
she talked with the reporter.
SKULL FRACTURED
AT 12 YEARS
As
a child of six years she was apprenticed to a weaver but was
turned to work in the fields. When she was about 12 years of
age she was struck on the head by a metal weight thrown by an
angry overseer at a fleeing insubordinate slave. The blow
resulted in a fracture of Harriet’s skull and caused her to be
subject to periodic fits of insensibility during her life. This
injury was largely relieved after the Civil War when she
submitted to an operation at the Massachusetts General Hospital.
There, despite the fact that the use of anesthesia had come into
general use, Harriet insisted that the operation go on without
ether, and it is recorded on good authority that the task was
accomplished by the surgeons. In her youth Harriet’s injury
had caused her to be unfitted for high class labor and she was
put to work driving oxen, carting, plowing and hard manual
labor. This developed her physically so that in time, her
strength became so great that she did more work than a male
slave and her market value stood at the current rate paid for a
first class male, $150.
In
1844 Harriet’s owner was a kind man and she was allowed to marry
a free Negro, John Tubman. Soon afterward, however, her owner
died and she became the property of a minor son and in turn she
was placed in charge of a Doctor Thompson, guardian for the
minor. The sale of slaves was ordered in settling the estate,
and then Harriet conceived the great idea of liberation. She
resolved to break her own shackles and one night stole away,
following the North Star as her guide. By day she hid and by
night she traveled, ever Northward until she reached
Philadelphia where the good Quakers befriended her.
Establishing herself as a free negress her work of liberating
other slaves began.
BIG REWARD FOR
HER CAPTURE
In
December, 1850, she visited Baltimore where she secretly met her
sister and two children who were fugitives and brought them to
Philadelphia. The next year she went “down into Egypt” to get
her husband, but he had married another negress and at this
point their ways parted forever. Instead of taking her husband
to freedom she took a party of fugitives and her success and
their gratitude caused her to devote her life to this work. She
established a headquarters at Cape May, N.J., and in the fall of
1852 disappeared from her usual haunts to reappear in a few
weeks with nine fugitives. Then The Fugitive Slave Law drove her
from Pennsylvania, New Jersey and New York into Canada, her only
refuge. With Thomas Garrett, the well known Quaker
abolitionists of
Wilmington,
Del., she aided in freeing over 3,000 slaves, her personal
conduct taking 300 of them into Canada. Through Garrett she met
leaders in the Anti-Slavery movement and soon had established
her Underground Railway, stations being located in every
abolitionist center wherein fugitives were concealed and fed by
day and aided on their way to Suspension Bridge and Canada by
night.
Journey followed journey to the South and Harriet’s depredations
became so great among the slaves that the Legislature of
Maryland
was forced to act and a reward of $12,000 was put on her head
while slave owners privately banded together and put up $40,000
for her capture. Detectives everywhere North and South were on
the watch for her and she had many narrow escapes, but a divine
providence seemed to watch over her. Many times she sat huddled
in Southern railway trains while the cars used by the “niggers”
were placarded inside and out, with rewards for her capture,
persons actually shoved her aside to read the bills. Harriet in
her ignorance nor knowing the import of the signs. On one
occasion she went back to her own home and found a former
overseer, who knew her well coming down the street. Her ready
wit had caused her to prepare for such an emergency. On entering
the town she purchased two chickens, which she tied together,
and as she carried them along the highway she was unsuspected.
When about to be confronted by her former overseer, she allowed
one of the chickens to escape and giving chase created a laugh
but eluded close inspection and probable discovery. She laughed
last. Her remarkable career is filled with such incidents and
that a complete volume on her life has not been written leaves a
peculiar vacancy in Abolitionists bibliography.
FREED MOTHER
AND FATHER
In 1857 Harriet
made one of her most important trips South and brought away to
freedom her mother and father. They were conducted by
Underground to Auburn, an important “station” where the coming
Secretary of State for Lincoln, Seward resided. Out on South
Street, where William H. Seward’s mansion is, that kind
gentleman sold to Harriet on easy terms a plot of ground where
she built a home for her fugitive slave parents. It was in this
house that Harriet spent many years, and she lived long enough
to see her last ambition gratified in the foundation on
adjoining premises of the Harriet Tubman Home for Aged and
Indigent Negroes.
One time,
however, she broke off active participation in its behalf,
because , as she explained to the writer: “Went I gabe de Home
over to Zion Ch’ch w’at you s’pose dey done? Why, dey make a
rule dat nobody should cum in widout a hundred dollars. Now I
wanted to make a rule dat nobody shouls cum in ‘nless dey didn’t
hab no money. W’ats de good of a Home if a pusson w’at wants to
git in has to have money?”.
SCOUT
ARMY NURSE AND SPY
Harriet’s
possessions at one time included many letters and documents of
interest to the historian. They included letters from the most
prominent abolitionists and generals of the Federal Army during
the wartime period.
It
must be said that Harriet Tubman was probably the only woman who
served through the war as scout, army nurse, and spy, taking her
life in her hands many times in the last capacity. She was proud
of the fact that she had worm “pants” and carried a musket,
canteen and haversack, accoutrements which she retained after
the war and left as precious relics to her colored admirers.
When the war broke out she did not wait for the Emancipation
Proclamation but began at once forcible to free slaves. In 1863,
when it was decided to use Negro troops, Harriet was instantly
alert to become a nurse for a regiment, and when the famous
Fifty-fourth Massachusetts marched away from Boston, the event
now commemorated by the bronze tablet of Col. Robert Gould Shaw
and his men opposite the State House on Boston Commons, Harriet
followed a few days later with a commission in her pocket from
governor Andrew. She cooked for colonel Shaw and dined with him
too, on certain occasions, and when she was not acting cook, she
was turned loose as escaped “contraband” to browse around in the
enemy’s lines, only to reappear soon with valuable news of the
Confederate movements.
On
one occasion she informed Major General Hunter at Hilton Head of
mines planted in the river and several gunboats sent to the
scene removed a lot of torpedores that would certainly destroyed
an expedition about to pass over that dangerous ground. Harriet
went to Fort Wagner after that famous charge was made there and
aided in burying the black soldiers and their White officers,
and in nursing the injured. Her success as a nurse, especially
her ability to cure men of dysentery by means of native herbs,
became so well known to the army surgeons that she was
transferred by the War Department to Fernandina, Fla. which in
1863-65 was a military base, as in the Spanish-American War of
1898.
SHE DREW A
PENSION
Her
services were subsequently recognized by Congress which issued a
pension, which during the past 7 years owing to the efforts Hon.
Sereno S. Payne, leader of the House and a resident of Auburn,
was increased, yet she died in poverty, all her money having
been expended as fast as acquired in aiding indigent Negroes.
Among
Harriet’s affects are papers indicating her intimate friendship
with men and women of prominence before and after the War. She
lived for a time at the home of Emerson in Concord, then with
the family of William Lloyd Garrison, and visited the Alcott’s,
the Whitneys, Mrs. Horace Mann and
Phillips
Brooks.
A letter written by Wendell Phillips to an
Auburn lady in June 16, 1868, says regarding Harriet Tubman:
“The last time I ever saw John Brown was under my roof when he
brought Harriet Tubman to me saying. “Mr. Phillips, I bring you
one of the best and bravest persons on this continent – General
Tubman, as we call her. The famous leader of Ossawatommie
narrating to Boston’s famous preacher, the career of Harriet
and concluding for himself, said: “ In my opinion there are few
captains, perhaps few colonels, who have done more for the
colored race than our feerless and sagacious friend, Harriet.”
A TREASURED
PASS
Letters from such important personages are found in abundance
among Harriet’s belongings and there are tributes from Frederick
Douglass, Gerrit Smith, Queen Victoria, John Brown, Seward,
Phillips, Generals Baird, Gilmore, Hunter, Montgomery, Saxton,
Surgeon General Barnes, etc. etc.
One
of her most treasured “passes”, most of which are hardly
decipherable owing to wear and tear in service during the war,
and now dim with age, is the following issued to her by Maj.
Gen. David Hunter of Port Royal near Hilton Head, S.C.
headquarters of the Department of the South in 1863 at a time
when carte blanche privileges were conferred only upon the most
trusted persons in the service of the Federal government. The
pass reads:
“Pass the bearer, Harriet Tubman, to Beaufort and back to this
place, and wherever she wishes to go; and give her free passage
at all times, on all government transports. Harriet was sent to
me from
Massachusetts
by Governor Andrew at Boston and is a valuable woman. She has
permission, as a servant of the government, to purchase such
provisions from the Commissary as she may need.
David Hunter
"Major General
Commanding”
In
Auburn there has grown up a wealth of anecdotes about Harriet
that illustrate her unique character. None is better known,
perhaps, than her adventure with the late Anthony Shimer. In
this Harriet has been generally conceded to have been an
innocent pawn by clever swindler who mulcted the Auburn miser
of $2,000. A Negro named Stevenson had come to Auburn in 1873
with a story that another Negro, Harris, had come from the
vicinity of Charleston, S.C., with a hoard of $5,000 in gold
which he had found during the war and had concealed and which
he dared not to exchange for the more convenient greenbacks in
the South because the government would seize the gold. The
Negro, it was said, would gladly change his gold for greenbacks
and after some interest had been stirred in Seneca Falls the
people who like to obtain much for little in Auburn began to
warm up to the proposition.
Through the late John Stewart, a brother of Harriet Tubman, the
latter was
interested in
the matter and she called upon many prominent citizens. They
advised her not to have anything to do with the offer but she
had faith in it and finally after Shimer had heard of the
proposition through one Thomas, a Seneca Falls Negro, he
accepted as corroborative the stories told by Harriet. Shimer
knowing that gold bore a premium of 12% at the time, agreed to
give $2,000 in greenbacks for $2,000 in gold, and a party
consisting of Shimer, Charles O’Brien, then cashier of the City
Bank, Harriet Tubman and her husband, her brother, John Stewart,
and the man Stevenson started out to make the exchange in the
seclusion of a forest in the South and of the county. They drove
to Fleming Hill expecting to find the representative of the
owner of the gold there, but he was not there so they drove on
to Poplar Ridge where they got out and put up at the tavern.
Then the man Stevenson explained that the transaction was of
such a secret character that only himself and Harriet could meet
the mysterious stranger with the gold and Shimer easily handed
over his money to Harriet who departed with Stevenson. They
were to return as soon as the gold had been passed for the
greenbacks.
After
due time had passed and they failed to return the party became
suspicious for the first time and started out to search for the
missing pair with the $2,000. Stevenson was never seen again.
Harriet was found bleeding and gagged, her clothing torn and
making her way along as best she could. She was taken back to
the tavern where she told a story that was generally accepted as
a romance. It was apparent that the man Stevenson and his pal,
Harris, were swindlers and that having taken Harriet alone to a
secluded place they had forcibly taken the money from
her…Harriet, however, narrated a story that included hypnotism
and ghosts to account fro the loss of the money and her
injuries, and Shimer, who was the “goat” probably for the first
time in his life, almost suffered heart disease at his loss. He
attempted in his characteristic manner to hold Harriet and her
brother responsible for his loss, charging that they had
“borrowed” the money from him. He was never able to collect the
money.
Harriet leaves very little property, and so far as known her
possessions include the seven acres, little brick house and,
barns on the place out on South Street road where she lived so
many years.
Funeral
Arrangements Incomplete
The
arrangements for the funeral were incomplete at a late hour this
afternoon. Rev. Charles A. Smith and Rev. E. U. A. Brooks are
in charge of the matter and expect to complete the arrangements
late today.
Courtesy of the
Seymour Library, Auburn, New York
AUBURN CITIZEN,
WEDNESDAY, MARCH 12, 1913.
AT CHURCH OF
ZION
__________
BODY OF HARRIET
TUBMAN DAVIS WILL LIE IN STATE.
____________
MANY MEN OF
PROMINENCE
WILL OFFICIATE,
Including Auburn
Minister Who
Had Known Her Over 50 Years
_____________________
Rev.
E.U.A. Brooks and Rev. Charles A. Smith, who have taken charge
of the arrangements for the funeral of Harriet Tubman Davis,
completed the details last night and announced them as follows:
The public services will be held at 3’o’clock tomorrow afternoon
in the Zion A.M.E. Church in Parker Street. At 11 o’clock
tomorrow morning there will a service at the Harriet Tubman Home
at which the persons connected with the place will pay their
formal tribute to the woman who founded the institution. Rev.
Mr. Brooks will have charge of the services as master of
ceremonies, and he will be assisted by Rev. J.C. Roberts of
Binghamton, presiding elder for this district and Rev. J.W.
Brown of Rochester, Rev. R.F. Fisher of Ithaca and probably by
Rev. Charles A. Smith of Auburn.
The
last had known Aunt Harriet for over 50 years and he was a
member of the fighting Fifty-fourth Massachusetts Infantry, the
first Negro regiment organized in the Civil War, which started
out with Col. Robert Gould Shaw and distinguished itself in the
famous engagement of Fort Wagner. After Shaw fell dead in the
trenches Harriet Tubman was assigned by Colonel Montgomery to
assist in nursing the
Fort
Wagner
victims, and Mr. Smith became acquainted with the famous Negress.
The
Board of Trustees and the Board of Women Managers of Harriet
Tubman Home will attend the funeral. The following are expected
to attend: Bishop G.L. Blackwell of Philadelphia, presiding of
the Board of Trustees, Bishop Alexander Walters of Washington,
vice president; Rev. E.S. Bailey of Syracuse, Rev. J.W. Brown of
Rochester, Rev. R.F. Fisher of Ithaca, Rev. John G. Lee of
Rochester, Rev. L.L. Thomas of Binghamton, Rev. James E. Mason
of Rochester, and Rev. Charles A. Smith, William Freeman, John
Lewis and Henry T. Johnson of Auburn. The Ladies’ Board is
composed of Sarah F. Ross of Auburn, president, Mrs. Frank
Leggett, vice president, Mrs. Henry T. Johnson and Mrs. E.U.A.
Brooks, secretaries, Mrs. James Dale, Treasurer, and the
following: Mrs. J. Stout, Mrs. R. Hawkins of Geneva, Mrs. J.
Reed and Mrs. M. Ridgeway of Elmira, Mrs. I Belcher of Ithaca,
Mrs. P. Gibbs of Rochester and Mrs. C.F. Matthews, Mrs. C.G.
Cannon, Mrs. E.P. Cooper, Frances Brown and Mrs. C.A. Smith of
Auburn.
AUBURN DAILY ADVERTISER, TUESDAY, MARCH 11, 1913
DEATH OF AUNT
HARRIET
“MOSES OF HER
PEOPLE”
_____________________
Famous Heroine
of Slave Days Died at Tubman Home, Last Night---
Was Pure
African Type---Led Her People From Bondage---
Last Words
Were: “I Go to Prepare a Place For You”---
Claimed Gift
of Strange Power.
_____________________
Death came
last night to end the sufferings of Mrs. Harriet Tubman Davis,
better known as “Aunt Harriet” a national character at The
Harriet Tubman Home in South Street. “Aunt Harriet” has been ill
with pneumonia for nearly a year and her death was not
unexpected. Her exact age is not known but it is thought she is
99 years old. She has bravely battled against sickness and her
fight, like all the others was a gallant one. She was conscious
up to within two hours of her death and conversed intelligently
with those about her in the afternoon.
All her
life “Aunt Harriet” has been on the battlefield. When a young
girl she was a slave and battled against the lash of the
overseer, then when she escaped from the plantation she battled
against hunger, strangers, and her way through wilderness of a
new country, then her battle was waged against the slave owners
of the South and a price was upon her head, then in the great
war she served as a nurse and a spy. When the war was over, she
was forced to battle to save her home which was to be sold on a
mortgage foreclosure. At last she was taken to the home which
she established and when it seemed as though she might rest at
last, sickness came and her battle for life was renewed. For
more than a year she battled against pneumonia and last night
still defiant, still battling, she succumbed to her victor,
death.
There is
not a woman in the United States today whose career can be
compared with that of the old slave. Her name is a side light in
the national history. She has fought on the battlefield beside
the men, she has entered the enemy’s lines as a spy… There are
gathered Rev. Charles A. Smith the chaplain of the Home, Mrs.
Smith and Mrs. Martha Ridgeway, the old nurse who had attended
to “Aunt Harriet’s” wants since last October. The end came at
8:40 o’clock last evening.
There
will be a meeting of the Board of Managers of the Tubman Home
this afternoon to decide on the arrangements for the funeral
which will be held either Thursday or Friday afternoon.
There are
in Auburn a number of colored people who are distantly related
to “Aunt Harriet” among them are Charles Stewart, Alida Stewart,
Clarence Stewart, Dora Thompson, Mrs. Edward Robinson, Eva
Stewart, Alfred Winslow, Mrs. Mary Gaskin and Mrs. Henry Lucas.
These survivors are mostly grandnieces and grand nephews. She
had no children. Her brothers however had large families.
The
arrangements for the funeral were practically made by “Aunt
Harriet” some time ago and her wishes will be carried out. There
are probably few of the present generation who know much
concerning the life or existence of this forgotten old slave.
Yet at one
time there was a price of $40,000 placed on her head because as
the “Moses of her people” as she was known, during the Civil
war, she made 19 perilous trips between the free states of the
North and the slave-holding states of the South and led more
than 400 fellow slaves, including men, women and children, out
of bondage.
Story is
Dramatic
Of all the
stories of the ante-bellum days that of the experiences of
Harriet Tubman is one of the most dramatic…She was naturally
shrewd and blunt of speech, but her simplicity and ignorance in
many cases caused her to be imposed upon. For years her
household here consisted of several old black people and some
forlorn and wandering women. From the effects of a blow which
she received in childhood she had a stupid, half-witted look,
but she also had a pair of sharp, black eyes and a ready wit
that enabled her to get out of many difficulties.
Her
maiden name was Armita Ross, but her given name was changed to
Harriet. She had not a drop of white blood in her veins. Her
father was a slave imported from Africa. Her parents were
Benjamin Ross and Harriet Green, both slaves, but married to
each other. She had ten brothers and sisters, three of whom she
rescued from slavery during the Civil war. She also rescued her
father and mother through the “underground railway.” She was
married about the year 1844 to a freed slave. His name was John
Tubman. There were no children by this union. Her last master,
a Dr. Thompson, who was also the owner of Aunt Harriet’s father,
died in the year 1849. Two years later she escaped from slavery,
she returned and found her husband married to another woman.
Harriet also married again. Her second husband was a colored of
Auburn by the name of Nelson Davis. She then became known as
Harriet Tubman Davis, but more familiarly as Harriet Tubman, the
name she bore during the time of her activity in the South.
As a
child she lived with a master whose fortune was slowly waning.
She saw her two older sisters sold and carried away, weeping and
lamenting, to be separated forever on earth from their parents
and brothers and sisters. Harriet was then suffering from a
wound which affected her brain all her life. This wound often
caused fits of somnolency, during which she had wonderful
visions. This wound was received at the plantation where she was
raised. A two pound iron weight, thrown at a runaway slave, hit
Harriet on the head. With a return to health she became endowed
with superhuman physical strength, this enabled her to perform
labors that today would seem impossible for a woman. Her
strength made her a great help in the fields. Often while at
work, though, she would drop off into one of her dreams and even
the overseer’s lash did not seem to awaken her.
This
dreaming led her into experiencing religion. A firm
determination was also born. This determination she said was to
free the slave…walking by night, hiding by day and using all her
cunning to obtain food, she passed, after a long and weary
travel, the line which separated the land of bondage and the
land of freedom. She was alone, her kindred were in slavery and
none of them had the courage to dare what she had dared. Unless
she could liberate her relatives she could never see them again
or even know what had become of them. Harriet soon made friends
and obtained work in the North. She toiled ceaselessly and saved
her wages until she had enough money, to make a trip to the
South so that she could save her brothers, sisters and parents
and perhaps help to free others.
One dark
night she suddenly appeared at the door of a cabin back in
Maryland. How she came no one knew, but she appeared as a
“Moses” in the night. Through the wilds of a sparcely settled
country she led several parties of her fellow slaves to the
North where there was safety and freedom. In nineteen trips she
brought away more than 400 slaves. The slave holders of the
South became enraged at her actions and offered $40,000 reward
for her capture, dead or alive. The fugitive slave parties were
taken through New York State and across the suspension bridge
into Canada. On the Canada shore, led by Harriet, they shouted
sang and prayed, thanking the Lord for their deliverance. Many
of these fugitives later became prosperous farmers.
Harriet
rescued Charles Nalle, a fugitive slave from Virginia, from a
mob in Troy, N.Y., on April 27, 1859, and took him across the
line into Canada. During the four years of the war Harriet drew
for herself but twenty days rations. She nursed thousands of
sick soldiers and treated them with strange medicines made of
roots and herbs.
At General
Hunter’s request she went with several gunboats up the Combahee
river, an expedition to lift the Confederate torpedoes, to
destroy railways, bridges and shut off every other means
Confederate army had of obtaining supplies. At her request
Colonel Montgomery, one of John Brown’s men was appointed to
command the expedition. 800 negroes were carried down to
Beaufort by these boats. Harriet often went to the Confederate
lines as a spy and brought back valuable information. These were
perilous trips and grave proof of her remarkable bravery, she
was several times under fire, but always escaped unhurt.
She was
befriended by William H. Seward, Gerrit Smith, Wendell Phillips,
William Lloyd Garrison, and other distinguished men of the time
and was an aide and admirer of the famous John Brown.
Since the
Civil war she has resided in a small house on the outskirts of
the city and during the last few years in the Tubman home which
she founded in South street.
Harriet’s
first home in this city was purchased from General Seward who
was then in the senate. To this house she removed her parents
and took care of them until their death. It was to raise money
to pay for this house that she made a trip to Boston in 1859.
She there met Governor Andrews who urged her to serve the Union
cause as a nurse, spy and scout. She left her little home in
this city, placing her parents in the care of friends and again
returned to the South. She risked her life hundreds of times
without receiving a cent of compensation.
When at
last she returned to Auburn she found her home a place of
desolation. It was about to be sold to satisfy a mortgage which
she was unable to pay. Efforts of Secretary Seward to have her
pensioned were to no avail though she secured a pension some
years later through the efforts of Congressman Sereno E. Payne.
This pension was $20 per month. Later 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 prominent Auburn men. The Tubman home
was the culmination of a movement which started in 1896. The
dream of “Moses” for herself and her people was at last
realized.
Articles after Tubman’s death are reprinted & retyped for
readers to analyze and critique the accuracy, language, and
terminology provided during the early twentieth century. Slight
omissions are due to the aging process of the articles.
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