His route from Franklin came through Warren, Jamestown, Ellington and Leon. He asked me to put my name on his paper, on which I found the names of all the conductors that had put him through. He could not be persuaded to stay over but a day, therefore the train started at midnight, fording the river, and going through the dark woods, (a horrible road in those days,) arrived before daylight at Friend Andrew’s hospitable station. Another idle day was passed, and the next morning about break of day, when Andrew put him on a boat at Black Rock, Tom sent his trusty hickory back to me. I had asked him for it, offering a nice cane in exchange, but he declined parting with it until he got beyond the force of the fugitive slave law; it had been his sole weapon, and in his strong arm had proved more than a match for six men, backed by a reward of $2,000.
I was so much interested by the following incident that I will relate it in Tom’s own words. Tom was anxious to go to Cleveland, but dared not venture. A gentleman living there had offered to aid him should he ever need it, and he thought he would send for his boy if he could but see him. Tom said:
“Six years ago, we were coming north on a steamboat on the Mississippi, when the boat was burned. Mr. W., the gentleman above named, and his daughter, on his way home from New Orleans, occupied a state-room near the bow of the boat, where I had the horses. Master was frightened out of his wits, and begged me to save him, so I pushed the finest horse overboard, and got the old man into the river, with the tail of the horse in his hands; I then cut the lariat, and the horse landed the old man a mile below. The next thing I heard was a lady at her cabin window near by, screaming for help. I took her out of the window, threw the landing plank
