1858 by Bruce Chadwick

Author:Bruce Chadwick [CHADWICK, BRUCE]
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9781402231568
Publisher: Sourcebooks, Inc.
Published: 2015-05-30T16:00:00+00:00

VICTORY

The way out came during the first week of July. The kidnappers realized that they might go to prison for substantial periods of time if their trial was heard in front of a jury full of antislavery fanatics determined to seek revenge for the Rescuers’ trials—as the defense team assured them they would. The Kentuckians announced that they would not appear as witnesses in any more of the Rescuers’ trials in exchange for a deal. They received it. The federal government agreed to drop all charges against the remaining fourteen Rescuers and the state government agreed to dismiss the charges against the kidnappers. The Rescuers could go home.

After thanking their jailers for their goodwill and saying good-bye to fellow prisoners, the tired Rescuers took two somber final steps before leaving the Cuyahoga County Jail after their eighty-five-day stay, happy in the knowledge that the man they saved the previous autumn, John Price, had now established a new life for himself—free—in Canada. They held a prayer service, led as always by Henry Peck, and then issued a statement to let the federal government know of their view toward fugitive slaves in the future, now that they knew how harsh the government could be. Defiant to the end, they wrote that “hereafter, as heretofore, [we will] help the panting fugitive to escape from those who would enslave him.”435

The Rescuers were released at five o’clock in the afternoon on July 6, 1859, to the cheers of hundreds of supporters gathered outside the walls of the prison; one hundred cannons on the shores of Lake Erie fired a thunderous salute to them. The editors of the Cleveland Plain Dealer prepared to admit in their columns the next day that the Rescuers had won. The now ex-prisoners, incarcerated for nearly three months, walked to the train station behind a large and boisterous band that played “Yankee Doodle.”

By the time their train arrived home in Oberlin, town officials had organized a historic welcome. More than six thousand people, the entire population of the town, turned out at the train station to greet them. The crowd was so large that it extended up the tracks. “Joy beamed in every eye,” noted James Fitch as the train slowed to a halt. As it approached Oberlin, the engineer was careful not to hit the hundreds of people swarming around and across the tracks. When the train came to a stop, Professor James Monroe gave a short speech from a platform between cars and told them, “We have never, for a moment, ceased longing for the sight of your faces among us.”436

A large band played for the Rescuers as they were led down the streets of Oberlin toward the Quaker meeting house for a formal ceremony. Uniformed firemen lined the parade route and small chidden threw flowers at the feet of the Rescuers as they walked, waving their arms in triumph, cheered on by multitudes at every block.

The jubilee continued at the large white clapboard meeting house at the village green where a choir of 125 singers had been assembled in just a few hours for the event.

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