him, and placing his hand upon his shoulder, said, "Look here, old man, I have seen pistols before to-day." Turning to Kline, he said, "you said you would take us; now you have a chance." Dickerson Gorsuch entreated his father to come away, but he asserted with an oath that he would have his property. Parker still maintaining his position said, "We don't want to hurt you, but you ought to be ashamed of yourself to be in this business, and you a class-leader at home." Dickerson's face flushed, and he said, "father, I would not take that insult from a d-d nigger;" at the same time he raised his revolver and fired, the ball passing close to Parker's head, cutting the hair. Before he could fire another, Parker knocked the pistol out of his hand. Fighting then commenced in earnest. Dickerson fell wounded. He arose and was shot again. The old man, after fighting valiantly, was killed. The others of the slaveholders with the United States Marshal and his aids fled, pursued by the negroes. While Dickerson lay bleeding in the edge of the woods, Joseph P. Scarlett, a Quaker, came up and protected him from the infuriated negroes, who pressed forward to take his life. One was in the act of shooting, when Joseph pushed him aside, saying: "Don't kill him.” Dickerson remarked: "I did not think our boys (meaning the slaves), would have treated us in this way." Joseph asked if he had seen any of them. "Yes," he replied, "I have seen four." When the fight had ended Parker returned to his house. There lay Edward Gorsuch near by dead. Dickerson, he heard, was dying, and others were wounded. The victor viewed the field of his contest, but he possessed too much of the noble spirit of manhood to feel a pride in the death of his adversary. He offered the use of anything in his house that might be needed for the comfort of the wounded. He then went to Levi Pownall's and asked if Dickerson could not be brought there and cared for, remarking that one death was enough. He regretted the killing, and said it was not he who had done it. He then inquired of Levi Pownall, Jr., what he thought best for him and Pinkney and Johnson to do. Levi advised them to start for Canada that night. Dr. A. P. Patterson was sent for and examined Dickerson's wounds. He pronounced them serious, but not fatal. Levi Pownall put a soft bed in a wagon and had Dickerson conveyed upon it to his house, where for three weeks he received as assiduous care and attention as though he had been one of their own household. He did not expect this from Quakers, whom he had learned to despise as abolitionists. As each became acquainted with the other during his stay, they grew to esteem him for the noble characteristics which he possessed, and he manifested gratitude for the kind and home-like nursing he received at their hands. They told him they had no sympathy with the institution of slavery, but that should not deter them from giving him the kind care and sympathy due from man to man. In the afternoon Levi Pownall, Jr., went to the house of Parker to look after clothing, etc. To his surprise he found a great number of letters put away in safe places. He carried them home, and on examination they proved to be from escaped fugitives, many of whom Parker had assisted. Had these letters been found by the slaveholders or the United States Marshall they would have led to the detection of the slaves, and would have divulged the means by which they had escaped. He destroyed them all. When night came Levi Pownall's house was crowded with friends of the wounded man, together with commissioners, deputy marshalls, lawyers, etc., all of whom were there entertained. A police force filled the front porch and yard, as the party feared they might be attacked by colored people and abolitionists. After dark, Parker, Pinkney and Johnson, who were unaware of what was going on at the house, were observed by the family cautiously approaching the kitchen part of the dwelling. One of the women went out, quickly brought them in at that door, which fortunately was not guarded, and apprised them of their danger. On entering, they had to pass so near to one of the guards at a partly open door that the lady's dress rubbed against them. A counsel was held in a whisper, in a dark room. It was decided to dress the men in good clothes, especially hats, and let them walk boldly out the front door, accompanied by some of the ladies. Sarah Pownall, wife of Levi, with her characteristic thoughtfulness and motherly kindness inquired of them if they had eaten anything during the day. They said they had not. She. filled a pillow case with provisions and gave it to one of the younger children who put it under a tree at some distance from the house, and returning, told the men where to find it. All things being in readiness, and the men admonished to silence, they walked out past the guards, accompanied by E. B. Pownall and her sister, F who conversed with them upon some ordinary topic as though they had been friendly callers, and bade them good-bye at the gate. The darkness of the night prevented the guards from discovering the color of the men. As they were about to start out of the house, Pinkney and Johnson appeared in a thoughtful mood, as if weighing in their minds the chances before them. The one was leaving behind him a mother, the other a wife and child. Tears came to their eyes. But their faltering appeared to arise from a feeling of fear and a wavering of resolution at the critical step they were about to take. But not so with Parker. His was a resolution as fixed as the law of gravitation. He had determined years before that no slaveholder should ever again fasten upon him the inexorable chains of a degrading and inhuman bondage. He compressed his lips, and with a look and tone of Roman firmness, commanded them to "follow him and not to flinch." Obeying him, and accompanied by the women, they passed out of the house. After leaving this family, with whom they had lived for several years, they truly were, as Parker remarked the evening before, "without a country"-homeless wanderers in a "Land of Freedom," soon to be hunted by men as eager as bloodhounds to seize them and carry them back into the possession of incensed slaveholders, to be sold or treated according as their feelings or passions should dictate-and this hunting ground was the soil of free Pennsylvania. "Where all Europe with amazement saw The soul's high freedom trammelled by no law; When vague rumors came floating in to the Pownall's that Parker had been killed, or that he had been fatally wounded, Dickerson invariably ejaculated, "I hope that is not true," adding in his Southern vernacular "he's a noble nigger." It might here be remarked, that when Edward Gorsuch resolved to come North to capture his slaves, Dickerson endeavored to prevail with him against it. But the old man was "determined to have his property," and would not be counselled. Dickerson then accompanied him as a filial duty. In the fight he was the bravest of them all, refusing to leave when the others. fled, and his son remained with him until the one received his fatal blow and the other his almost mortal wound. A few days after the riot a lawyer came to Pownall's, read a paper to them giving notice of a suit, and claiming damages for harboring the slaves of Edward Gorsuch. The names of Gorsuch's slaves with alleged aliases were given. Among the aliases were the names of Parker, Pinkney and Johnson. The date of the escape of Gorsuch's slaves was given correctly, but Parker, Pinkney and Johnson had been in the neighborhood several years before. Sarah Pownall noticed this error, and when the lawyer finished reading, she asked to see the paper. It was given to her. She handed it to a friend who was present, and called his attention to the date. He read it, and testified that Parker had worked for him and for others two years before that time. Seeing the clearness of this error the lawyer took the paper again in his hands. Sarah remarked to him, "We are witnesses to the date in that paper, and it cannot be |