this talent, were engaged on opposite sides in debate, their fine drawn distinctions, close questions, terse answers, and clear ratiocination from irrefragable facts adduced, were at once amusing, edifying and exalting.

At a convention where he, William Lloyd Garrison and others spoke, his speech was characterized by such a flow of wit, good humor, clear logic, sententious expressions, and sometimes sarcasm when the subject evoked it, that Garrison arose at the close of the meeting and said "the speech of the day must decidedly be accorded to Whitson."

He had not the advantage in early life of acquiring more than the rudiments of an education. Arriving at manhood's estate, he studied the principles and objects pertaining to the higher welfare of man, as presented to him in his daily observations and intercourse with men, developing his own faculty for originating thought, instead of directing his time and attention to the study of written lore. One amusing feature of his speeches was that his grammar was exclusively his own. It knew no rules, nor did he care for any.

Benjamin S. Jones said of him in a little volume of word-pictures of the prominent anti-slavery leaders:

Friend Whitson, Friend Whitson,

Like "dunder and blitzen,"

Thy fists and thy words both come down;

A diamond thou art,

Tho' unpolished each part,

Yet worthy a place in the crown,

Friend Whitson!

Yet worthy a place in the crown.

He gave freely of his means whenever needed, regarding neither time nor cost. He attended the first convention of the American Anti-Slavery Society, held in

Philadelphia on the 4th, 5th and 6th of December, 1833, of which Arthur Tappan was president. As soon as the "Declaration of Principles" were adopted he stepped up to the desk and affixed his signature, as he had to withdraw from the convention immediately to return home. He thus became the first signer to those "Principles" adopted by the national organization of the earnest, able and indefatigable advocates of universal liberty-principles which gained warm moral adherents and steadfast friends, but which met with the staunchest opposition throughout the entire North, as well as in the South, until the mandate of God, "Let my people go free," went forth and was obeyed by a nation then deluging its soil in fratricidal blood.

As an Underground Railroad agent Thomas Whitson was remarkably reticent. Hundreds of fugitives were taken care of and assisted on their way, but no record was kept. The children saw colored people there frequently, but they were not permitted to ask any questions, or to know anything about them. He spoke of his management to but very few friends.

The fugitives who came to his place at night were chiefly sent by Daniel Gibbions, in care of a trusty colored man, who knew how to awaken Thomas without arousing others of the family. Those who came in daytime from Daniel Gibbons had a slip of paper upon which was written, "Friend Thomas, some of my friends will be with thee to-night," or words varying, but of similar import. No name was signed. The general advice of Daniel Gibbons to the colored people was to "be civil to all, and answer no questions of strangers who seemed eager to get information."

Thomas frequently procured places for them to work in the neighborhood. Although widely known as an anti-slavery man his premises were never searched by slave-hunters. Even the notorious William Baer, who hunted up and reported fugitives in the neighborhood, never approached the premises of Thomas Whitson. After the Christiana riot, when "special constables," furnished with warrants and piloted by pro-slavery men of that section, were scouting the country and ransacking the houses of abolitionists and negroes, his house was not molested. On hearing that a party of these deputized officials were carrying off a colored man who had worked for him, he pursued and overtook them, and asked for the man's release. They refused to grant it. One of them on being told who he was advanced toward him with a volley of Billingsgate, and flourishing a revolver asked if he were not one of the abolitionists of that neighborhood.

"I am," said Thomas, "and I am not afraid of thy shooting me. So thee may as well put thy pistol down."

The officer continued his invective, and turning to another, said: "Shall I shoot him?"

"No," was the immediate response, "let the old Quaker go;" and they left him, convinced that he was not a man to be frightened by bluster or to renounce a principle in the face of an enemy. He went next

morning to a neighbor who had seen the colored man at the hour the riot was going on, several miles distant from the scene of the tragedy, and in company with him went to where the officers had the man under guard, proved that he had no connection with the riot and obtained his release.

JACOB BUSHONG.

(Born Seventh mo. 7th, 1813.-Died Fifth mo. 28th, 1880.)

Jacob Bushong, of Bart, Lancaster county, a quiet but devoted laborer in the cause of freedom, relates the case of one Hamilton Moore who settled in his neighborhood. He was peaceable and respected, and to all appearances a white man. Not a tinge of African blood was discernible in his complexion, nor had any one the least suspicion that there was any. He married a white woman and became the father of three children. After the lapse of several years a number of men came to his dwelling and claimed him as a runaway slave; the leader of this gang being Hamilton Moore's father.

Although that was a pro-slavery community, the man's purely Anglo-Saxon appearance and good character had so won the esteem of his neighbors that they would not submit to what they termed an outrage upon him, but arose en masse and rescued him from his captors. He was then taken to the house of Henry Bushong, Jacob's father, in Adams county, who assisted him to a place of greater security.

About the year 1831, a person calling himself William Wallace, but whose slave name was "Snow," came to Wm. Kirk's in West Lampeter township, Lancaster county. Here he worked for some time, then went to Joshua Gilbert's in Bart township, and afterwards was employed by Henry Bushong, who had now removed to Bart township, and whose place became one of the Underground Railroad stations. After remaining there two years, his wife and child were brought to him from one of the Carolinas. He then took a tenant house on the place, in which he and his family resided two years

longer. While there another child

them.

was born to

In the summer of 1835 while he and Jacob Bushong were at work in the barn they observed four men in a two-horse wagon drive into the lane, accompanied by two men on horse-back. Jacob thought them a "suspicious looking crowd," and told Wallace to keep out of sight while he went out to meet them. They inquired if Mr. Wallace lived there. Jacob replied in the negative, satisfying his conscience by means of the fact that William lived at the tenement house, but worked for him. Pointing towards Wallace's house they asked if his family lived there; to which he made no reply. Leaving their horses in charge of two of the men, they went to the house, tied his wife, brought her and the oldest child to the wagon, loaded them in, took them to the Lancaster county jail, and lodged them there. The youngest child being born on free soil was left with a colored woman who happened to be in the house at the time. From there they went to John Urick's, a colored man, whose wife had escaped from slavery with Wallace's wife. They bound her, took her to jail also, and had the two women placed in the same cell while they started out on another hunt.

The startling news soon spread throughout the country, and was immediately carried to that foremost friend of the slave, Daniel Gibbons. Very early next morning the two women came to his house. The family would not have been more surprised had an apparition come suddenly into their midst. When asked how they came, one of them said, I broke jail." "How did you do it?"