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A Reminiscence of the Slavery Era.
Editor of the Traveller.
The recent death of Don Piatt calls to remembrance a scene of former days connected with the Piatt family, who then resided near Covington, Ky. In the fall of 1853 three of their slaves ran away. The first place where they reported was at the house of Levi Coffin, an agent of the underground railroad in Cincinnati, and who is the author of a “History of the Underground Railroad.” He and James Brisbane, a former slave-holder, but then a friend of the slaves, put them on a train on the old Mad River & Lake Erie Railroad, and paid their fare to Sandusky City. The Piatt family had a relative residing near Bellefontaine, Ohio, to whom they telegraphed to watch the trains, and if they discovered them to arrest the fugitives. This man discovered them and took them off the train at Bellefontaine.
...When I was about 17 years old, eleven slaves came along at one time some of them women. We put them into two lightly covered wagons, and I drove one of the teams. It was not practicable to stop at Plymouth station, so we had to drive to the next sixty miles from home, took the day time for the last thirty miles. Keeping the darkies well covered with hay in the wagon body. Did not reach home until the fourth day, and you can well imagine that our folks here were pretty well frightened about us. I suppose that nearly one hundred slaves passed the Mendon station of the Underground R.R. and I never heard of but one being captured. That was near McComb, McDonough Co. Ills....
FREE NEGRO FOR 46 YEARS.
Last survivor of the 1848 'Insurrection' Tells of Attempt to Escape.
There is living in Lexington, Ky., an old negro, Harry Slaughter, who is the last survivor of the negro "insurrection" of 1848. He was born on March 13, 1818, and grew to be a man of remarkable physique. He was 6 feet 1 inches tall, weighed 214 pounds, and was considered the best man physically in Fayette county when he was in his prime, says the New York Sun.
In 1849 he was owned by Miss Sidney Edmiston, who had at that time one of the most costly residences in Lexington. She had a fondness for male servants of gigantic proportions, and on account of his size he was made a dining-room man. Although well treated, he longed for freedom. This is the story he told one day of his attempts to obtain it. He is now in his 80th year: