THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT
Copyright (c) 1994, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: SUNDAY, June 5, 1994 TAG: 9406020499
SECTION: COMMENTARY PAGE: C3 EDITION: FINAL
SOURCE: GEORGE TUCKER
DATELINE: 940605 LENGTH: Medium
The Underground Railroad was neither underground nor a railroad. It was so named because of the swift and secret way its operators helped enslaved African-Americans to gain their freedom.
{REST} Reliable estimates show that the Southern as well as Northern abolitionists assisted about 50,000 black men, women and children to escape between 1830 and 1850. Norfolk's role in what was then strictly illegal traffic is spelled out in an 800-page book compiled and published in 1871 by William Still, a black former abolitionist.
By then, slavery had been abolished. But Still felt that a detailed record of the Underground Railroad as he had known it should be available as a permanent record for those intrepid escapees who had faced every deterrent - and even possible death - to gain their freedom.
Still's book has an unwieldly title: ``The Underground Railroad: A Record of Facts, Authentic Narratives, Letters, etc., Narrating the Hardships, Hair-Breadth Escapes and Death Struggles of the Slaves in Their Efforts for Freedom.'' It lists more than 100 cases involving Norfolk-area slaves whose bids for freedom to ``follow the Northern Star'' began at local docksides.
Most area escapees were befriended by ship captains with strong anti-slavery sympathies. One of the most celebrated was a Captain Fountain whose schooner was engaged in coastwise traffic between Philadelphia and South Atlantic ports. A cool operator, Fountain had secretly outfitted his vessel with several secret hiding places. Before the episode described below, he had successfully transported numerous fugitives from both Norfolk and Richmond northward.
In November 1855, before taking on a cargo of wheat in Norfolk, he had smuggled 21 slaves aboard his vessel under the cover of darkness and had hidden them in various places in the hold. A few days later, before he was about to sail for Philadelphia, someone ratted to Norfolk Mayor Ezra T. Summers. Assembling a posse of officers armed with axes and long spears, Summers headed for the dockside.
Not deterred by the onslaught, Fountain told the mayor to ``go ahead and search,'' whereupon Summers ordered his underlings to ``spear the wheat thoroughly.'' When these efforts ``brought neither blood nor groans,'' Summers then barked, ``Take the axes and go to work.'' Even though the latter action resulted in considerable damage to the schooner's deck, the searching party failed to discover any of the hiding places.
Finally, when Fountain realized that Summers and his men ``were wholly ignorant with regard to boat searching'' he informed the mayor that he had ``stood still long enough.'' He then added, ``Now, if you want to search, give me the ax, and then point to the spot you want opened and I will open it for you very quick.''
In describing what happened, Still wrote of Fountain: ``While uttering these words he presented, as he was capable of doing, an indigent and defiant countenance, and intimated that it mattered not where or when a man died provided he was in the right, and as though he wished to give particularly strong emphasis to what he was saying, he raised the axe and brought it down edge foremost on the deck with startling effect, at the same time causing splinters to fly from the boards. The mayor and his posse seemed, if not dreadfully frightened, completely confounded, and by the time Captain F. had again brought down the axe with increased power, demanding where they would have him open, they looked as though it was time for then to retire, and in a few minutes after they actually gave up the search and left the boat without finding a soul.''
After that, according to Still, ``the captain steered direct for the City of Brotherly Love. The wind and heaven favoring the good cause, he arrived safely in due time, and delivered his precious freight in the vicinity of Philadelphia within the reach of the Vigilance Committee.'' by CNB