- sation amongst all classes, and when it was understood
that William Craft and his beautiful quadroon wife were the intended victims, the excitement increased fearfully. These two persons had escaped from Macon, in the State of Georgia, a year and a half before. The man was of unmixed negro, the woman, nearly white. Their mode of escape was novel. The wife, attired as a gentleman, attended by her husband as a slave, took the train for the North, and arrived in Philadelphia, after a journey of two days; part of which was made on steamboats. The writer was in the Quaker City at the time of their arrival, and was among the first to greet them. Many exciting incidents occurred during the passage to the land of freedom, which gave considerable notoriety to the particular case of the Crafts, and the slave-catchers were soon marked men.
After many fruitless attempts to have the fugitives arrested, Hughs and his companions returned to the South; while Craft and his wife fled to England.
Boston was not alone in her commotion; Daniel had been arrested at Buffalo, and taken before Henry K. Smith, a drunken commissioner, and remanded to his claimant; Hamlet was captured by the kidnappers in New York city, and Jerry was making his name famous by his arrest at Syracuse, in the same state.
The telegrams announcing these events filled the hearts of the blacks with sad emotions, and told the slave-holders that the law could be executed. News soon came from Ohio, Illinois, Indiana, and other states, of the arrest and rendition of persons claimed as slaves, many of whom were proven to be free-born. Boston was not permitted to remain long ere she again witnessed the reappearance of the negro-catcher.
