“We left Baltimore about eight o'clock in the evening; and not being aware of a stopping-place of any consequence between there and Philadelphia, and also knowing that if we were fortunate we should be in the latter place early the next morning, I thought I might indulge in a few minutes' sleep in the car; but I … went to sleep at the wrong time, and took too long a nap. So, when the train reached Havre de Grace, all … passengers had to get out of the carriages and into a ferry-boat, to be ferried across the Susquehanna River, and take the train on the opposite side. The road was constructed so as to be raised or lowered to suit the tide. So they rolled the luggage-vans on to the boat, and off on the other side; and as I was in one of the apartments adjoining a baggage-car, they considered it unnecessary to awaken me, and tumbled me over with the luggage. But when my master was asked to leave his seat, he found it very dark, and cold, and raining. He missed me for the first time on the journey. On all previous occasions, as soon as the train stopped, I was at hand to assist him…. my absence filled him with terror and confusion …. So he asked the conductor if he had seen anything of his slave. The man being somewhat of an abolitionist … said, "No, sir; I haven't seen anything of him for some time: I have no doubt he has run away, and is in Philadelphia, free, long before now." My master knew that there was nothing in this; so he asked the conductor if he would please to see if he could find me. The man indignantly replied, "I am no slave-hunter; and as far as I am concerned everybody must look after their own niggers." He went off and left the confused invalid to fancy whatever he felt inclined. My master at first thought I must have been kidnapped into slavery by someone, or left, or perhaps killed on the train. He also thought of stopping to see if he could hear anything of me, but he soon remembered that he had no money. That night all the money we had was consigned to my own pocket.... However, hoping to meet me some day in a land of liberty, and as he had the tickets, he thought it best upon the whole to enter the boat and come off to Philadelphia, and endeavour to make his way alone in this cold and hollow world as best he could.”
Fortunately, Ellen decided to continue her journey. She boarded the ferry, and then the train in Perryville. Once the train steamed out of the station she found out William had also boarded. After arriving in Philadelphia, they moved on to Boston, but within a few years had to flee to England to advert slave catchers.[1]
A year after the Crafts passed through another famous freedom seeker crossed the Susquehanna. Unlike Douglass and the Crafts, he does not describe his crossing at the Susquehanna. He had a good reason for not doing so. His story is next in this series.
[1] William Craft, Running a Thousand Miles for Freedom: Or the Escape of William and Ellen Craft from Slavery [London: William Tweedie, 1860], 74-77.