Station Master on the Underground Railroad: The Life and Letters of Thomas Garrett [Stationmaster]

ix, [1], 181 pp. Garrett's parents were members of the Society of Friends (Quakers), and he remained a member throughout his life. According to family lore, his antislavery activity began in 1813 when one of the family servants was kidnapped to be sold into slavery. Thomas pursued the kidnappers to Philadelphia and rescued the victim. The incident added to his growing concern for the slaves, which had been fostered by the antislavery sentiment of his family and other Quakers. His work as an abolitionist and Underground Railroad organizer and operator would result in his national reputation. While most northern Quakers were moderate in their antislavery views, emphasizing primarily their own rejection of slavery, Garrett went much further, becoming a follower of Boston abolitionist William Lloyd Garrison, who offended some Quakers with his strong language and confrontational style. Like Garrison, Garrett advocated nonviolent resistance to slavery. Working with abolitionists in the Philadelphia area, Garrett organized a network of sympathizers who provided funds, transportation, and sometimes hospitality to slaves who had fled from their masters. During his lengthy involvement with the Underground Railroad, he kept records of 2,700 slaves he had helped escape. His work, along with that of Levi Coffin in Cincinnati, contributed to the perception that a well-organized escape route for slaves extended throughout the nation. Even though Delaware was a slave state, except for several newspaper attacks Garrett experienced remarkably little opposition to his Underground Railroad activity, especially in the years just prior to the Civil War. In 1856 Garrett wrote a friend: "There is about as much anti-slavery feeling here as in Boston, and quite as freely expressed." There were a few exceptions, however. On one occasion several southerners tried to throw Garrett off a train on which he was trying to prevent a black woman from being taken into slavery. Although a $10,000 reward was offered by the Maryland legislature for his arrest for "slave stealing," the act was largely symbolic. More serious was the legal suit brought against him and his associate, John Hunn, in 1848 for damages they caused in assisting several slaves to escape. One of the two judges hearing the case was Roger B. Taney, who as chief justice of the U.S. Supreme Court would later author the Dred Scott decision. The court ruled against both the abolitionists and assessed damages of $5,400 against Garrett. Later accounts suggesting that Garrett was impoverished by this decision were apparently exaggerated. After a compromise was arranged, Garrett settled by paying $1,500. Although Garrett as a pacifist never personally endorsed enticing slaves to abscond or entered other southern states to assist fugitives, he provided funds and assistance for such activities to black abolitionist Harriet Tubman. He also worked closely with black abolitionist William Still and the Philadelphia Vigilance Committee. The Civil War tested his commitment to nonviolence, however. After suggesting that a fugitive slave join the Union army, he asked, "Am I naughty, being a professed non-resistant, to advise this poor fellow to serve Father Abraham?" Garrett lived to see the outlawing of chattel slavery and continued to work for the end of racial discrimination. He also supported the movements for woman suffrage and temperance. Upon ratification of the Fifteenth Amendment in 1870 granting the vote to black males, blacks in Wilmington carried Garrett through the streets in an open carriage with a banner proclaiming, "Our Moses." At word of Garrett's death in Wilmington, William Lloyd Garrison commented, "His rightful place is conspicuously among the benefactors, saviors, martyrs of the human race." - American National Biography